Supervisor Joel Engardio’s Inauguration Speech
January 7, 2023

Supervisor Joel Engardio’s Inauguration
(Full Program)

• Cotton Polly band song performance (00:05)

• Mayor London Breed remarks (03:54)

• Cotton Polly band song performance (11:20)

• State Senator Scott Wiener remarks (17:55)

• Cotton Polly band song performance (24:13)

• Former Supervisor Katy Tang remarks (28:59)

• Ava Nicole Frances solo song performance (31:53)

• City Administrator Carmen Chu remarks (36:00)

• Oath of Office (39:25)

• Ava Nicole Frances solo song performance (42:06)

• Supervisor Joel Engardio speech (47:07)

• Ava Nicole Frances solo song performance (1:07:28)

Speech Transcript

I think I believe in miracles.

Tell me something. Do you believe in miracles?

We’ve experienced some political earthquakes in San Francisco the past year. Big things happened that were considered impossible.

Yet here we are.

I want to thank every person in this room for the part they played in making the impossible happen. 

We belong to an Exhausted Majority.

Exhausted by performative politics and toxic Tweets.

Exhausted by schools that won’t let kids take 8th grade algebra.

Exhausted by a criminal justice system that won’t put crime victims first.

Exhausted by a city budget that’s doubled the past decade yet nothing is twice as good.

We are all Sunset residents like Emil Tran, who sent me this message:

“Thank you for taking the time to listen to ordinary citizens like me.”

The Exhausted Majority is also an Ordinary Majority.

The Ordinary Majority just wants to live in a safe and joyful city.

But they don’t see City Hall focused on the basics: safe streets, good schools, affordable housing, and vibrant small businesses.

Last year, ordinary residents reached their breaking point. I was one of them.

And together, we did three extraordinary things to fix our city.

We recalled an incompetent school board. We recalled an ineffective district attorney. And we defeated an incumbent supervisor who stood with that school board and DA.

The political establishment dismissed these actions as impossible fantasy. Yet voters made all three happen — against all odds.

We did the impossible because we became a movement.

It’s a movement largely powered by parents.

Parents got involved because they want their kids to have a better future. And they want that future to be in the city they love.

That’s why so many parents volunteered their skills and talents to do the impossible.

We owe the parents our deepest thanks. Because the most busy, most stressed, and most exhausted among us stepped up to fix San Francisco. 

Let me ask again. Do you believe in miracles?

And let me be clear. The miracle isn’t me. It isn’t divine intervention.

The miracle is every resident who woke up, stood up, and voted to change the direction of our city.

A Higher Standard
The work isn’t done. We’re just getting started. The Exhausted and Ordinary Majority have set a high bar for what they expect to see from now on.

There was a second part to that message from Sunset resident Emil Tran. It said:

“I hope you are able to make great changes to our city. I will hold you to a high standard.”

The Exhausted Majority is a term that was coined in 2018 by More In Common. They’re a nonpartisan group that studies political polarization in democracies. 

The Exhausted Majority in America are liberals who reject purity tests. And conservatives repulsed by Trump.

The Exhausted Majority is fed up with the division that dominates national politics. They want leaders who are willing to compromise to get things done.

They don’t feel represented by either side. They feel unheard and forgotten.

This describes the thousands of Sunset residents I met knocking on doors.

A message from Sunset resident Clark He told me:

“Local politics are as bad as national politics. People who are in the middle are being ignored.”

Sunset resident R.J. Lin put it this way:

“Please don't be too far left and don't be too far right. Please.”

In San Francisco, the Exhausted and Ordinary Majority is fed up with the division between our so-called moderate and progressive Democrats. They just want basic city functions to work.

They deserve better.

And we must do better.

14,000 Doors
A few days after winning the election, I received an email from Sunset resident Sieu Ma. It said:

“Congratulations to the campaigner who spoke to me in person. You won my vote because you rang my doorbell yourself.”

I knocked on 14,000 doors in my campaign for supervisor. 14,000 doors in just over five months.

