With the necessary signatures now certified, SF Supervisor Joel Engardio will now face a recall election in three and a half months.

A special election has been called for September 16, 2025 in which only voters in San Francisco's District 4 will be voting, marking the first time in city history that a sitting supervisor is facing a recall. Proponents of the recall, who are largely upset about one issue alone — the closing of the Great Highway to car traffic — have been vowing for months to punish Supervisor Joel Engardio for his support of the project and the proposition that made it permanent.

Now, as the SF Department of Elections announced Thursday, the recall proponents' signature count has been certified — as they themselves confidently announced last week — and the recall election is happening. "The petition, submitted on May 22, 2025, was determined to contain 10,523 valid signatures, above the required threshold of 9,911 signatures," the department said.

"We said we were confident when we turned this in," said Otto Pippenger, a field organizer with the recall campaign, in a statement per Mission Local. "We ran a campaign with lots of integrity and had a good sense of what was gonna happen... We look forward with excitement and optimism for the coming months."

While the new Sunset Dunes Park that has replaced the former roadway is seen as largely popular with voters around the city, it may have been something of a miscalculation on Engardio's part to support it, given its apparent deep unpopularity in his own district. As we noted earlier this month, November's Prop K, which closed the Great Highway permanently to cars in order to create a new park, passed easily in the citywide vote, but "No" votes were heavily concentrated in Engardio's district. Those "no" voters will now be the most motivated to vote in the special election in November, which will only be open to District 4 voters.

Still, Engardio continues to have a 4-to-1 money advantage to fight this recall, and he has the support of big donors and other leaders. And some District 4 voters may still come out to reject the recall just based on its unprecedented and petty nature — and the expense incurred by the city — given that district voters would simply have to wait until 2026 to unseat him in a regular election.

"I’m confident Sunset voters will reject this recall," Engardio said in a statement Thursday. "I hear from many residents who appreciate having a supervisor who shows up and delivers. I will campaign hard every day and continue to show up for District 4 so I can serve my community for my full term."

Engardio adds that he's "knocked on more than 1,000 doors in recent months" and "visited every small business in the Sunset," and he says, "When I helped put Prop K on the ballot, I knew that I had passionate constituents on both sides of the issue. The ballot measure gave them – and our city – a chance to have a say over the future of our coast."

Ironically, Engardio's original 2022 campaign for District 4 supervisor was boosted by his support of the recalls of progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin, and three progressives on the SF Board of Education. Seen as a moderate in light of these stances, he unseated progressive supervisor Gordon Mar, who had been elected in 2018, and is the twin brother of former District 1 Supervisor Eric Mar.

Engardio is also the first openly gay supervisor to represent the district, and lives in the Lakeshore neighborhood with husband Lionel Hsu.

Proponents of the recall would also like to see the question of reopening the Great Highway put to another vote — something that Richmond District Supervisor Connie Chan has vowed to get on the ballot again — though it's far from clear that the results would be any different the second time around. So, with the ship already sailed and Sunset Dunes already open as a park, it's possible that Engardio could get recalled out of spite, but the result will not be what those voters really wanted, which is the reopening of the roadway to cars.

Previously: Joel Engardio Has 4-1 Money Advantage to Fight the Recall, and the Recall’s Head Organizer Just Quit