Editor:
Dear Supervisor Joel Engardio,
You campaigned on listening to residents and protecting families, but your time in office has been marked by deflection, gaslighting and broken promises.
You pushed Proposition K while our neighborhood was still reeling from COVID-19 and the L-Taraval Project. Instead of helping families regain stability, you made things worse, shutting down the Upper Great Highway without providing real transit alternatives. The result? Gridlock, job risks and a struggling business corridor. That’s not leadership. That’s abandonment.
Your Night Market on the Great Highway back on Sept. 21, 2024, was staffed by out-of-town vendors. It felt like a campaign stunt to boost Prop. K, not support for local merchants. Why wasn’t it held on Taraval, where businesses actually needed help? Unsurprisingly, merchant groups on Noriega, Irving, and Taraval no longer trust your leadership. Without them, your beloved Night Markets can’t even happen.
At the Sunset Dunes park opening, no local businesses participated – not because they weren’t invited, but because it wasn’t worth their time. Your reputation and the logistics made it a bad deal. Their absence says more than your staged social media posts ever could.
All the money you’re getting from your wealthy YIMBY tech donors – money now being used to save your political career – could have been used to support schools, youth programs, or our business corridors. You could have been a hero.
If you once cared about the people here, you’ve lost that focus. You now serve elite donors and out-of-town interests, not the residents of the Sunset. We deserve a representative who listens, not one who smiles for photos while ignoring our daily struggles.
Please, Joel. Resign.
Wendy Liu, Sunset District Resident for nearly 20 years
Categories: letter to the editor
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 
I agree!
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Didn’t Wendy Liu get a letter published here just two weeks ago saying basically the same thing? Surely the Sunset Beacon can be a place for community news and events and not just the continuous repetitive gripes of the same five people week after week.
We all get it: Wendy Liu, Judi Gorski, and Christina Shih are very mad at Joel Engardio. This has been well established by the four letters alone that Wendy has had published this year. We now all know this earth-shattering news. Message received. On behalf of the tens of thousands of us in the Sunset who have long since moved on from this issue and do not spend seemingly every waking moment consumed with rage about the Great Highway, please stop. We’re sick of it.
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Thank you for proving exactly why we need to keep speaking out.
You claim “tens of thousands have moved on.” If that were true, then why is a recall underway against Joel Engardio? Why is there an active lawsuit against Prop K?
People haven’t moved on, they’ve been ignored. And we are DONE being told to sit down and shut up by people like you wearing kumbaya-colored glasses while families are drowning in gridlock, losing income, and watching their neighborhoods deteriorate.
NO, WE WILL NOT STOP. We are just as sick of being told to shut up as you are of hearing from us. We’re tired of being told our voices don’t matter. And we’re especially tired of sugar-coated puff pieces like this: https://richmondsunsetnews.com/2025/05/08/big-crowd-witnesses-turning-upper-great-highway-into-sunset-dunes/ that ignore the daily struggles of real residents while pretending that staged ribbon cuttings represent community progress.
You don’t speak for “the Sunset.” You speak for yourself—and a shrinking minority trying desperately to pretend everything’s fine. It’s not.
We’ll stop writing when Joel Engardio starts TAKING ACCOUNTABILITY—or when he steps down.
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Perhaps it’s because people are sick and tired of SFMTA and Park and Rec catering to a very small percentage of people who use bicycles as their primary mode of transportation and spend scarce city resources on outsized catering to their demands like slow streets, closing the GH, the Valencia St center bike lane disaster, and the proposed biking and rolling plan across the city. They are cutting Muni lines and frequency, decreasing parking spaces to accommodate bike lanes, creating slow streets which are rarely used and often located immediately adjacent to true recreational spaces. Despite all the money used to create biking infrastructure the numbers have not budged re increasing bicycle use as the primary mode of transportation in the Sunset per the SFMTA’s own data collection. It’s time to use common sense and provide the greater good for the greater number of people and not cater to the louder and more organized SF Bike Coalition and Kid Safe. Under the guise of pedestrian safety they close the GH and create slow streets. How about pedestrians using SIDEWALKS instead of walking in streets, creating protected bike lanes instead of demanding no cars on public streets, and focusing SFMTA’s money on improving Muni? More San Franciscans would leave their cars for public transit if it were safer, more convenient, more efficient and less expensive than cars. They are less likely to switch to sole bicycle use. Most people are mixed mode commuters, walking when nearby, transit when available, cars when required by time or load restraints. Using the guise of climate change they remove efficient traffic arteries and divert cars to less efficient and less safe major arteries. I had to laugh when someone posted that a slow Lake Street was good for the urban tree canopy. What trees were planted by a slow Lake Street? What trees were destroyed by keeping it open? It’s mindless. SF has a huge number of already existing parks and recreation spaces, the western part of SF is not a recreation desert. Why does recreation take priority over people needing to get to work, school, medical care?
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Thank you, Andrew, for reminding people that the recall is fueled by a small number of very vocal people.
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Volunteers to the recall, like Wendi, Judi and Christina, that you so smugly and condescendingly dismiss do indeed represent the interests of the majority of us out here in D4. You certainly do not.
Your arrogant tone, ridiculous hyperbole – “tens of thousands of us …. have moved on…” – and insufferable sense of entitlement – “We’re sick of it” – represent what most people out here so very much resent about Joel Engardio, his monied outside sponsors, his highly paid PR shills and strident YIMBY backers.
At the bottom of all this is, frankly, for me and many of my neighbors in D4, the initial and continuing lack of respect surrounding all the circumstances that put Propostion K on the ballot and have continued with the messaging of the anti recall supporters.
