Endorsements of Current Issues
Yes on “Family Housing”
April 2025
The Westside Family Democratic Club supports the “family housing” plan put forward by Mayor Lurie and the Planning Department.
The state of California has demanded that cities build housing to address the state’s widespread housing shortage, including a requirement that San Francisco permit 82,000 new homes by 2031. Failure to do so would have dramatic consequences, including losses of critical funding and of our city’s ability to self-govern housing development. After accounting for homes already in the pipeline, this means we need to plan for 36,000 more homes. What’s more, we aren’t allowed to build those homes anywhere: the state is also demanding that this new development occur in what it calls “Housing Opportunity” areas that have built less housing historically. In our city, that means the west side.
The family housing plan meets the state’s requirements in a thoughtful and well-designed way, by upzoning along transit and commercial corridors, and by removing density limits (allowing more homes per building). Unlike indiscriminate upzoning, this approach will contribute to thriving commercial districts and walkable communities, and will ensure that residents of newly built homes have access to public transit. Perhaps most importantly, this additional housing will make it easier for families to stay in San Francisco. Family housing isn’t just about square footage: it’s about ensuring that the people of our city can continue to call it home.
We Stand With Joel Engardio
March 2025
The Westside Family Democratic Club stands with Supervisor Joel Engardio against efforts to recall him. Why? Because San Francisco needs Joel Engardio on the Board of Supervisors. After years of failed leadership, including on our Board of Supervisors and Board of Education, the city has finally filled key positions with people who do their jobs and apply common sense. We have a more effective school board, district attorney, and board of supervisors, and we see the results everywhere, including a dramatic fall in crime rates.
Engardio was key to those efforts to reform city government, and today he casts a critical vote on the narrowly divided BOS. We can’t afford to lose a supervisor who has consistently advocated for school excellence, public safety, housing, and small business, among other key priorities. For example:
Schools: Engardio has been an outspoken advocate for fixing our public schools. Before he was a supervisor, he helped lead the school board recall effort, throwing out incompetent ideologues and replacing them with people who focused on outcomes for our kids. Since becoming a supervisor, he introduced the successful “eighth grade algebra” ballot measure that helped pressure the school board into reversing its backward policy of holding back our kids from learning basic math in middle school.
Public safety: Engardio has long advocated for, and voted for, full police staffing. He supported reforming the Police Commission, which has buried officers in paperwork and made it difficult for them to do their jobs. He supported streamlining administrative tasks and enabling police to use technologies like drones to catch criminals while avoiding dangerous high-speed chases. One place where he consistently stands out is helping tell the stories of individual police officers, which pushes back against the anti-police narratives that have contributed to the SFPD’s recruitment challenges.
A more comprehensive summary of Supervisor Engardio’s work is available here and is well worth reading.
We understand the concerns of people supporting the recall, around Supervisor Engardio’s leadership in proposing and passing Proposition K (closing the Great Highway to cars on weekdays). Prop K was divisive on the west side and our club experienced those divisions deeply. A majority of our club’s voters ultimately supported Prop K, resulting in our club endorsing the measure, but we understand and sympathize with people upset by the issue. Still, recalling Supervisor Engardio will not return cars to the Great Highway or change the minds of the San Francisco voters who chose, by a 10-point margin, to permanently close the road. A recall would serve only to deprive San Francisco of one of its top champions of outcome-focused public education, robust public safety, sensible budgeting, small business support, and common-sense housing solutions. For that reason, we “Stand With Joel” against the misguided campaign to recall him.
If you’d like to get involved, we encourage you to sign up for a door-knocking event here, or to fill out a volunteer interest form to have the Stand With Joel campaign reach out to you.