Two recalls in Oakland show frustration about crime 'boiling over'

Nov. 1, 2024 3 AM PT

Voters will decide whether to recall Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County Dist. Atty. Pamela Price.
The central issue in both recalls is the perception among many residents that crime is out of control.
Oakland’s mayor contends that crime is down, and a recall could create havoc in the city.

OAKLAND — When Sheng Thao was sworn in as mayor of Oakland in January of 2023, a raft of feel-good stories followed, often featuring beaming portraits of the mayor in front of sun-drenched civic landmarks.

FILE - Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao speaks during a news conference at Laney

Oakland’s new mayor was, as the New York Times noted, suddenly the nation’s most prominent Hmong elected official. The Washington Post interviewed Thao about her journey from homeless young mother to the city’s chief executive. Her election, said the Guardian, seemed to represent a progressive victory in a region where tech billionaires were intent on yanking politicians to the right.

But, oh, how the political mood has changed. On Tuesday, Thao is facing a recall election, bankrolled in large part by a wealthy hedge fund manager who lives just outside of Oakland in the small city of Piedmont. Many political observers expect her to lose her seat, despite the fact that she retains backing from some of Oakland’s most powerful elected officials, including Rep. Barbara Lee and state Sen. Nancy Skinner.

Voters in Oakland and across Alameda County will also weigh in on the recall of Dist. Atty. Pamela Price, the first Black woman to hold the job, who is less than two years into a six-year term.

The grievances that recall backers have listed against Thao are numerous, and include allegations of fiscal mismanagement and even failing to keep the Oakland A’s baseball team in the city.

Alameda County Dist. Atty. Pamela Price speaks during a protest in Oakland.

Thao has said that she is “working tirelessly for Oakland’s future” and that she has “tackled rising crime, homelessness and budget challenges head-on.”

The recall against Price, a former civil rights attorney, was launched within months of her taking office. She had campaigned on a platform that included pledges to reform the justice system, stop “over-criminalizing” young people and hold law enforcement accountable for misconduct.

Critics have alleged that she has mismanaged her office. Price has countered that the recall is fundamentally undemocratic and represents an attempt to overthrow the will of the voters. Her campaign spokesperson, Venus Gist, said the recall is more than a local issue. “It’s part of a broader national agenda,” she said, that has also targeted progressive district attorneys in Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

Still, a central issue in both Bay Area recalls is the perception among many voters that violence and property crime are out of control. Statistics showing that violent crime is trending down have done little to assuage that sentiment.

“Lives have been lost, property destroyed, businesses have shut down, and fear and collective trauma are daily occurrences for Oaklanders,” Thao’s recall backers declared on their website.

The campaign to recall Price, meanwhile, is campaigning on a message to “Bring Safety Back to Alameda County.”

A large warning sign in front of an In-N-Out burger outlet

The attempted recalls of progressive politicians here in the deepest blue heart of California come as voters statewide appear poised to crack down on crime. A UC Berkeley/L.A. Times poll conducted last month found that a solid majority of voters statewide support Proposition 36, which would impose stricter sentences for repetitive theft and offenses involving the deadly drug fentanyl. The initiative, which is opposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, is projected to cost the state upward of hundreds of millions of dollars annually in increased prison spending — but voters don’t seem to care.

Oakland has become a focal point statewide for fears about crime. Just a few years ago, the city was heralded as the next chic, hip thing, its tree-lined streets bustling with new boutiques, buzzing restaurants and rents so high that it sparked an anti-gentrification backlash. These days, swaths of the city of 450,000 feel like ground zero for a dystopian version of California. The number of unhoused residents has skyrocketed. Restaurants are closing and car break-ins are so common that people complain that thieves sometimes steal worthless items like old rags.

In February, the governor announced he was sending 120 CHP officers to Oakland to try to combat retail theft, which many said had become brazen. “What’s happening in this beautiful city and surrounding area is alarming and unacceptable,” Newsom said.

Many, including a spokesperson for Mayor Thao, said things have improved — but not enough for some locals.

“I was having lunch at Lake Merritt not long ago,” recalled Eric Jaye, a veteran Democratic political consultant based in San Francisco, “and someone was just walking up and down in broad daylight at noon, breaking into cars.”

