By Josh Koehn & Han Li

The Sept. 16 recall election against Supervisor Joel Engardio is quickly approaching, yet San Francisco’s political establishment seems eager to pretend it isn’t happening.

During a Thursday budget-signing press conference, Power Play asked Mayor Daniel Lurie, who has faced pressure to publicly oppose the recall, what position he plans to take on the election.

"I'm here to talk about our budget today," Lurie said, as Engardio, who voted in favor of the budget, stood directly behind the mayor. "I'm appreciative of Supervisor Engardio and the work that he's doing, along with everyone behind me and all 11 supervisors."

When pressed on whether he would take a position before the election, Lurie again dodged the question. "I'm not here to answer that right now,” he said.

Several supervisors at the ceremony, including Connie Chan, Chyanne Chen, Bilal Mahmood, and Matt Dorsey, were seen grinning — or trying to hold back laughter — during the exchange. Engardio did not smile.

Representatives for the campaign to recall Engardio, which stems from his support of Proposition K last year, and the anti-recall effort did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, the Democratic County Central Committee has delayed its endorsement vote on the recall. Originally set for a special vote July 30, the issue will be taken up during a regular meeting in late August.

Insiders say the committee is leaning toward issuing “no endorsement,” but Engardio has a number of supporters on the board who could back him. No faction of the committee — whether opposed, in support of, or indifferent to the recall — had enough votes to hit the two-thirds endorsement threshold required to trigger a special meeting. At the regular meeting, only a simple majority will be needed to take a position. But a late-August vote would leave little time for the party to meaningfully campaign on its decision.

Meanwhile, some deep-pocketed donors have taken up the cause of publicly fighting for Engardio. The campaign to fend off the recall has attracted financial backing from crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, who gave $200,000, and Yelp cofounder Jeremy Stoppelman, who contributed $175,000.

Their donations have helped the anti-recall campaign raise roughly $700,000 — more than triple the $200,000 raised by the recall effort.

Stoppelman, who was a key backer of Prop. K, has been a vocal champion of Engardio on social media, clashing with anonymous X accounts that attack the supervisor while urging Lurie to oppose the recall.

In a statement to Power Play, Stoppelman reiterated his support for Engardio. “I agree with Mayor Lurie that Joel has done great work for the city, which is why I oppose the recall.”

Programming note: Power Play will move to a summer schedule for August. We will publish the newsletter once a week during that month, on Wednesdays.

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In the pipeline

NAVIGATE THIS: Lurie has dropped his ambitious goal of creating 1,500 shelter beds within his first six months in office, saying it’s more important to build smarter than faster. What could make his ambitions even more challenging: The clock is ticking on one of the city’s largest homeless shelters.

A lease with the Port of San Francisco for the 200-bed Embarcadero Navigation Center at Seawall Lot 330, which opened in 2019, is set to expire at the end of this year. City officials have until Sept. 30 to negotiate an extension of up to two years, but that depends on what port officials want to do with the property.

The Port Commission this month agreed to let Strada Investment Group alter redevelopment plans for the area by prioritizing a 600-unit residential building where the navigation center now sits.

Deborah Bouck, a spokesperson for the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, described the navigation center as a “vital program” in an email to Power Play, adding that the city plans to request a lease extension.

“With thousands of people sleeping on our streets, we need the capacity and stabilizing services that the Embarcadero Navigation Center provides as we continue to maximize the lifecycle of beds and collectively make improvements to our system,” Bouck wrote.

Not everyone sees the navigation center’s pending demise as a bad thing.

Supervisor Dorsey said he participated in a town hall meeting Thursday at which many residents voiced their displeasure with frequent drug use on the streets surrounding the shelter, which is in his district. A major gripe has been the lack of police foot patrols that were promised when the shelter was proposed.

“The assurance that I have from the mayor’s office is we will be restoring patrols to end the drug-driven disorder that right now is plaguing the navigation center,” Dorsey said.

STREET FIGHTER: Nearly eight months have passed since the expiration of San Francisco’s Vision Zero plan, which promised to end traffic deaths within a decade.

The policy proved feckless: City streets in 2024 were as dangerous and deadly as any year since the plan was enacted in 2014. In the Board of Supervisors’ meeting Tuesday, the last before the summer recess, the issue of improving street safety and reducing traffic-related deaths will again take center stage.

Supervisor Myrna Melgar, a transit wonk who has floated the idea of New York City-style congestion pricing, will introduce a comprehensive resolution called the “San Francisco Street Safety Act.” The resolution would require staff coordination across seven agencies to set aggressive deadlines to reduce traffic deaths by the end of next year.

Power Play got a peek at a draft of the resolution, which notes that a recent study by the city’s budget and legislative analyst found that traffic-related injuries and deaths annually cost the city and county approximately $12.2 million in taxpayer funds, while the total annual cost to residents climbed as high as $500 million.

The resolution will have some teeth by setting aggressive deadlines before the end of 2026. The Municipal Transportation Agency would have to develop a plan for redesigning streets identified on the 2025 High Injury Network, while the San Francisco Police Department would be required to publicly release a plan to increase traffic enforcement.

Vision Zero “was written more than 10 years ago, and the world looked different before robotaxis, automated enforcement with cameras, parklets, and shared spaces on the streets,” Melgar said. “It’s kind of changed how pedestrians and vehicles and other mobility devices interact with each other on our streets.”

Melgar said she might follow the resolution with ordinances to more aggressively enforce its goals, but she hasn’t received much pushback.

“We’ve gotten feedback from everyone,” she said, “and nobody has a problem, including fire and police.”

CHINATOWN PTSD: Chinatown activists are feeling uneasy about a shelter equity plan under consideration by city leaders that would target certain neighborhoods for more beds. Maps show that while many downtown areas surrounding Chinatown would be largely exempt from adding shelter facilities, the historic neighborhood is listed as one that has more homeless people than beds available.

“The map indicates that Chinatown could potentially be targeted, raising significant concern within the community,” said Donald Luu, president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

The anxieties are reminiscent of a political firestorm last year, when then-Mayor London Breed proposed a “sober living” facility in Chinatown. That proposal sparked major backlash, forcing Breed to abandon it. In the November election, Breed lost significant ground with Chinese voters.

Supervisor Danny Sauter, who represents Chinatown, is a cosponsor of the bill and said he supports a more equitable distribution of shelters citywide. But the proposal has put him in a tough spot, as Chinatown yields outsize political influence, and voting for something that has received local opposition could complicate his time in office.

In a text message to Power Play, Sauter sought to assuage the community: “We have no plans for any new homeless shelters in Chinatown.”