Mission Local is holding intro interviews with incoming and incumbent supervisors, including Shamann Walton, Chyanne Chen, Jackie Fielder, Joel Engardio, Danny Sauter, and Stephen Sherill. You can read those interviews as they are published here.
Mission Local also held exit interviews with elected officials leaving office after the Nov. 5, 2024 election: London Breed, Aaron Peskin, Hillary Ronen, Ahsha Safaí and Dean Preston.
Mission Local sat down with District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio, who oversees the Sunset District: That’s everything west of 19th Avenue between Golden Gate Park and Sloat Boulevard.
Engardio came into office in 2022 after a fortuitous redistricting added his block, and surrounding ones, into District 4; he had previously run unsuccessfully for District 7 supervisor in 2016 and 2020.
Engardio, a journalist-turned-politician who is two years into his first term, is now one of the board’s more experienced members. In an hour-long conversation, Engardio spoke to his successes, such as changing zoning restrictions to include six-story corner lots on the Westside and creating vibrant night markets in the Sunset, as well as challenges — namely, the looming threat of a recall.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Mission Local: What surprised you, coming into this role?
Joel Engardio: I started out as a journalist in my career in San Francisco and then became a politician. [Engardio worked as a reporter for SF Weekly from 1998 to 2003, and as a columnist for SF Examiner from 2013 to 2019.] In both cases, when you’re a journalist and, certainly, when you’re a candidate for office, you’re always talking about holding the city accountable or about what doesn’t work at City Hall. As a journalist, you shine a light on it and you try to show what’s wrong, maybe offer some solutions. As a candidate, you’re always running against City Hall, saying, “I should be there, because it’s not working and I can make it work.” But once you get here into City Hall, you do see where things aren’t working, but you also see where, in this vast bureaucracy, there are all these little “islands of oasis” where things are working. It does give you hope, because you realize, wow, there’s really smart, competent, talented people doing the best they can trying to fix things.
ML: Do you have any examples of these ‘islands of oasis’?
JE: Well, I think our Department of Emergency Management is run really well. Carmen Chu, our city administrator, is stellar. I don’t want to get too specific, but there’s a lot of bright spots in the bureaucracy that we can encourage and foster and emulate.
ML: You’re two years into your term now. Are you where you expected to be? In terms of what you’re working on, and what you’re dealing with at this stage.
JE: My priorities in running for office were about addressing the needs that I kept hearing from residents: Public safety, education, and small business. In the first two years, we really covered a lot of that: The successful ballot measure to bring algebra back to eighth grade [the measure, Prop. G in March 2024, was a non-binding proposition; SFUSD had already instituted the change] and with public safety, we were able to bring in some retired police officers to walk the beat to free up the other officers to do other things, then creating the night markets has been great because they show that you can do a lot of things regarding public safety without having to hire a police officer. When we had 20,000 people on Irving Street for two night markets this past fall, there were zero reported incidents, because it activated the street and brought people out into the community for a joyous event. They make people feel safe and make people want to be in the community in a public setting. And it just brought people out of their homes and kind of opened up a lot of possibilities for more types of community building. I think that’s key. The more community building we can do, the safer communities can feel.
ML: How did the night markets come about? Did you start that?
JE: My husband was born and raised in Taipei in Taiwan, and we go back every year to visit his family. Taipei has amazing night markets all over the city, multiple night markets and, for the last 10 years that I’ve been going there, we’ve been eating our way through the night market every year. I always thought to myself: Why can’t we have this in San Francisco?
So during that month of December [in 2022], we went back to Taiwan and I took photos of the night markets and I put together this social media thread of photos with a little narrative about what this is, what it looks like in Taipei. It just posed a question: Wouldn’t it be great if we could have this? The response was overwhelming and went viral. Everyone said, “Yes, yes, yes, please!” So we worked on creating the prototype. We had the first ever Sunset night market in my first year that September, and we didn’t know what to expect. We planned for three blocks on Irving Street and 10,000 people showed up and we ran out of food. We didn’t have enough space. I mean, it was a good problem to have.
That started the night market fever that we have in San Francisco, because it showed what was possible, and now, we have night markets in neighborhoods all over the city. People were literally hungry, not just for the food, they were hungry for that experience, that community-building experience that had been lacking, certainly because of the pandemic, but also just the “doom loop” narrative that was really consuming the city. We showed that we can get people out of their houses, be out on the street, have a fun, safe event, and we just took off from there. When we brought the night markets back, we had 20,000 people show up. We doubled, and then, of course, we expanded from three blocks to seven blocks. So it’s exciting to see. I think from here on out, there’s always going to be a night market now in the city. Because how do you go back?
ML: What are your priorities for the next two years?
