FBI raid at her home just the latest obstacle for Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao
In 18 months since Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao took office, she has faced one crisis after another, leaving residents and officials wondering if they must move on amid a growing list of challenges and questions.
For political strategy and public affairs expert Jim Ross, the crisis facing Thao and the city of Oakland isn't really the investigation that came to the mayor's home last Thursday. It is the compounding of many different problems she and the city have encountered since early 2023.
"The mayor took office in the midst of the hacking IT denial for service, facing a hundreds of millions of dollars deficit," said Ross. "The stadium negotiations, which were unraveling, crime and crime issues; all of those things as she took office."
While she has faced steady criticism over everything from her firing of Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong, the Oakland A's decision to move to Las Vegas and the rampant crime plaguing Oakland's streets, Thao paused to defend her record Monday morning when she made her first public comments since the raids last week.
"Nothing is going to distract me from the progress we have made in the past 18 months," she said.
Thao also claimed that her unique background, rising from being a homeless victim of domestic violence 15 years ago, sleeping in her car with her infant son, to become mayor of one of the Bay Area's biggest cities, had something to do with her current circumstances.
"What I do know is that this wouldn't have gone down the way it did if I was rich, if I had gone to elite private schools or if I had come
from money," she said during her defiant public statement Monday.
"I think she felt like she needed to do something very strong, a really strong statement," said Ross. "You know, not a lot of people stood up for her, and I think that she felt like if she wasn't gonna defend herself, nobody else is gonna do it for her."
And while no one knows yet where the investigation is going, Ross says it is all of these events together that are bringing more attention to the FBI probe, even though the public may not be provided details any time soon.
"If this was a normal course of events, this would be a one-day story. But because of, I think, the challenges Oakland has faced over
the past year and a half, and the fact that there is a recall election in November, this one event becomes much more significant," said Ross.
In the latest development for Thao's administration Tuesday, her chief spokesperson Francis Zamora resigned from his job, less than a day after the embattled mayor's attorney stepped down.
Thao is also facing a recall. The effort to recall her moved forward recently with the Alameda County Registrar of Voters verifying there were enough valid signatures on the petition.
Meanwhile, the work on the city's budget continued with a meeting of the finance committee Tuesday, where they said the real work will come at meetings later this week.
CBS News Bay Area tried to ask some questions of the members present, but they declined to comment. But at the end of that meeting, one member did make vague reference to the current situation, telling the audience in the chamber that the business of the city is proceeding. Further budget meetings are set for Wednesday and Friday.