Everyone asks how could I knock on so many doors?

It all goes back to my childhood.

I was raised by my mom and grandmother. They taught me perseverance. 

Tonight, I used my grandmother’s Bible for the oath of office. She read that Bible every day. Psalms 91. “You are my refuge.”

My grandmother grew up Protestant and married Catholic. But organized religion wasn’t for her. She hated going to church. She swore like a sailor.

She had to be tough because life was tough. Widowed at 48, finding work with a 9th grade education, navigating the Mad Men era as a single woman.

Then her daughter became a single mom a few years out of high school.

My grandmother was a piano teacher. My mom cleaned houses. They showed me how to make the most with limited resources. I started working at 12. My first job was delivering newspapers. 

My mom became deeply religious after my dad abandoned us. She converted to Jehovah’s Witnesses.

My mom’s new religion had a rule for everything.

As a kid, I was not allowed to celebrate my birthday or any holidays. No cake. No presents. My grandma called it torture. I agreed. 

I never joined the religion as an adult. But I had to live it as a child. I was four when I started knocking on doors with a Bible message.

I remember lots of slammed doors and people yelling at us to get off their porch.

One man sicced his dog on us. I was seven.

That’s when I learned the world is not safe for people who say unpopular things and challenge the status quo.

A good Samaritan driving by stopped his car and told us to jump in.

Now he wasn’t a fan of Jehovah’s Witnesses. He just didn’t think a mom and her seven-year-old deserved to be mauled by a dog for handing out Bibles.

That’s when I learned to be kind to others, even if you don’t like their politics or worldview. 

The childhood I spent door knocking was good training for the difficult work I chose as a journalist and civil rights advocate.

The door knocking taught me grit, persistence, and how to listen to people who disagree with me. 

When I ran for supervisor to give our community a voice, I put all those lessons to use. 

Door knocking is in my DNA.

Power in Loss
This inauguration is a celebration of winning. But to understand how we won, we have to talk about loss.

Listen to this headline that was on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle.

It said: “Joel Engardio just won a San Francisco supervisor’s seat after three failed bids. What changed this time?”

That’s quite a headline. The article wasn’t bad. However, it didn’t fully answer the question of how we won.

Because the answer is in those three losses. 

There is power in loss.

You learn compassion and humility. You learn how to deal with a deck stacked against you. You learn what really matters in the lives of your neighbors.

Elections aren’t the only thing I’ve lost. I’ve experienced a lot of personal loss. Like my hair. I was far too young when that went.

More seriously, I lost a father who just decided to leave and never come back. And I lost a boyfriend to cancer, very young. 

Those traumas give you resilience. You don’t sweat losing a few elections. You just keep going. With the hope that you’ll move the needle on your issue — and make life better for others.

I learned how to do that when I worked for the American Civil Liberties Union.

We were trying to win the right for gay and lesbian couples to get married.

Eleven states put same-sex marriage bans on the ballot. 

We lost every campaign. In most states, the bans passed with 60 to 70 percent of the vote.

But when I looked at those dismal results, I saw hope.

Yes, 70 percent of voters in Missouri were against gay and lesbian couples getting married. But 30 percent were OK with it. 40 percent in Arizona!

To me, that actually wasn’t a loss. It was a big win.

Do you know why that was amazing? Just a generation before mine, support for gay marriage was zero.

I realized the work we did planted the seeds that would eventually change minds and the course of history.

I truly believed I would be allowed to get married in my lifetime. And it only took 10 more years. Sometimes you have to play the long game. 

Three losses on my way to becoming supervisor? That’s nothing. 

It was time well spent because we built a movement along the way.

First Gentleman of the Sunset
This is the point in the speech where I need to acknowledge the one person most responsible for all of us being here: my husband Lionel Hsu.

I’m sure everyone is wondering why you let me run a fourth time. I wonder that, too!

But I know you saw every campaign as a win because it brought people together. And good things can happen when people connect over a common cause.