JE: I think it’s really important to focus on the nonprofits in the Sunset that are doing amazing work to help with youth, families and seniors. Because the Sunset, I don’t think it gets a lot of attention. There’s a lot of needy people who live in the Sunset. You might see a street with rows of single family homes and assume that each house has a small family living in it, but there can be many houses on the street that could have eight, nine, 10 people living in it, and multiple generations. People that have needs, as youths or families or seniors, and we’ve got nonprofits in the Sunset that are working to serve that population. They’re strapped for resources and doing the best they can and they’re doing amazing work. I want to make sure that we’re lifting up that work and supporting it in the way that it needs to be done.
Someone could say that there are other parts of the city that have extreme needs, that maybe we don’t see as much in the Sunset, but there should be parity, in the sense that whatever the need is in the Sunset, it needs to be addressed.
ML: There has been some community pushback in your district regarding an affordable senior housing project on Great Highway. What do you think about that?
JE: This project near the Great Highway is 100 percent affordable housing for low-income seniors and formerly homeless seniors. There’s no more vulnerable population than that, so we really need to step up and provide the housing that is so desperately needed. Self-Help for the Elderly is a widely respected nonprofit that serves seniors and primarily AAPI [Asian-American and Pacific Islander] seniors or seniors who are monolingual or English as a second language. They are going to be the provider at this project and with the services for all the residents. And so, I don’t understand why anyone would be opposed to such a stellar organization providing housing and services for low-income seniors and 100 percent affordable housing. Like, if you’re opposed to that, I mean, then what would you ever be in favor of?
I understand that there’s issues about the building height, but the developers have been trying to take community feedback, and they’ve actually lowered the height on one-third of the building, and then to do so, the other two-thirds of the building had to go up just by one story. So they’re trying to address some of the residents’ concerns about building heights, but at the end of the day, what’s one extra story going to do, versus housing all of these vulnerable seniors?
ML: Are there other sites in the housing pipeline in the Sunset, or other areas where you see potential for more housing or increased density?
JE: I’ve already legislated with the Board of Supervisors to allow for up to six stories on corner lots throughout the Westside.
For those who are familiar with the Sunset, there’s a really popular market called Gus’s Market. It’s in the Outer Sunset, on Noriega and 44th, and it’s a newer building with housing on top of the market. Right next door to it are single-family homes, and I don’t hear anyone complaining about that housing, because of the amenity of that grocery.
The total height there is four stories. And our legislation says, all right, let’s go to six. That’s pretty reasonable, right? And so, six stories, or five stories of housing above some amenity on the ground floor — could be a grocery, a cafe, it could be a senior center, daycare, child daycare, something that the whole neighborhood benefits from — anchors the neighborhood.
And then that building has an elevator. So it’s a place for seniors who may be in a single-family home. As you get older, maybe you don’t want to maintain this large house, or it’s too many stairs to climb or whatnot. So we want to create options for people to stay in their neighborhood, and also a place for young families. I mean, a lot of longtime residents, their kids are born and raised here in San Francisco, they go off to college, and then they can’t come back, right? They can’t afford to find a house to stay in. So we want to create that type of housing on the Westside. And I think six stories on the corners is pretty reasonable because we have to do something. Doing nothing is not an option.
ML: What do you think about the city’s proposed upzoning plan?
JE: We have to build more housing in San Francisco. There’s no way around that, in that the state is mandating it. If we keep resisting and we keep saying no to everything, then the state will just come in and mandate it, and we won’t have a say at all. So why not let us do six stories on the corners, and maybe six to eight stories on the actual transit corridors where the trains run? That’s reasonable. It’s not crazy tall, and it shows that we’re doing what we need to do so the state doesn’t come in and just force it on us.
I think, of course, there’s always going to be people who will be opposed to any change and want to say no to everything, but that’s just not an option, because saying no will just open us up to the state steamrolling us to do whatever the state says.
We’re not building housing to punish people. We’re building housing to benefit existing residents. Because if you’ve lived in San Francisco for a long time, you might have great housing, but your needs and situations change as time goes on, as we get older. So, like, you personally might need another housing option at a certain age. Or you might want to actually see your grandkids on a regular basis and want your adult children and adult grandchildren to be able to stay in the city. So it’s in our interest to build this housing. This housing is really for us. I think when people come to that realization, they’re more open to more housing.
ML: How do you balance pushing through on some of these big projects, which often are contentious, and listening to your constituents’ and balancing different concerns?
JE: I mean, it’s not easy. Sometimes, in these elected positions, we have to represent the residents of the district, but we have to think of the city as a whole. We can’t do just one or just the other, and sometimes we are faced with really tough decisions. And sometimes you have to think about the future. You have to think about what we do today. What is it going to look like 10 years, 20 and 50 years from now? And are we serving the city beyond the moment that we’re in?
