The leadership void, combined with increasing friction between the city\u2019s broader push toward an urbanist future and the district\u2019s resistance to those changes, has added to decades of discontent in the Sunset District, where many residents say their voices are routinely ignored and their neighborhood dismissed as politically irrelevant.<\/p>\n
\u2018Western outerland\u2019<\/p>\n
Natalie Gee, a progressive City Hall staffer and declared 2026 D4 candidate (and potential appointee by Lurie), described what has happened recently as \u201can ill-fated political game.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is unacceptable for any district in our city to be subject to what has transpired in District 4,\u201d Gee said. \u201cSunset residents did not have a leader that understood their needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lisa Arjes, a Sunset resident who contributed more than $40,000 to the campaign to recall Engardio, said the district has long been considered the \u201cwestern outerland,\u201d as opposed to the more politically active east side.<\/p>\n
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Sunset resident Albert Chow said the supervisor vacancy has put the district at a serious disadvantage amid negotiations over Mayor Daniel Lurie\u2019s zoning plan.\u00a0 | Source: Thomas Sawano\/The Standard<\/p>\n
Arjes said the closure of the Great Highway, brought about by Prop. K, was a breaking point for many residents. \u201cI can\u2019t be quiet any longer,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not happy with what the city is doing to me \u2014 not with me or for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the D4 seat vacant, residents lack representation as supervisors debate another consequential policy: Lurie\u2019s Family Zoning Plan, which calls for tens of thousands of more housing units over the next several years, including in the largely residential and development-averse Sunset.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Albert Chow, another contender for the D4 appointment, said the vacancy has put the district at a serious disadvantage as supervisors elsewhere secure amendments to the zoning plan that carve out exemptions for their constituents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s completely unfair,\u201d he said. \u201cIf appointed, I have to vote no and come back another day to get those amendments done after hearing from my neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Self-inflicted wounds?<\/p>\n
While many in the Sunset feel abandoned, others argue that the district\u2019s woes are self-inflicted.<\/p>\n
Daniel Ramirez, an Irving Street merchant and organizer of the popular Sunset After Dark night market<\/a>, said Engardio\u2019s recall was driven by emotion rather than logic, leaving the Sunset without an advocate at City Hall.<\/p>\n \u201cDistrict 4 lost the right to demand community input when they decided to recall the previous supervisor,\u201d he said. \u201cWe gave up the right to be represented.\u201d<\/p>\n Lucas Lux, a supporter of Prop. K and head of the nonprofit Friends of Sunset Dunes, pointed to competing interests in the district, noting that a third of Sunset voters approved closing the road.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at the Sunset today, you will see a lot of folks seeing the benefits of living next to a coastal park,\u201d Lux said.<\/p>\n He said the Sunset has for years diverged from the priorities of the city\u2019s broader electorate, which has grown more favorable to urbanist policies, such as building more housing and funding transit.\u00a0<\/p>\n He pointed to a similar land-use fight in the 1990s, when residents of the Sunset, along with other west-side neighborhoods and parts of the Chinese community (opens in new tab)<\/a>, unsuccessfully fought to preserve the Central Freeway. Similarly to the Prop. K scenario, voters citywide approved a measure (opens in new tab)<\/a> to replace the freeway.<\/p>\n Three decades later, some west-side residents who fought to keep the Central Freeway were reinvigorated by Prop. K, Arjes said. She noted that the Sunset\u2019s victory in ousting its supervisor showed that the neighborhood can\u2019t be taken for granted.<\/p>\n \u201cThe recall shows a very important claim: a victory against billionaire dollars. We needed to win that,\u201d Arjes said. \u201cOtherwise, people would have lost hope.\u201d<\/p>\n Lurie is expected to announce the next supervisor within days. The mayor\u2019s appointment, which poses a tricky situation for him, could shape Sunset politics for years. Lurie has an incentive to find someone with a pro-housing perspective who will support his upzoning plan but who can appease locals who remain outraged over the Great Highway\u2019s closure. That might include putting a referendum to overturn Prop. K on the ballot.<\/p>\n As usual, it makes the next supervisor\u2019s job anything but easy \u2014 and any decision the appointee makes is likely to stir up more controversy.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIs the office cursed?\u201d Ramirez asked. \u201cWho knows.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a turbulent year and a half for the Sunset, with a series of dramas that have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[9386,6089,101,103,102,104,106,105,27669],"class_list":{"0":"post-74542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-great-highway","9":"tag-recall-elections","10":"tag-san-francisco","11":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","12":"tag-san-francisco-news","13":"tag-sf","14":"tag-sf-headlines","15":"tag-sf-news","16":"tag-sunset-district"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1764425472_240_-S3840x2560-FPNG.png\"\/)
The Sunset\u2019s year of chaos largely centered around Proposition K, which closed a portion of the Great Highway to make room for a coastal park. | Source: Manuel Orbegozo for The Standard<\/p>\n