Joel Engardio and the Great Highway
Open Letter to Supervisor Joel Engardio
February 14, 2025
By Patricia Arack
Dear Joel Engardio:
Recall over a single issue?
You have repeatedly said that you should not be recalled over a single issue, i.e., the Prop. K vote closing the Upper Great Highway (UGH). Yes, the recall is for a single issue, but the issue is not the UGH. The issue is YOU, and your behavior, lack of response and a sense of duty to those who put you in office.
The devious and secret way you put this on the ballot, thereby evading any community input except for Lucas Lux and his followers, was a betrayal of all those who voted for you.
You actually removed our right for community input into your revision of the Pilot Project, which you used as a template for your Prop. K ordinance. You deleted the section that mandated community input. Gordon Mar at least provided the Pilot Project with a section providing community input. You removed it.
We have lost respect and faith in you because you have repeatedly ignored our needs and patronize us, saying you are doing what is “best for us.” That’s not your job. Your job is to represent us, and you have failed.
I think that is clear when you see that every precinct in D4 voted No on K, 20-30 points higher than Yes. If you had allowed community input before you sneaked Prop. K on the ballot, you would have known the vast majority did not want the highway closed. You ignored the reasonable compromise, which is the obvious FAIR solution to this problem for D4 residents and commuters and recreation users.
Any political price you pay for the “single issue,” i.e., your behavior, is on you.
There will be no Homeless Issue on the Great Hwy once closed?
Regarding your comments at the Jan. 15 LaPlaya Village Zoom meeting about the coming UGH closure: You said there is no homeless problem in SF parks. Therefore, there will be no problem at the Upper Great Highway when closed. That’s it. End of discussion.
I could not believe you could express such a lack of concern and knowledge about a real problem that will affect the quality of life, health and safety of your constituents. You have no idea what will happen once highway is closed. Word is out that the homeless are just waiting to move in.
Your answer at the LaPlaya Village interview was shocking in its brevity and lack of knowledge about SF parks, and that, accordingly to you, there would be no homeless problem at the UGH because there are no homeless problems in other parks.
GG Park dedicated outreach rangers have struggled for years to remove homeless encampments and help the homeless find permanent housing. The facts do not align with your opinion that there will be no problem with homeless encampments on the UGH and, as a consequence, in the Avenues.
You displayed a callous and simplistic assessment of the situation at that meeting. Do you realize when the Park Police rout the homeless campers out of the UGH area, they will just move into the neighborhood into people’s yards, homes and driveways, defecating wherever?
I have already had unpleasant experiences with homeless people around my house. You expressed absolutely no consideration for your constituents in your answer to the moderator. Why do you always put your constituents last? You fail in your number one responsibility, which is to represent D4 voters. Instead, you betray us.
The homeless issue is already a problem.
Just in the small area around my house on the Lower Great Highway (LGH), homeless encounters have been very disturbing. Do you care? You live far from the Outer Sunset and will never have people defecating in YOUR driveway.
Both of my neighbors on the LGH have had homeless people break into their homes. One neighbor is disabled. In both cases, the interlopers, desperate for a place out of the elements to sleep, entered into the garage area and made themselves comfortable, one in a car and the other in a downstairs bedroom for several days. They did not attack the owners and left when confronted, but they could have been mentally unhinged or on drugs, and my neighbors could have been injured or even killed by these trespassers.
I have had homeless strung-out people in my driveway and entryway. One young man, completely high on drugs, passed out in my driveway and was almost run over by my housemate on her way to work at 6:30 a.m. EMTs came and refused to take this man to detox, but put him on THE BUS!
This person was so inebriated that he could not walk. But the EMT put him on the bus for the driver and passengers to deal with. Nice call, Mr. EMT. He could have taken the young man to a detox center to help him. Another person, a woman working her way half down a bottle of wine, planted herself on the sidewalk right in front of my entryway, so my caregiver could not get past her.
She tried to defecate in my flower pot, but I told her to stop and move on. After screaming at me, she moved down the block. Someone else kicked in my fence trying to get into my back yard, and I had to pay a contractor to fix the fence before someone could break into my yard and have access to my house. During the summer months homeless tents have popped up on the UGH pedestrian walkway several times.
Probably the most disturbing event was a young man, on Ortega Street across from the terminal of the #7 bus, in the middle of the block, took off every stitch of clothing, including shoes and socks, squatted down in middle of sidewalk, defecated, got dressed and sauntered off, leaving his feces in the middle of the sidewalk. This happened in the early afternoon Also, I have had to clean human feces off my driveway.
This is just a harbinger of what will happen when the highway is closed, and you just dismissed the homeless issue as if it weren’t going to be a problem. It’s already a problem.
What are your plans, as supervisor for D4, to deal with this dangerous influx of homeless campers, and the trash, human waste, and drugs they will bring, that your constituents will be facing when it occurs, as it surely will?
Patricia Arack
Concerned Residents of the Sunset
Retired Faculty, CCSF
Labels: Engardio, Golden Gate Park, Great Highway, Homelessness, Neighborhoods
posted by Rob Anderson @ 4:54 PM
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