There will not be another referendum on Sunset Dunes on the June ballot. District 4 Supervisor Alan Wong's legislation to rip out Sunset Dunes and restore the middle section of the Great Highway failed to get enough signatures by the Tuesday, Jan. 13, 5 p.m. deadline.
Put simply: the fight to protect Sunset Dunes is over for the moment.
Wong announced during a press conference early Tuesday afternoon that he got the signature of District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan. A staffer for District 11 Supervisor Chyanne Chen confirmed that she also signed. District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton was also expected to sign, but apparently did not. From Friends of Sunset Dunes, which held a press event on the steps of city hall shortly after the deadline:
“This was the last gasp of an anti-park crusade that San Franciscans have rejected at every turn,” said Lucas Lux, President of Friends of Sunset Dunes. “It’s time to move forward and focus on improving our coastal park together. San Franciscans have made a decision and the park is here to stay. The park belongs to all San Franciscans regardless of how they voted on it, so we invite our neighbors to join us in planning the next phase of our shared oceanfront park. ”
This outcome puts a long-running and unnecessary fight to rest. Proposition K passed in November 2024 with 55 percent of the vote. Opponents of the park have now forced San Francisco through a ballot measure, two lawsuits, three failed appeals, and dozens of hours of public meetings, all of which consumed enormous amounts of taxpayer resources and city time.
At every stage, this effort has failed: voters rejected it, judges rejected it, the California Coastal Commission rejected it, and now Supervisor Wong’s own colleagues have declined to sign on. What remains is not a policy disagreement, but a refusal to accept a settled outcome.
The next opportunity for a re-vote on Sunset Dunes would be the November ballot. A supervisor could try again to get four signatures. Or park opponents would have to gather some 10,000 signatures for a citizen-led initiative. But at this point, that all seems like a reach.
It seems fitting to mark this latest update with a poem. Below is "To the Neighbors — and the One Who Now Speaks for Them," by Kevin Reed, who enjoys spending time in the park with his dog.
not by accident,
not by whim,
but by people who showed up
when it was easier not to.
They voted with eyes open.
They voted knowing change is imperfect.
They voted anyway.
A park does not erase a neighborhood.
It remembers it.
It gives back what traffic never could—
air you can stand inside,
space that doesn’t ask for proof of belonging.
To the neighbors who worry:
your fears are not invisible.
But fear is not ownership,
and comfort is not consent.
To the supervisor newly seated:
your title does not rewrite the past.
You inherited a decision,
not a blank page.
Leadership is not the art of undoing
what you personally dislike.
It is the discipline of honoring
what the public already chose—
especially when it’s inconvenient.
This isn’t about winning.
It’s about keeping faith.
Faith that democracy means more
than the last person elected.
Faith that public space belongs
to more than those closest to it.
Faith that once a city speaks,
it is not silenced quietly in committee rooms.
You may try to turn the clock back.
But the tide doesn’t reverse
because someone prefers the old shoreline.
This park is here
because people said yes together.
And no one person—
no matter how new,
no matter how confident—
gets to pretend
they didn’t hear them.
***
Kevin Reed is the founder & president of The Green Cross, San Francisco’s oldest licensed cannabis dispensary. A San Franciscan since 1999, he’s a regular on the Great Highway and Sunset Dunes—walking, biking, and usually rolling with his dog, Romeo.