You know, I often think about people who were in my position 50 or 60 years ago, when they were planning and building BART. What if, 60 years ago, there was the courage to put BART down Geary and down 19th Avenue and into Marin? There was no political courage to do it and think 60 years later how much we would be benefiting from that, right? All those people who made those decisions all that time ago are not around anymore, but we’re here and we would really be grateful for that political courage. So my hope is that we can do some things today that that our children’s children and our grandchildren’s grandchildren will appreciate.
ML: The example that comes to mind is Proposition K. You know, this is a big project that would have a longstanding impact on the future of the city and make Ocean Beach or Great Highway more of a destination, rather than a highway. But a lot of people aren’t on board with that, and change is difficult. Your constituents overwhelmingly voted against it. Can you win their support back?
JE: On that issue, we should back up a bit, and think about this as a Mother Nature issue, because a section of the Great Highway is literally falling into the ocean because of extreme coastal erosion. So the utility of the Great Highway has been lost because we cannot use it anymore as that direct connection to Daly City. That was the most convenient part of it. That’s going away, regardless of Prop. K. Because of that decision to close the southern part of the Great Highway due to Mother Nature, that opened up the question: Then what to do with the middle section of the Great Highway? And I say middle section, because we always have to remember there’s a northern section that is staying the same. The section that actually connects the Richmond and Sunset districts is staying open to cars 24/7. That’s not touched by Prop. K.
Could it be better having lost its greatest utility? Could it be better as a park? Could it be better for the environment? Could it be actually a boon to the local economy? Those are the questions that we’ve asked people to think about, and that’s what people voted on in November. It passed citywide and it didn’t pass in my district, and so, I’m humbled by those who did not support, and I understand that the biggest concern was traffic and traffic flow and how would people get where they need to go. And so my biggest commitment is to work on that traffic flow, to make sure that people do get where they need to go. I think once people can see the traffic going where it needs to go, maybe people will be more open to looking at the benefits of the park, because I believe the park will bring immense benefit in the near future and certainly the long term future.
ML: Is there anything you wish you had done differently about the process of how that came to be, and the ballot measure?
JE: Well, the issue about what to do with that middle section of Great Highway has been debated and discussed for at least five years. Hotly debated. It had already been on the ballot, right? In 2022, the Great Highway was on a citywide ballot, and folks put it on the ballot to try to try to reopen it to cars 24/7, and that failed. And so, we went back to the ballot to get more voter clarity.
People kept trying to kill the weekend compromise by appealing to the Coastal Commission and filing multiple appeals, and those all failed. So there has been this ongoing, antagonistic process of public discussion and debate and appeals and votes about what to do, and it was not going to resolve itself or go away, because a contingent of people wanted that to be a highway, no matter what, and a contingent of people wanted it to be a park. There were only two ways to solve the situation: By direct action at the ballot box, by all the voters deciding, or 11 members of the Board of Supervisors deciding the fate on our own. You could argue that, either way, people would be upset with the result.
And you know, going to the ballot box, I mean there’s nothing more open, transparent or democratic than every resident or every voter having an equal say, because having it at the ballot box meant that there could be at least five months of robust campaigning for and against, all kinds of public debate. This issue was hashed out to no end, and everyone got to weigh in on it. It wasn’t a blowout. It was 55-45. Each side had had a powerful argument to be made.
ML: So what’s next? What are the kind of immediate next steps for that project and Great Highway?
JE: Well, it passed at the ballot box. So now this section, this middle section of the Great Highway, is under the jurisdiction of Rec and Parks. So they’ll be deciding, you know, what to do with that by turning it into a park. I’m working with Mayor [Daniel] Lurie and SFMTA and other city departments to deal with the traffic mitigation issues. We’re all in agreement that we’re going to have these key traffic improvements in place before anything closes. We’re doing a lot to replace some stop signs with traffic lights, and reconfigure some intersections to make sure traffic can flow better at different pain points along the way, like at 41st and Lincoln, and where the Great Highway and Lincoln intersection is.
ML: Were you surprised about the threat of a recall election?
JE: We have a lot of recall fever now, in San Francisco and the Bay Area. I mentioned this to Joe Eskenazi in his article: I’m the last person to be saying we should not recall people, because I supported two recalls and I worked on the school board recall. [Engardio is referencing the 2022 recalls of then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin and three school board members.]
You know, one could say that for those who supported, say, the school board recall, there were probably a lot of positions and issues and actions that happened. You know, a long list to say that recall had validity. In my case, it’s one policy position. I don’t know if that raises to the level of a recall, but again, I’m not anyone to judge. People have a democratic right to pursue the recall, but I do hear from a lot of Sunset residents who voted no on K, who are telling me they do not support the recall because they feel that they like a lot of other things that I’ve done when it comes to education, public safety, the night markets, you know, very responsive constituent services. Fixing things from trash cans to park benches. So they like all that and they don’t agree on one issue, but they don’t think it should be recalled over one issue.
