In the 18 months since Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao took office, she has faced one crisis after another. This left residents and officials wondering whether they should move on with their lives, given the ever-growing list of challenges and questions.
According to political strategy and public affairs expert Jim Ross, the crisis facing Thao and the city of Oakland is not really the investigation that arrived at the mayor’s home last Thursday. It’s the combination of many different issues that she and the city have faced since early 2023.
“The mayor took office in the middle of the hacking IT denial for serviceconfronted a deficit of hundreds of millions of dollarsRoss said. “The stadium negotiations, which fell apart, crime and crime issues; all those things when she took office.”
While she was constantly criticized for everything from her firing of Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrongthe Oakland A’s decision to move to Las Vegas and the rampant crime plagues the streets of OaklandThao paused to defend her record Monday morning when she made her first public comments since last week’s raids.
“Nothing will distract me from the progress we have made over the past 18 months,” she said.
Thao also claimed that her unique background, built as a homeless victim of domestic violence 15 years ago, when she slept in her car with her son and became mayor of one of the Bay Area’s largest cities, had something to do with her current circumstances. .
“What I do know is that this wouldn’t have happened this way if I had been rich, if I had gone to elite private schools or if I had come
of money,” she said during her defiant public statement on Monday.
“I think she felt like she had to do something really strong, a really strong statement,” Ross said. “You know, not many people stood up for her, and I think she felt like if she didn’t defend herself, no one else would do it for her.”
And while no one knows yet where the investigation will go, Ross says it’s all of these events combined that are putting more attention on the FBI investigation, even if the details may not be released to the public anytime soon.
“If this were a normal course of events, this would be a one-day story. But because of, I think, the challenges that Oakland has faced
over the last year and a half, and the fact that there is a recall election in November, this one event becomes much more important,” Ross said.
In the latest development for Thao’s government on Tuesday, its chief spokesman Francis Zamora said resigned from his positionless than a day later the mayor’s controversial lawyer resigned.
Thao is also facing a recall. The attempt to recall her went forward recently, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters checked to see if there were enough valid signatures on the petition.
Meanwhile, work continued on the city’s budget. The Finance Committee held a meeting on Tuesday. The real work would take place later this week, it was indicated.
CBS News Bay Area attempted to ask some questions to the members present, but they declined to comment. But at the end of that meeting, one member made a vague reference to the current situation and told the audience in the room that the city’s business continues. Further budget meetings are scheduled for Wednesday and Friday.
