At 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 6, 2024, I met District 4 supervisor Joel Engardio at Peet’s Coffee on Sloat Blvd. I was running a little late, having been with Animal Care and Control executive director Virginia Donahue and Assemblymember Matt Haney and his staff earlier that afternoon discussing ways to help the sheltering crisis at the state and local levels. The meeting was productive and worked the way politics should — you don’t have to agree on everything to get things done. Over the years, I both complimented Haney and criticized him when he was District 6 supervisor. While we didn’t always agree, Haney was also the only supervisor who reached out personally to thank me for the city hall corruption stories I broke while writing for the Marina Times. When he adopted two kittens — named Eddy and Ellis after the streets near his Tenderloin apartment — we touched base again about our mutual love of animals and a desire to help them. And so, just as he had promised, when the assembly headed back to session, Haney reached out again to set up a meeting at San Francisco’s city-run shelter. Haney and his staff listened, took notes, asked questions, and stopped to visit with the many animals waiting for homes. They were kind, attentive, open to hearing ideas, and they also suggested potential solutions. We all agreed that we cannot adopt our way out of the animal overpopulation crisis, and that some form of spay and neuter legislation is the only real answer.
As I walked into Peet’s, I was feeling good about the day, and as I met eyes with Engardio, it seemed like a natural continuation of what I do as a journalist reporting on San Francisco’s inner workings. We sat down at a small table, sipping our drinks and watching the skies darken as rain began to fall. At that moment a gentleman walked up and said, “Hi Joel, you’re my supervisor. Thank you for your work,” to which Engardio responded “You’re welcome,” with a handshake and a smile. The reason for our meeting was to give Joel a chance to explain why he supported Proposition K, the contentious closure of the Great Highway to vehicles. At the beginning of the campaign season, Engardio and Mayor London Breed were active proponents of the initiative, but as the season wore on and Breed faced a heated battle to keep her job, she said less and less about the imaginary park at Ocean Beach. Engardio, on the other hand, became more effusive, doubling down on the magical park. He also pointed out the fact that a mile of the road in question is set to close to car traffic (except emergency vehicles) for good by early 2026 as part of a project to protect the city’s western shore from rising sea levels (in fact, the roadway has been targeted for closure since 2012). All of this sounds logical, except for one big oops on Engardio’s part: his constituents don’t want the Great Highway closed to traffic, and they’re not interested in a park. It wouldn’t matter even if they were — there is zero money available in San Francisco’s bloated FY 2024-25 $15.9 billion or FY 2025-26 $15.5 billion budget, in which the city somehow manages to be running at a $789 million two-year deficit.
While the election was contentious, things really got heated when the results rolled in and Prop. K passed with 54.7%, but most of those who voted yes live far away from Ocean Beach. The no votes, on the other hand, came from residents who use the Great Highway to get to and from work, school, and the Veteran’s Hospital (as I used to do when taking my father twice a week from his home on Buena Vista Ave.). In Engardio’s own district, 63.7% voted no on K. When the sand settled, talk of recalling Engardio got serious. “You close a vital artery like the Great Highway that does anywhere between 14 and 20,000 commuters a day and put them on the other two north-south lanes or when they get frustrated with those two lanes, they’ll end up going through our streets,” resident and business owner Albert Chow told ABC7 News.
“I am focused on finding traffic solutions and making sure people can get where they need to go,” Engardio told me. He also said that while he respects the right of his constituents to organize a recall, he also hopes voters will consider the entirety of his record. I asked Engardio if he regretted becoming the public face of a measure primarily supported by wealthy tech families and car-despising bike extremists, most of who live clear across town, but just as he was about to answer I felt a hovering presence over my right shoulder. “Supervisor Joel Engardio,” said a deep, quivering voice. I turned to see a person towering above our table with broad shoulders, messy blonde hair that may have been a wig, and a long cardigan over a brightly-patterned polyester top. “Yes,” Engardio said as he stood up and offered his hand. The person, who had more than a foot in height on Engardio, suddenly lurched forward. “Traitor! Traitor!” they screamed. “We’re going to get you, and I can’t wait! You can go to HELL!” With that, the person stormed out of Peet’s, and Engardio, clearly shaken, sat back down. I must admit, I was shaken, too. “That seemed like a lot over closing a road,” I said, trying to lighten the moment. Engardio nodded, then said it wasn’t the first time.
One day, Engardio was meeting newly-elected District 5 supervisor Bilal Mahmood at the same Peet’s when, sheerly by coincidence, the recall group was holding a petition signing. Engardio approached the group and said if they had any questions for him to feel free to contact his office. He noticed a man becoming agitated, so he suggested to Mahmood that they walk around the Lakeshore Plaza shopping center to chat instead of sitting down at Peet’s. That’s when the agitated man followed them out the door and, as he got into his car, began cursing and screaming at Engardio. As the seasoned supervisor and his newly elected colleague passed in front of Lucky supermarket, the man drove by “screaming and threatening” Engardio through his open window. Engardio says the man’s name is Scott Patterson, which he doesn’t hide on social media. In a Dec. 4, 2024, post on the platform X, Patterson wrote, “FUCK YOU @JoelEngardio! You are a true piece of shit. I suggest you resign and move the fuck out of our neighborhood. You are no longer welcome here. Can’t wait to see you get the boot. Can’t wait to see the look on your face. Just like at Lake shore plaza- FUCK YOU- REMEMBER!” That was clearly a reference to the incident in front of the Lucky supermarket. I told Engardio that having been threatened myself for positions I’ve taken (in particular, when I was the only editor to endorse the recall of former District Attorney Chesa Boudin), I know how unnerving it can be. At that point, over an hour had passed, and both of us had to get home. We decided to meet again after the holidays for the interview.
As we parted ways, I wished I would have taken a photo of the towering, angry person who screamed in Engardio’s face, but I was too shocked to remember to do so. Perhaps another reason we were both on edge is that just two days before, on Dec. 4, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed in Manhattan in a brazen, targeted, early morning attack as he walked toward the company’s annual investor conference. At 6:44 a.m., surveillance video shows a man calmly shooting Thompson in the back of the head near 54th Street and Sixth Ave. before fleeing. On Dec. 9 at 9:14 a.m., police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, were dispatched to a McDonald’s to respond to reports of a male matching the description of the suspect. Luigi Nicholas Mangione, 26, was taken into custody on unrelated charges, but he was in possession of a gun believed to be the one used in Thompson’s shooting, as well as writings suggesting “ill will toward corporate America.” On Dec. 19, federal prosecutors unsealed a murder case against Mangione, holding out the possibility of the death penalty even after a trial on separate state charges.
While all of this is shocking, it wasn’t nearly as shocking as the tremendous number of people on social media hailing Mangione as a hero and cheering Thompson’s murder. Look, I get that our healthcare system is broken — Americans pay exorbitant prices as corporations do everything possible not to pay claims while raking in record profits. But cheering the murder of a man who left children fatherless isn’t going to solve it, and making a hero out of Mangione, a rich brat from a good family who planned the coldblooded killing with precision (and will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars) is just plain barbaric. While it pales in comparison, I also find the vitriol directed at Engardio about closing a road to be over the top. Rhetoric doesn’t change people’s minds or the situation at hand. If Engardio’s constituents want to recall him, that’s their right. Either way, he’s up for reelection in two years. That’s the way politics works, and the way change happens.
Follow Susan and the Marina Times on X: @SusanDReynolds and @TheMarinaTimes.