And of course, I’m up for reelection next year anyway.
ML: I was going to ask, will you run again?
JE: I definitely want to. I’ve done a lot of work, and there’s a lot more to do, and if the voters want to keep me, then I’m going to keep working hard. But, if I’m not recalled, people can just run against me next year, you know? So we’ll have a double dose of democracy in District 4.
ML: Now you’re one of the more experienced members of the board, relatively. What are your first impressions of the new makeup of the board?
JE: Two years ago, I was the newbie. I was the only new member. What was interesting is, as the only new member, me and my staff, we had to kind of just figure it all out on our own. It’s not like there was an orientation session for just a little old me, right? But this time around, I think there were five new supervisors. They had a full orientation: A whole day of training staff, and then another day of training the supervisors. And even on the day of our first meeting where you vote for president, on every desk, there was this little printout, a sheet of instructions on how to vote, “what’s the process?” I was like: “Wow, I wish I had that!”
ML: Did you play a part in the training?
JE: I didn’t, although I thought that actually I might want to go to some of this, maybe I need to see the training myself, but I didn’t need to. The clerk was like, “No, I don’t think you need to. You got it pretty well covered.” So I didn’t miss anything, we’re good. But I was glad my staff — I have some new staff — got to go to the training.
ML: Who’s new on your team?
JE: We’ve got Sammi Ma. We have Sophie Shao. They live on the Westside, and between them, they’re fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin. They do a lot in the community, and so that’s really great.
ML: What are you most excited about for the next two years?
JE: I’m excited to see how we build upon this, our initial night market success. And how do we use the night market as a building or a stepping stone into more community building? And so that’s exciting to see, like to, to think about how it can be transformative and not just be like a one night fun event, but how does it really transform the community and integrate it with the merchants and the non-profits and the families, and as a way to create more joy? Because we need, you know, we need to celebrate the joy that we have in San Francisco, especially given the pandemic years and the years of doom-loop narrative.
ML: What kind of goes into organizing a night market? How do you make it happen?
JE: Everything. It’s like planning a wedding, or a college or high school graduation times a thousand. It’s about working with community partners. I’m blessed to have to be working with the Sunset Chinese Cultural District and the Sunset Mercantile and Into the Streets. We all aligned on the mission of wanting to create joy and build community. It’s not just about food. It’s about the music and the games and things that will attract everyone from toddlers to teenagers. So there’s just so much that goes into it, and it’s so rewarding after all that hard work, when you see it unfold on the street, and you see all these people from all over San Francisco and the Sunset enjoying it.
The other thing is, for each one, you have to try something to kind of take it up a notch, right? For the second night market, I thought, you know, we should have, like, a stinky-tofu-eating contest. Wouldn’t that be fun? Yeah. And that became, like, a whole thing; people in the media were the contestants. That was a big crowd pleaser. Then it was like, now what do you do next? Then somebody had the idea to do a durian-eating contest. We did that, and that was huge. Everyone had fun with that.
ML: So what’s the next thing?
JE: I don’t know!
Joel, i really hope you skipped town today and are not planning to read the comments when you are back. McDonalds get better reviews than you do..scary..
Say bye bye carpetbagger panda.
Joel and Team,
There appears to be a serious mismatch between many of your preferred policies and what most of the district residents want. Whether it is building heights, parking for small businesses, or prop K. It’s a real issue. Algebra and night markets are great, but our police academy is still not graduating the numbers we need. Food services are helpful, but rents and home prices are way too high. Promoting cycling and walking are all good, but Muni is about to drown in an ocean of red ink.
Cycling and walking don’t need BS “promotion” as if he invented them either. People who are going to bike or walk will do so. It’s not a realistic environmental concern. Closing a single road does absolutely nothing at all for the environment. He lied.
I find it surprising that you (accurately) complain that rents and home prices are too high, but you oppose Joel’s push for housing and increasing building heights. How do you propose we reduce the cost of housing without building any?
Population has gone up
around 100k people while in the same period housing stock has doubled. Why would you feel more housing leads to affordability?
There are plenty of peer-reviewed studies and research showing that more housing lowers housing prices. Here are a few you can check out:
– https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4629628
– https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-construction-makes-homes-more-affordable-even-those-who-cant-afford-new-units
In addition, those numbers you named are not accurate. These are a bit old, but SF’s population went from 777k in 2000 to 877k in 2016, and only 40,000 units were built over that time period (source: these charts based on Census data https://havengroupsf.com/supply-demand-money-demographics-10-factors-behind-san-franciscos-real-estate-market/)
Those studies were about a totally different housing market, not SF. They were also pushed by known YIMBY data miners, and the “peer-review” didn’t adequately compare their findings to other demographic areas. It’s generalized data based on specific cherry picks. It’s a lie to say they applied it to SF, because they didn’t and in fact it doesn’t.
