Yesterday, Oaklandside’s Senior News Editor, Darwin BondGraham, spoke on KQED’s Forum radio news show about Mayor Sheng Thao’s tumultuous journey as Oakland mayor in light of the recent FBI raid on her home.
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“To describe her as an embattled mayor is not an overstatement,” said BondGraham.
BondGraham was joined by Annelise Finney, a reporter for KQED, and Dan Lindheim, a policy scholar and urban affairs expert from UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy and former City Administrator of Oakland, along with Forum host Alexis Madrigal.
The group spoke on the long list of struggles that have defined Thao’s short tenure, from the ransomware attack at the start of her appointment to the recall campaign against her to the city’s budget crisis and, of course, the recent FBI raid of her home in Oakland.
At the top of the show, BondGraham broke down what little we do know about the FBI raids on the mayor and the Duong family, the owners of California Waste Solutions recycling company and the other subjects of the investigation.
The group also discussed the upcoming vote on the Oakland city budget and how the deficit the city faces has become intrinsically linked with the mayor’s performance.
BondGraham noted that Oakland’s general fund is directly tied to the funding it gives to public safety departments like the fire department and the police, which limits the city’s ability to make vital cuts.
“You can save millions, maybe tens of millions if you scale back fire services, but keep in mind Oakland is a town that almost burned down in the early 90s,” said BondGraham. “So if you cut fire services, you are kind of playing Russian roulette with the entire city. Similarly, with the police department…we already have one of the lowest police officer-to-crime staffing ratios in the country, and the officers are very overworked. So yeah, not a lot of options. ”
Regarding the mayor’s role in the crises that have plagued her, Lindheim highlighted how little Thao, or any mayor for that matter, can do about these issues.
“In Oakland everyone thinks it’s a strong mayor form of government, and the voters twice voted for it, but it’s really a city manager form of government,” said Lindheim.
The mayor is responsible for picking the city manager in Oakland. However, Lindheim noted that the mayor does not have much authority over how the city is run, except for that appointment of both the city manager as well as the appointment of the police chief.
“It’s not really her responsibility to run the city,” said Lindheim. “It certainly is her responsibility to be the leader of the city.”
Callers from the Bay Area also joined the show to share their opinions on the mayor’s handling of these crises—both in favor and against—and ask questions about what this all means for Oakland.
“Mayor Thao has heart,” said one listener who went on to suggest that perhaps patterns of corruption that precede her tenure and issues with public perception have gotten in her way.
While all present for the conversation shared what they know about the mayor’s journey, each emphasized that the public still has a lot to learn.
“I think at this point it’s all speculation,” said BondGraham in regards to the theories on why the mayor’s home was raided last week. “Right now, I think everyone would do themselves a favor by not jumping to conclusions and just really following the facts where they go.”
Check out the full interview on KQED’s Forum here.