Lionel doesn’t go to a lot of political events. He prefers tending to plants in our rustic garden.

But in this campaign, my politics and his garden collided.

I invited Sunset residents to our backyard to meet District Attorney Brooke Jenkins.

I posted a photo on Twitter and a troll attacked Lionel’s rustic garden, saying “get a landscaper!”

Lionel took it in stride.

Thank you Lionel for your patience, understanding, wisdom, and love. 

You’re going to be great as the First Gentleman of the Sunset! 

A Supervisor for All
Sandra Jeong sent me a message describing herself as a 66-year-old, third-generation San Francisco native.

Here’s what she said:

“You are the first person who has ever received a campaign contribution from me. I hope that you will bring sanity and common sense back to our local government.”

Thank you, Sandra, for your trust. 

I will be a supervisor for all Sunset residents. That includes the 49 percent who did not vote for me.

My job is to listen to your concerns. Whether it's a broken street light. A needed stop sign. Or a place for kids to skateboard.

My job is to work with you to make everyday neighborhood improvements, no matter where you stand on the citywide controversies.

And when it comes to the big stuff, my job is to work with my colleagues in good faith to find the compromises that get things done.

We must put identity politics aside.

We must move forward as a city that values the Exhausted and Ordinary Majority.

I am here to represent them. 

Priorities: Safety, Education, Joy
At the start of this speech, I mentioned the basic ingredients for a healthy city: safe streets, good schools, affordable housing, and vibrant small businesses.

My top priorities will be public safety and education.

Nothing else matters if residents don’t feel safe.

And our public schools need to attract families, not drive them away. Our city’s future depends on being a more family friendly city.

I’ve already made plans to visit the police station that serves the Sunset and meet with every officer one-on-one — all 70 of them.

Our beat officers need to know their work is valued and that their supervisor supports them.

The Sunset saw a big increase in larceny theft last year. We need to make thieves know that they’re not going to get away with it in San Francisco.

Let’s talk about the social contract for a functioning society.

It was broken by the open-air drug dealing that serves addiction and kills people.

I will support our new district attorney in prosecuting the drug dealers responsible for this.

We cannot accept the unsafe and unsanitary behavior on our sidewalks as a new normal.

People suffering from drug addiction need our help. I support the full range of treatment options.

But there needs to be a combination of carrots and sticks to help — and sometimes compel drug users to get well.

Turning to schools. As supervisor, I can’t control the schools.

But I will do everything in my power to ensure families are getting what they need from our public schools. 

We need to fix the pain points that cause families to leave San Francisco. Like a lack of advanced classes and not being able to attend your neighborhood school.

I support building more housing. Because I want the adult children of longtime residents to stay in San Francisco.

I support small businesses. Let’s give entrepreneurs the freedom to create the next big idea. Because it could be the one to save our local economy. 

Let’s identify and shut down corrupt nonprofits that fleece City Hall.

We need to measure every city-funded program for success. And only pay for what works.

Because every dollar we waste is a dollar that could have gone to help someone in need. 

There is a lot to fix in San Francisco. But we are far from a dystopian city. There is still a lot of joy worth celebrating.

And we can create more.

Let’s bring an Asian-inspired night market to the Sunset. Imagine an Irving Street Night Market and how amazing that would be.

As supervisor, I want to support joy.

Let’s Create Our Best San Francisco
Political insiders and pundits tried to dismiss our campaign as impossible.

They don’t believe in miracles.

They couldn’t see the movement we’ve been creating — one step, one door knock, one conversation at a time.

A movement of tens of thousands of voters who no longer feel powerless, voiceless, or alone.

A movement that’s ready to fix San Francisco. 

A movement that cannot be dismissed.

We deserve to live in a city where streets are safe from crime.

Where streets are safe for pedestrians.

Where we make room to house the families, workers, innovators, and artisans that define a city.

Where we celebrate the joy of our people. 

Always remember the joy.

Because it’s time to create our best San Francisco.