Joel’s YIMBY developer sellout does nothing for the lowest incomes, it’s market rate housing with a smattering of BMR which is still around 100k salaries required to afford. YIMBY’s are willing tools of corrupt politicians like Wiener and Engardio and Breed. They don’t care about actually solving the problem – if it were that simple, which it isn’t. Joel is a liar on top of all of that, and his “2 year focus” according to this interview is more money for non-profits? Ridiculous. He can’t go soon enough. Go ahead and -1 now, transplant who believes the lies of politicians you haven’t paid attention to long enough.
I grew up in the Midwest, where I was regularly told to go back to Asia. Now I live in SF and people like you say “transplant” as a pejorative. It’s been interesting to see people who call themselves progressives whole-heartedly embrace anti-immigrant language.
Way to miss the entire point, which is that transplants haven’t been here long enough to understand the politics that go on, how promises are made and not kept, how the big bucks move. You’re neophytes, is that a better but equally descriptive word? Rubes.
Also, it’s not a “smattering” of BMR housing—it’s 1/3 of new housing. San Francisco has added 13,317 housing units sine 2020, and 1/3 of new units were affordable housing (aka subsidized housing).
Source: https://smartasset.com/data-studies/san-francisco-housing-2023
No it’s not. The vast majority is market rate, it’s not close. He’s a gentrifying agent of dark money and nothing more. He didn’t grow up here, has zero roots here, lied to all of us and usurped the entire point of district elections intentionally. He’s a snake in sheep clothing and he came into office pushing recalls for lesser offenses. He deserves a job in the real world like Breed.
No, it’s not. It’s UP TO 1/3. The mandate required by law to avoid builder’s remedy is 1/2, which is not close either. When YIMBYs lie, follow the money right to the developers who pay their rent.
“We’re not building housing to punish people.” He really should not even have to say that. An “only in San Francisco” thing, perhaps?
On the Great Highway thing, my own view of having district supervisors means that he had to represent his constituents. Instead he put his personal views above them and, in my book, that should automatically mean a recall election.
Plenty of people in District 4 welcome the park, let’s not pretend this was some kind of a blowout.
Plenty? Maybe.
A majority? No.
2/3 voted against it, that’s a blowout. Deal with it.
65% in both districts. 2/3 is a blowout, sorry Prop K simps.
“Courage” to ignore your constituents’ concerns entirely, lie to them deliberately, take dark money from SuperPAC Billionaires and spend it on a deceptive (and unfunded) “mandate” to steal a crucial N-S main road adjacent to a full-length bicycle path and beach walk, and just hand it over to yuppie developer concerns from elsewhere.
“Courage” is not the word I would use to describe Joel Engardio’s carpetbagging.
I’ll spare you the alternative euphemisms but this is puff piece PR CPR.
Sunset locals know what he is.
Designating the Great Highway as a park actually protects it from ever being developed. And there’s nothing about it that’s “crucial,” especially with the Sloat to Skyline portion already falling into the sea and slated to close anyway. It’s just a matter of taking the left turn on Lincoln rather than Sloat.
Criticize him all you want for the billionaire dark money and I’ll agree; I’d hoped Gordon Mar would get re-elected. But supporting Great Highway Park was the right decision, and yes, it’s courageous because it’s generating the vitriol that your post is an example of. Incidentally, Mar was supportive of the future of the highway from Lincoln to Sloat becoming a park, too.
NO IT DOESN’T, and step 1 of their process was building a stage on the beach RIGHT where they were pretending to care about Snowy Plovers recently. Engardio’s a joke environmentally and mentally, in all ways it’s nothing but a dishonest sham to build taller buildings on the west side for his developer pocketbook masters. He doesn’t actually believe the sham that building market rate condos helps the housing crisis, he knows it’s BS. Yimbys are some of the most easily persuaded well-meaning dolts in SF politics of them all, and he’s banking on that being the DCCC’s endorsed “only option” – all development is good development, they say, and his developer backers aren’t writing the huge checks for nothing.
“steal a crucial N-S main road?” – why is it that Sunset residents can’t understand that the Great Highway was already getting closed. There’s no stealing. This was already going to happen.
“adjacent to a full-length bicycle path and beach walk” – are you talking about the decrepit path to the east of the road? It was barely ok to walk on but it was certainly not a usable bike path.
The disingenuous language is coming from both sides on this issue.