A resident tells an Oakland police officer that he was sprayed by Mace on the city's International Boulevard.

Indeed, Oakland voters strolling on the path around Lake Merritt’s sparkling blue waters on a recent sunny afternoon brought up crime as a pressing issue again and again — whether or not they supported the recall of Thao.

Setenay Bozkurt, 51, who was walking with her friend and her very-well-behaved goldendoodle Billie, said she plans to vote “No” on the recall — but only because she fears the disruption and resulting special election would cost the cash-strapped city money it can ill afford to lose. She added that she has witnessed numerous smash-and-grab car burglaries last winter and spring.

Her walking partner, who would give only her first name, Belinda, said she was a “Yes” vote. “I don’t like what’s happening in the city,” she said. “Businesses are closing. Crime. People are afraid to go out.”

A few blocks away, UC Berkeley student Ali Momhammed, 22, who grew up in Oakland and still lives there, said he was also planning to support the recall.

“I don’t know if you’ve been walking around here,” he said, gesturing to the sleepy streets between downtown and Lake Merritt, where many businesses have closed or appeared devoid of customers on what should have been a bustling weekday afternoon. “But do you see what I see?”

The Thao campaign points out — correctly — that the mayor came into office amid a post-pandemic crime wave, and that crime rates have begun to trend down, supported in part, the Thao campaign said, by programs the mayor has put in place.

“The whole [recall] campaign is built off a fallacy that no longer works,’” said William Fitzgerald, spokesperson for the anti-recall campaign.

“Things are getting better in Oakland,” he added, noting that “chaos agents” including the mayor’s political opponents and a hedge fund executive are pushing their own agenda for the city.

On Wednesday, the Thao campaign released an “open letter” to the executive, Philip Dreyfuss, accusing him of “trying to buy our city government.” The San Francisco Chronicle reported, drawing on campaign finance reports, that Dreyfus has poured more than $1 million into local races, including recalling Thao and the district attorney, Price.

Dreyfuss lives in Piedmont, a small wealthy enclave of trees and mansions that is surrounded by the city of Oakland. In her letter, Thao accused him of destabilizing the city and trying to “hijack our democracy” not because he cares about public safety but because he wants the city and its port to be more open to coal projects pushed by his hedge fund, Farallon Capital.

Dreyfuss did not respond to a request for comment, and he has not spoken to other local media. But a spokesperson for the recall campaign, Seneca Scott, denied that Dreyfuss was backing a mayoral recall as a backdoor to boosting his business interests.

“Why does he care?” Scott said. “He has five children. He has a wife. He has a family. He doesn’t want to move.”

Other issues looming over the race include an FBI probe that involved a raid on Thao’s home in June, right around the time recall backers turned in enough signatures to put the recall measure on the ballot. The residence of a waste company official who has contracts with the city of Oakland and has made campaign contributions to Thao and other elected officials was raided the same day.

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao waves at a 2023 news conference

Thao has said she has been told she is not a target. She gave a tearful speech days after the raid, saying: “I want to be crystal clear. I have done nothing wrong. I can tell you with confidence that this investigation is not about me.”

She also questioned the tactics of the FBI, saying: “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.”

Political experts said the law enforcement raid doesn’t appear to be a big factor in the recall — but the spectacle of the FBI entering the mayor’s house definitely doesn’t help quell voters’ concerns about crime and chaos.

“It’s years, a decade of frustration that is finally just boiling over,” said Jim Ross, an Oakland-based political consultant who is not working for either side.

The pair of recalls, he added, represent a new trend in California politics — one that could be coming soon to the rest of the state. Just as the Bay Area was early to pioneer gay marriage, higher minimum wages, and smoking regulations, voters should now expect recalls funded by rich individuals with big interests in local politics.

In recent years, a group of wealthy San Francisco residents poured money into recalling that city’s progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin, and three school board members. The phenomenon has already been spotted elsewhere. In Northern California’s rural Shasta County in 2022, a rich former resident, furious at county officials, helped fund a recall of one of the county supervisors.

“We live in this world now where one rich dude can fund a recall,” Ross said. “You have billionaires willing to spend massive amounts of money to dictate policies in cities.”

Two recalls on the Oakland ballot show frustration about crime ‘boiling over’

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