Our views were simply ignored, discounted and arrogantly assumed to be so lightly held that they did not matter. That Joel Engardio knows better. But our views and concerns did and do matter, not to you, Joel Engardio or his cohorts, but certainly to us. Not 1 precinct in D4 voted in favor of Proposition K. That was in November. It would be no different today.
However things turn out, people like Wendi, Judi and Christina, have stood up for the neighborhood against enormous odds. Even if you don’t approve, they deserve a little more respect from anti recall promoters like you.
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Andrew Lim and Lian, as a Sunset resident and a long time stakeholder in the Sunset, I’d say, for tens of thousands of us, the Great Highway issue will never go away unless we hit a reset button to redo what Joel didn’t do – a community meeting to talk about the pros and cons and the compromises. Dictationship is not what the Sunset about. So, you can move on, I wont.
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Great Job Wendy! The Majority of the Sunset District feels the same. Joel needs to go regardless of what happens with the future of the Great Highway. We can’t tolerate someone who lied to our faces to get elected and then snuck in at the last minute to put Prop K on the ballot.
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Dear Wendy,
I am a Sunset resident and have been almost as long as you. Let’s stop the recall culture together. If you want to reopen great highway, ok, focus your energy on a new prop to do just that.
We fortunately have a representative system in place, and I for one would like the to maintain my right as a voter to vote once per term for my elected official, in this case supervisor. If I don’t like what they are doing, I can right them and ask for changes (or publish criticism letters with proposals for changes). If you have any actual, actionable suggestions for our supervisor, please contact him. Recalling our elected officials is a terrible idea except in very extraordinary cases like corruption because it betrays our trust in the system. Sadly, this has become somewhat of a culture in California. Joel’s support for what turned out be an unpopular stance (in the Sunset district) on closing great highway did not CAUSE the closure, and very likely it would have closed even without his support. Furthermore, recalling him will not bring it back. If you are mad about prop k, blame voters. Or, better, you have the right to work to put a proposal on the ballot to bring it back. Recalling does nothing to solve our problems, it feels more like vengeance. Why not use this forum and your energy to make positive changes for the district?
Joe
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Actually Connie Chan has said if there is a special election to recall Joel Engardio she would attempt to get enough support on the BOS for a proposition to restore the GH compromise (open to cars on weekdays, closed on weekends) which was not an option in Prop K.
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Thanks for your thoughtful tone, but I respectfully disagree on several key points.
First, the recall exists precisely to hold elected officials accountable between elections—especially when they break trust, misrepresent their constituents, or actively harm the communities they’re supposed to serve. This isn’t about vengeance. It’s about consequences. Joel Engardio didn’t just “support” Prop K—he championed it, misrepresented facts, and ignored overwhelming neighborhood opposition. His record isn’t one of honest representation; it’s one of calculated political ambition.
You say the Great Highway would’ve closed anyway. That’s speculative at best. What’s not speculative is that Joel could have stood up for us—but didn’t. And when residents raised concerns, he dismissed them, blocked constituents on social media, and avoided town halls. That’s not representation—it’s evasion.
You ask for positive solutions—well, this letter is an act of solution-seeking. The first step to solving a problem is removing the obstacle. Right now, that obstacle is Joel Engardio. His actions have plunged families, seniors, commuters, and local businesses into chaos. Until he’s gone, real progress will be delayed, distorted, or derailed.
You say, “If you have any actual, actionable suggestions for our supervisor, please contact him.” Believe me—we’ve tried. Many of us have emailed, called, commented, and even showed up in person. The response? Silence. Or worse, condescension. Engardio has blocked constituents on social media simply for questioning his decisions. He’s ignored neighborhood groups, brushed off concerns at events, and avoided town halls entirely. This is not someone interested in feedback—this is someone avoiding accountability.
And speaking of corruption—how is taking massive funding from YIMBY tech oligarchs not corruption? Engardio wants to radically reshape the Sunset in ways that benefit his elite donors, not the people who live here. That’s not “public service.” That’s selling us out.
If we wait quietly every four years while electeds dismantle our neighborhoods in the meantime, then we’re not a democracy—we’re an audience. You mention “trust in the system,” but trust isn’t blind loyalty; it’s accountability. The recall process is part of that system. It’s not a betrayal of democracy—it’s democracy in action.
And let’s not forget—Engardio himself LOVES recalls. He openly supported the recall of Chesa Boudin and multiple school board members. Back then, he claimed recalls were about “restoring accountability” and “giving voters a voice.” But now that the tables have turned and he’s the one being held accountable, suddenly recalls are “divisive”? Sorry, Joel—you don’t get to rewrite the rules when you’re the one under scrutiny.
And yes—we are also working on solutions, including efforts around future ballot measures and alternatives. But we’re allowed to walk and chew gum at the same time.
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Is that the reason that we have no more ridiculous night “markets”? No stores remained open, so what was the point? How much did taxpayers pay for all those overtime salaries? I know “Joyful” Lurie funded most of it…..
Engardio has always been a promoter of the privatization of public space and the real estate industry. Thus, the road closure.
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“Engardio has always been a promoter of the privatization of public space and the real estate industry. Thus, the road closure.”
If this isn’t obvious to all, it obviously should be. We need to get his record known.
We’re literally fighting against a multi-Billion dollar PR interest with infinite pockets.
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Yes, and if you do happen to see one (aka Sunset Dunes) Engardio probably used non local vendors. LA taco trucks have already been spotted near Motel 6.
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