My fellow “Sunset locals” need to get a grip. The Great Highway is not our property. It’s a public road in the City of San Francisco and all San Franciscans, by vote or by proxy, get to decide how they want the City’s land used. And stop wasting San Francisco’s money with this petty recall effort. We can vote Engardio out next year.
Or we can vote him out right now for being a liar. Guess what? We pick that.
you lost me when you said :”My priorities in running for office were about addressing the needs that I kept hearing from residents: … and small business”..Small businesses did not want your park. the epople who voted for the park don’t even live there and probably won’t even go there when (if!) it is built..where is the money coming from again? LOL.Taiwanese night market? you need to go to Taiwan to discover night market? that remind me of one of our greatest here in SF who said that she wanted to make Market st like the Champs Elyses in Paris..i ma not making this up.Mr Engardio, your recall is coming.
Lying is courage? All he does is take credit for the ideas of others. Scumbag.
Isn’t a major tenet of journalism that you don’t effing lie? What a bogus interview.
Public Relations under Sam Singer = you are SF corruption requiring defending.
Lol, the esteemed supervisor from the Outer Sunset is inspired by his trips to Taipei to start night markets here when he can just hop to LA to see the numerous lively and vibrant night markets they have down there.
It’s just part of his BS trying to woo asian voters in obsequious panda-ring. Of course this comes well after the downtown night markets that he had nothing to do with, but he presents it like he came up with the idea. What a farce.
Asians of ALL flavors should see right through his Breed-like PR by now. He’s just using the supervisor job to springboard into higher office to push whatever agenda his wealthy donors decide, right as the ballot submissions are due. He’s a bald version of Scott Weiner. If it’s not making him political money he’s oblivious to it.
Joel Engardio is a complete TOOL. The gerrymandering chickens have come home to roost. Bye Joel. Maybe after the Astroturf groups’ TogetherSF and GROWSF will pay you a couple bucks to host” Civics 101” brain washing sessions full time
We believed Joel when he told 30 of us TO OUR FACES that he was for keeping the weekend compromise; Mar was for closing, so the westside voted for Joel because he was for continuing the compromise. Turns out he lied to us; not a miscommunication, not a misunderstanding. Lied.
So the weside isn’t “angry” at him; we’re so very disappointed. Joel’s right about one thing, though; his recall is about a single issue. He’s wrong about what that issue is, though.
It’s that the community that elected him to represent neighborhood interests CAN NOT TRUST HIM. A politician who has lost the voters’ trust doesn’t last long.
If you actually bothered to talk to him, you might learn the reason he shifted his stance from weekend compromise to full time park: it’s because people like the Gorskis kept getting spitting mad about children’s events, so he had to distance himself from them and ended up talking to the people with a more hopeful vision of the future. Flies, honey, vinegar, things of that nature.
If you actually bothered to listen to him lie to your face, you are wasting your time. He says buzzwords that he thinks people want to hear because he knows he’s unpopular, divisive and underwater. He says dumb things that are not true. Fact, removing a single road does absolutely nothing – and may exacerbate the effects of locally in the neighborhood, in terms of automobile pollution – for the environment. Period. It’s a lie, and every time he repeats it his well-intentioned supporters are just as bad as the Trumpies for defending a falsehood that they can see in plain sight. It’s one of many the Breed Corporation have foisted upon the so-called “middle class” of clueless transplants and 1-issue automatons, like the SFBC and WalkSF/GrowSF/SellSF real estate backed busybodies. They are gentrifying in plain sight and it’s disgusting to see anyone being actually fooled by it, even if deliberately so like ^. It’s whitewashing corruption, plain and simple. We will recall and get someone who doesn’t lie and represents the district, not downtown graft.
“For those who are familiar with the Sunset, there’s a really popular market called Gus’s Market. It’s in the Outer Sunset, on Noriega and 44th and it’s a newer building with housing on top of the market. Right next door to it are single family homes, and I don’t hear anyone complaining about that housing, because of the amenity of that grocery.”
It’s a COMMERCIAL CORRIDOR. You think they suddenly approve of skyscraper condo buildings for yuppie developers by yuppie developers because they happen to like Gus’ Market? The machinations of a dishonest mind are manifold.
Engardio is a complete weasel who will say anything. Softball YIMBY interview.
This is such a great interview, both for the questions and bracketed context and the answers. It’s refreshing to see a politician be so clear-eyed about specific housing projects and the general need. A little ironic, too, since you could argue Joel scraped into office on three things: the redistricting that put him in D4 (those three precincts alone were the margin of victory), Open the Great Highway folks furious at Mar and believing Joel was on their side (oops), and Irving-corridor folks furious at Mar over 2250 Irving. I guess we’ll see if thoughtful interview answers can get through the anger.
