For months, the writing was on the wall: A cadre of west side San Franciscans wanted to recall District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio for supporting Proposition K, which would begin the process to turn a large stretch of the Great Highway into a permanent park. The measure passed this November.
On Tuesday, they followed through and filed the official paperwork to begin a recall attempt.
The effort is already looking like it could be an uphill battle. Local political experts and power brokers that the San Francisco Public Press spoke with ahead of the filing acknowledged that it constitutes a meaningful threat to Engardio amid persistent anti-incumbent sentiment in the city. But wealthy donors are unlikely to support his ouster and will probably back the supervisor financially should the recall question go to voters in a special election.
“Voters have a right to recall their elected leaders. I respectfully ask voters to consider the entirety of my work representing them, and not just this one issue,” Engardio wrote on his blog in response to the filing.
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The campaign to boot the supervisor is part of a trend that has taken hold in San Francisco in recent years, said Jason McDaniel, associate professor of political science at San Francisco State University. In 2022, voters recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin, as well as three members of the Board of Education. Engardio won his seat by ousting an incumbent. Only elected officials who could prove that they represented the community’s interests retained their seats, McDaniel said.
Fighting a recall is a uniquely difficult campaign challenge, McDaniel said — without any opponents in the race, it’s harder for Engardio to beat the criticism against him.
This recall attempt is a serious threat to Engardio, he said.
“He took a position that a lot of people in his district disagree with, and he was very clear about that position,” McDaniel said. “That principled stand might cost him his job.”
But David Latterman, a retired local political strategist, expressed skepticism.
“It’s just hard for me to take recalls for supervisors seriously,” Latterman said, “because every year some group of people is pissed off, and they say they’re going to recall the supes, and it never, ever happens.”
Latterman said Engardio could lose re-election if a “good popular candidate” ran against him, noting that he won his seat by a very thin margin.
“But a recall isn’t going to do it,” he added.
If the recall goes to voters and fails, it could backfire.
“It makes the supervisor look stronger. It galvanizes his supporters,” Latterman said.
Political strategist David Ho pointed out that the recall effort had gathered momentum in the Chinese-American community, a key demographic that has helped recalls succeed in San Francisco and the East Bay. But the bigger factor in this effort’s viability, he said, is how much money is behind it.
“The difference between this recall threat and past ones is that you don’t have a billionaire backing it. Joel hasn’t pissed off the billionaire class,” Ho said. “Historically, only the billionaire class can fund a recall.”
In fact, Latterman said, wealthy stakeholders would back Engardio against a recall.
“There will be a huge amount of defense of him by all the YIMBYs, the downtown folks,” Latterman said, referring to the Yes-In-My-Backyard political movement, which advocates real estate development. “They would pour in for Joel and end up making him stronger for it.”
Some political power brokers and potential donors said they opposed a recall.
Mary Jung, the former head of the local Democratic Party who co-led the 2022 Boudin recall effort, said she would not support Engardio’s recall, calling him a “good supervisor.”
While she criticized Engardio for pushing for Proposition K’s passage without first getting adequate input from his constituents, Jung said recalls of supervisors should not be based on a single issue.
Billionaire Chris Larsen, who has spent millions on security camera networks and local campaigns, said Engardio has his “wholehearted support.”
“I would certainly oppose the recall against Supervisor Engardio. I believe recalls should be a tool utilized when there is corruption or illegal activity, not simply because one disagrees with an individual’s policies,” Larsen wrote in an email.
TogetherSF, one of the highest-spending political groups of the November election, declined to comment on whether they would financially support or oppose Engardio’s recall.
West side resident Vin Budhai, who helped lead the campaign against Proposition K and is leading the recall effort, said his team “should have enough support to get through the signature portion from the district alone, without relying on big-money donors.” But he acknowledged that, if the recall moved forward, costs could rise in later stages of the process.
Josephine Zhao, president of the Chinese American Democratic Club and a community organizer who helped coordinate various No-on-K rallies in recent months, said her group has yet to take a stance on the recall.
But after Engardio’s support for Proposition K, Outer Sunset resident Ed Ho, who once campaigned for him, has turned his back on the supervisor. Even if Engardio tries to now open a dialogue with the community to ease tensions, “it doesn’t matter, this relationship is broken,” he said.
Budhai said the campaign must gather at least 9,900 signatures from District 4 voters in order to put a recall measure on the ballot in a local election.
Some opponents of Proposition K also intend to oppose the city’s application for a permit from the California Coastal Commission to close the Great Highway to vehicle traffic — an early step toward converting the road into a permanent park.
“The issue is not going away,” McDaniel said. “It’s not like the park is there now and the issue is over.”
