A powerful political backlash to the conversion of a roadway to a park on the city’s western seashore led to Tuesday’s downfall of the supervisor representing the neighborhood — a move Asian American leaders say signals the rising political power of a community long ignored on transportation issues.
In the special election, early returns had 64.65% of District 4 voters favoring the ouster of Supervisor Joel Engardio.
The result, while not final, has been widely anticipated by political experts and reflected in recent polling. With only mail-in ballots counted just after polls closed, 30.77% of the district’s 50,273 voters had cast ballots, making it highly unlikely Engardio could eke out a win with same-day votes.
Engardio acknowledged he was out of a job after learning of the flood of mail-in votes in favor of his recall. “My time as a supervisor is going to be shorter than expected,” he told a crowd at a gathering of supporters. But he struck a defiant tone: “We are on the right side of history when it comes to Sunset Dunes,” a reference to the park he helped create — at the expense of his political career.
Engardio is to leave office 10 days after the result is certified and approved in a public meeting, a process that could take up to a month. Mayor Daniel Lurie must then appoint a temporary successor to serve until voters elect a new supervisor in November 2026. He has not hinted whom he might consider.
“This is not a good time to be an incumbent,” said longtime political strategist David Ho, noting that Engardio’s ouster is just the most recent example of how San Francisco voters can turn against sitting politicians, following the defeat of incumbent Mayor London Breed last fall.
The recall, Ho said, signaled that politicians can lose their seats if they ignore constituent concerns, even over a single issue. Engardio supported a ballot measure last fall that closed car traffic on the Great Highway, a coastal artery that connected the Outer Sunset neighborhood, the heart of District 4, to the Richmond District across Golden Gate Park.
A majority in his district voted against the measure, reflecting fears that it would worsen traffic in the surrounding neighborhood, even though it passed citywide. Engardio never backed down. He pointed out that coastal erosion was already expected to lead to closure of the southern segment, so he argued that the road would serve the public better as a tourist and recreational destination linking the park with the ocean. Last spring, the closed roadway officially reopened as an oceanfront park called Sunset Dunes.
But what began as a disagreement over a beachside road quickly spiraled into accusations of betrayal that defined the theme of the recall effort. Many of his most vocal critics were his strongest supporters when he won office in 2022.
“We worked hard to help him get elected, but when we made our one major request, he turned a deaf ear,” said Jacky Zhen, a former supporter backing the effort to unseat the supervisor.
While Engardio argued that putting the fate of the road to citywide vote represented a democratic approach, some of his constituents were not convinced, saying they were sidelined — first by not being consulted before the measure went on the ballot, then by watching their opposition overwhelmed by support from elsewhere in the city.
For many Asian American voters, who make up about half the district’s population, the frustration tapped into a longstanding feeling of being ignored, rooted in their failure decades ago to retrofit the damaged Central Freeway, which connected the west-side neighborhoods to downtown. It was their first major political effort but by no means their last.
“This recall is not just about Joel Engardio, it’s about whether Asian Americans are respected by city leaders,” Forrest Liu, an Asian American community activist, said in a widely shared video message.
Local politicians are taking note. Although Engardio secured a high-profile endorsement from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, local Democratic Party leaders didn’t unite behind him even though most members aligned with him politically.
Asian American organizers played a significant role in all the recalls of elected officials in recent memory. In 2022, voters ejected three school board members and District Attorney Chesa Boudin.
This time, however, major donors poured in support for the supervisor. Engardio’s campaign raised at least $822,301, with more than half of that contributed by three tech billionaires: Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman and Twilio co-founder John Wolthuis.
The recall campaign raised roughly a third of that total, with small-dollar donors contributing a large portion. Yet the campaign gathered enough signatures to place the recall on the ballot.
“This should be a cautionary tale,” said Albert Chow, a recall proponent who has expressed interest in succeeding Engardio.
Many of the names mentioned as Engardio’s possible interim successors are Chinese American. But Lurie’s choice could be complicated by an even bigger political battle, over the kind of real estate that will be built in coming decades. His citywide rezoning plan, which would allow taller residential buildings from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Richmond and Sunset districts, has split neighborhood activists, who argue over whether permitting higher housing density will primarily benefit residents or developers. Engardio has been a key supporter of the plan on the Board of Supervisors, where the proposal will eventually be heard, after passing through the Land Use and Transportation Committee.
“He can’t pick someone who’s just going to say, ‘Whatever you vote, I’ll vote.’” Chow said.
Chow said he hopes voters will modify the full-time park and reopen the Great Highway to cars on weekdays — a compromise that had been in place for two years before its permanent closure. Yet, before that, “we all deserve a town hall,” he said.
The San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, which manages Sunset Dunes, has begun gathering community feedback to help shape its future. Chow said the move excluded the option of making it a part-time park.
With Engardio soon to be out of office, Chow sees an opportunity to bring that weekend-only park option back in conversation with neighbors on all sides of the debate.
“We’ve got to fix the damage,” Chow said. “Politicians may come and go, but we who live here still live here.”
Brian Quan, a Chinese American community leader who backed the supervisor, echoed the need for the community to have more civic engagement and open dialogue moving forward.
“Sometimes we’re a little too passive in letting public officials know what our needs are,” he said, adding that the recall election became a temperature check for district concerns. The Chinese community is split on major issues, he said, so it’s important to open spaces for conversation about future priorities, “rather than seeing things change and not having a sense that they have any control over that.”
The pro- and anti-recall campaigns engaged in heated online discussions in recent months. Albert Lam, who volunteered to help Engardio retain his seat, said he was the victim of online trolling by pro-recall advocates. Despite the rancor, he said, he saw an opportunity for meaningful political dialogue in the aftermath. As a Chinese speaker, Lam is plugged into the cultural undercurrent that led to a revolt against Engardio, the district’s first non-Asian American supervisor in over 20 years.
“I am bilingual,” Lam said, “and I have very different views from probably most people in Sunset. But I am willing to talk to others and see things from their perspective.”
UPDATE 9/17/24: New partial results from the Department of Elections show results virtually unchanged from Election Day: With the addition of 1,017 day-of ballots counted, for a cumulative turnout of 32.79%, the Yes votes remained essentially the same: 64.64%.