48hills.org/2025/01/letters-to-the-editor-what-is-the-city-getting-by-allowing-housing-demolitions/ – This is exactly his folly and ploy. It has nothing to do with lowering rents for people being pushed out. The opposite, long term. We’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again, this is developer greed manifest through a puppet and nothing more than that. Say what you will of progressive politics but they do at least look out for the disenfranchised in ways these PR-backed “moderates” don’t give a whit about. It’s all about their bottom line and control in solidifying their base in certain demographics through advertisements like this article.
“It’s refreshing to see a politician be so clear-eyed about specific housing projects and the general need.” – What a load. None of that is going to affect affordability in the short or long term and it will not even be complete for over half a decade, if that. It’s focused on transplant techies with high incomes, not families of longtime residents of the Sunset who he happily pushes to the side, every time. His entire line of BS here is almost a scripted PR puff piece. Nobody in his district will ever trust his lies. Being lied to makes people angry, yes, it does and it should.
“Great” like watching T-ball practice.
Redistrict him right back out – with a district 4 recall vote. Locals only from now on.
This developer’s pet is not the friend of the poor or struggling families. Liar. Schmuck.
Sellout and liar. We will NEVER trust you again. Recall can’t happen soon enough.
Thanks for pointing out what an out of touch and superficial approach Joel Engardio takes to the real issues facing the Sunset. I thank him for mentioning the real issue of poverty, especially among many elderly residents of the Westside, which is real. But then? He mentions that it is something best dealt with by nonprofits. Is it though? Also, his housing plans are not for affordable housing for the most part, he is keen on building market rate condos, just like the ones above Gus’s market. Also, the new building on Taraval and 33rd – all market rate. So give me a break about that.
Night markets? Why do we have to invite outside vendors to these events? Why not focus on the local establishments, long active in the community, to build their businesses? Why the push for food trucks at every event? Why hand over the keys to any market to Sunset Mercantile? Why can’t we have a REAL farmers’ market, like Alemany or the one on Clement St, where the produce vendors are almost always also the farmers – not the blatant resellers we see on Sunday on 37th Ave.
He’s lame and superficial. If you have any doubts, read his newsletters and then read one of Connie Chan’s newsletters. She talks about real issues, he talks about superficial nonsense like who won a local art contest. This is a city with city problems and this guy is not qualified and does not represent his constituents.
I don’t even care about the GH although traffic has become downright dangerous in the Avenues. The increase in traffic accidents reflects this fact. Vision Zero is garbage.
Let’s just skip the small talk with all the people that suddenly have concerns and feel the need to tell D4 what to to and get the recall over. Just him vs the people he failed to represent. Bye, bye.
I’m thankful for having leaders like Supervisor Engardio with the courage to the right thing for our city even in the face of an obstructionist minority. We absolutely need housing everywhere in SF including the west side. I want my kids to be able to stay in their hometown when they grow up. And I also want them to have access to our incredible coast line. Opposition to Prop K won’t age well.
In a word, nonsense. Listening to constituents is the job, or get fired.
The MAJORITY of the Sunset, his ONLY district, voted against it. It’s unfunded, it’s unplanned for, it’s impacting the neighborhoods unsafely, and it’s a sellout to unaccountable non-profit yuppies from other parts of the city who don’t live here or have to deal with the issues created. Furthermore he lies about it being environmental when it’s pro-developer exclusively, and it won’t decrease carbon emissions AT ALL. It’s a lie, and you fell for it deliberately because you wanted something whether or not it was based in truth and good governance. The people of the Sunset will have the last word on carpetbagger Engardio’s lies, now that his mask has slipped off publicly and his Billionaire dark-money backers are exposed. He’s no Local, he’s a LIAR.
Dang. These comments. Engardio stoked rabid recallers and now he will be recalled.
I am so tired of and angered by people elected as representatives getting into office then telling residents what they should want, what they should do.
Where is the money for turning the great highway into a park supposed to come from when the city cannot pay to update the sewage treatment plant? The MTA is supposed to do a traffic and transit analysis before closing a road, but not when ideologues take control of public discussion and treat practical matters & public coffers like fictional entities. Traffic, most of it from ride shares, clogs the park and ancillary streets b/c there is no throughway other than around the east side or through the park. Let’s not forget that under the roadway is sand, lots of sand that, by nature, encroaches into the existing park. Ignoring the effect of projects on the planet, the budget, and residents is simply power grabbing.
Also, building more housing has never reduced housing prices, ever. There is no example of that ever happening. In fact, the more building, the higher prices go – it’s called gentrification. Housing prices rose 418% from 2000 to 2020, the population didn’t increase four fold, & besides, SF built 60,000 housing units while losing 58,000 people. The imaginary senior housing is supposed to house which seniors? How? When? Historically, almost every senior housing project has been converted to market rate housing.
