After four months of signature gathering, the campaign to recall San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio over his role in a controversial November ballot measure that closed the Great Highway to cars has reached a critical milestone, according to campaign sources.
Campaign insiders told The Standard they have collected approximately 14,000 voter signatures for their recall effort — well above the 9,911 valid signatures needed, or 20% of registered voters in District 4, to trigger a recall election. Sources said they had also run a verification process that validated a necessary number of signatures.
Campaign officials declined to comment. However, recall activists will gather in front of City Hall for a rally on Thursday afternoon before they submit their petitions, according to multiple sources. Three Chinese American community leaders, Albert Chow, Mel Lee, and Selena Chu, confirmed that they were invited to speak at the rally.
The high-profile recall effort was launched late last year shortly after voters approved Proposition K, a divisive ballot measure to close the Great Highway to cars and convert the two miles of road into a park. Engardio, whose district includes the Sunset, where the coastal drive is located, championed the proposition but subsequently became a target for recall over concerns with increased traffic congestion in the neighborhood and longer commute times for drivers.
“It’s too soon to know if the recall has qualified for the ballot,” Engardio’s anti-recall campaign said in a statement. “If the recall qualifies for a special election, we’re confident that a majority of Sunset voters will oppose it.”
The Great Highway was closed to cars in March and officially became the Sunset Dunes park a month later, welcoming more than 13,000 visitors on its opening day. Engardio’s campaign emphasized the recall won’t reopen the Great Highway to cars, and that the effort to remove him from office “sets a bad precedent for recalling officials over a single policy disagreement.” A lawsuit to overturn the ballot measure is pending in court.
Prop. K passed with more than 55% of the vote. Supporters of the measure, which included urbanists and environmental groups, saw the effort as a way to repurpose the highway amid coastal erosion concerns. But the initiative deeply divided the city. While the vast majority of votes in favor came from eastside neighborhoods far from the park, the westside largely voted against the measure.
Many residents in the Sunset and Richmond districts, who are most affected by the highway’s closure, said the decision lacked adequate community input and exacerbated traffic concerns. Some political groups, such as the Chinese American Democratic Club, which was an outspoken opponent of Prop. K, have endorsed the recall.
The recall campaign started gathering signatures in January. The deadline to submit signatures is Thursday. The Department of Elections’ verification process could take up to 60 days. If the signature count is validated, a special recall election would be scheduled within 120 days.
“There’s been a lot of curiosity about whether the campaign could pull it off,” said Mary Jung, a Democratic political strategist who led the successful 2022 recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin. “It’s a tough process, and even tougher when it’s limited to a single district.”
If the recall does qualify for the ballot, Engardio has money on hand to fight it. His campaign, backed by tech titans such as Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, has so far raised more than $400,000. The recall campaign, officially known as “Our Neighborhood, Our Future: Supporting the Recall of Supervisor Engardio,” has, in contrast, raised about $144,000. The campaign also has $54,000 in debt.
Engardio also has politically powerful allies who are helping him fight the recall, including Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, San Francisco YIMBY, and state Sen. Scott Wiener.
“The recall is becoming a NIMBY effort to stop the positive progress at City Hall,” Wiener said in a recent social media post. “If this recall succeeds, that’s exactly what will happen.”