Until our public discussions are based on all the costs of what we want and how we pay for it, people will get angry and politicians will be able to make excuses about why they make such terrible decisions.
Funny he won by 500 some odd votes, just lost three from this home.
Wherein Joel Engardio , THE proud and gleeful poster boy of the recall of Chesa Boudin and the SF School Board now opposes recalls. That’s rich. Does crooked Brooke Jenkins now oppose recalls too?
Regardless of how voters feel about Prop K , one thing is crystal clear:
A majority of San Franciscans agree that it is improper for those who will not be immediately or daily impacted by a highly localized matter to decide for the residents who will. Shall we extend last call to 4AM in Pac Heights and St. Francis Woods? The primary function of a district supervisor is to engage with, listen to and represent the diverse needs of their district specific constituents. Pacific Heights ain’t Bayview. North Beach is not St. Francis Woods….etc.
Ironic too that failed candidate Autumn Looijen and Engardio (along with scary Garry Tan and Bilal Mahmood) promoted and proudly touted Prop G, the wholly symbolic measure in the March 2024 election, when SFUSD had already instituted the change.
“Islands of oasis” from a journalist? D4 voters are hopping mad, as they should be.
Greeny,
Loojen’s candidacy was no failure.
You can bet that the 2,600 people who liked her first gave Bilal their seconds.
Which could end up making Dean Preston into Governor down the Road.
Hell, I got 567 votes and didn’t even vote for myself !
go Niners !
In the end, Preston got more first place votes than Mahmood. Unfortunately, the billionaire, millionaire broligarch strategy of running 4 incompetent carpet bagger candidates (4 against 1) to whittle votes away and divide and conquer, won.
A shameless liar taking credit for things he had nothing to do with! Follow Breed into the job market you tool of soft-gentrification! THE SUNSET LOATHES YOU.
Joel Engardio, “D4 supervisor lite,” has no depth, no real vision for our community. From his “Paris (nee Miami Beach) of the West” to the stealth Great Highway move delivering step #1 to developers drooling to build along the coastline, Joel is shoulder to shoulder with real estate-funded senator Scott Weiner. Both are pushing the industry agenda of deregulation making it easier and cheaper to build upscale, market rate and luxury housing. Magically, the market becomes more affordable – the discredited trickle-down housing economic theory. Engardio is enmeshed in and arose from the Yimby movement, the torch bearer of for-profit developers.
Joel partnered with former Mayor Breed on the 6-story corner lot legislation written in a way that skirts all affordable housing mandates. ALL of these will be for-profit, high rent projects which do not address the affordability needs of our community.
Prop K was strongly backed by Weiner and Engardio, billionaire funded Yimby’s, and stealth real estate right wing leaning front organizations GrowSF, TogetherSF and Neighbors for a Better SF. Do you really think this cabal is thinking bicycle riders and walkers? It is the big move toward coastline development real estate has tried to achieve and lost many times. Step #1 is in, thanks to Joel. Keep an eye on his donor base going forward to the recall and 2026 election.
Campers,
This guy’s Toast.
As Willie Brown put it (as I recall) when Chesa Boudin lost in a Recall:
“No one can win when they’re running against themselves.”
Y’all Recall that one ?
lol
The bigger question ?
Did Andy Reid sell his soul or what ?
Just when I thought I’d lost interest in the NFL for the year …
h.
The people complaining about the great highway becoming a park are the same type of people that complained about getting ride of cars on JFK drive, removing the Embarcadero Freeway. I’m happy we have elected officials like Joel that are making choices to make San Francisco better for everyone and not just homeowners who want to drive everywhere.
We need more housing, less cars, more events that bring the community together. Joel is helping get all this accomplished.
Ocean Beach has always been a park, transplants. You don’t live here. It has always had a bicycle/jogging path, woefully underutilized on most days, and the first fatality ever in the history of the MAJOR THOROUGHFARE was when last month a dementia patient escaped from managed care. Bicycle advocates who pose as environmentalists on instagram need real jobs because that does nothing.
Scariest line in the interview has to do with bonehead Engardio being one of the more senior (term wise) supervisors currently on the BofS. Yikes.
Any time a politician says “WE have build…” I have to stop them. WE don’t build anything. The government allow developers to build. Developers can’t make a profit on the type of housing citizens want to live in so we end up with a lot of empty condos and apartments. There are 40-60K (no one seems to know for sure) empty condos and apartments in SF because people don’t want to live in them or can’t afford them. People want single family homes and that is what developers want to destroy to replace with condos.
Thank you for saying. The rabid YIMBY cannot process your informational posting so they thumb it down instead of finding any actual fault.