After the Covid-19 pandemic, San Francisco drew national attention for how property crimes, fentanyl deaths and store closures had reversed the fortunes of a gleaming tech capital.
Across the bay in Oakland, Calif., a city long regarded as a funky and more affordable alternative, the problems have been even worse.
Exceedingly high crime rates have made many residents afraid to go out at night. An exodus of beloved sports teams has wounded their pride. A difficult pandemic recovery has shrunk the city’s population, widened a budget deficit and increased homelessness.
“We cannot take any more of this,” said Francisco Acosta, 58, a real estate agent who has lived in Oakland for more than two decades.
All of these factors have pushed Mayor Sheng Thao to the brink of losing her job less than two years after she was sworn into office. Ms. Thao, 39, is trying to survive the nation’s first recall of a major-city mayor in more than a decade, and she faces an uphill battle in Tuesday’s election.
If Oakland’s woes weren’t enough to threaten her chances, Ms. Thao’s home was raided by F.B.I. agents for hours this summer. She has not been charged with a crime and has insisted that she is not the target.
But the visit, captured by local media outlets, was a public-relations disaster that weakened residents’ confidence in her ability to lead the city. As part of the raid, F.B.I. agents searched three other properties in Oakland that were associated with a donor to Ms. Thao who owns a waste management company.
The Oakland mayor was working with a thin mandate to begin with. When she eked out a victory in 2022, she won by fewer than 700 votes in a race in which more than 125,000 were cast.
At the time, Ms. Thao relied on support from labor unions and progressive groups. This year, while she and her labor allies have raised $120,000 to fight the recall, her opponents have contributed more than $600,000, according to campaign finance records. The pro-recall group is largely funded by Philip Dreyfuss, a hedge fund manager who lives in Piedmont, a wealthy community that is entirely surrounded by Oakland.
In California, campaigns that are well-funded can pay signature-gatherers to qualify for a recall; once they’re on the ballot, three-quarters of recalls typically succeed. In 2003, voters ousted Gov. Gray Davis and ushered in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on the same ballot. In 2021, Republicans harnessed pandemic anger to qualify a recall vote against Gov. Gavin Newsom, but voters overwhelmingly decided to keep him in office.
Others have not been as fortunate in recent recalls. In 2022, San Franciscans removed three school board members and the district attorney.
This year, Oakland voters will not only weigh Ms. Thao’s fate but also consider whether to remove Pamela Price, the Alameda County district attorney.
Ms. Thao’s detractors acknowledge that she inherited many of Oakland’s troubles, but they say she hasn’t turned the city around quickly enough. Among their criticisms: She fired a popular police chief. She sold one of the city’s most valuable assets, the Oakland Coliseum, for a one-time budget fix. And she failed to apply for state funding that would have brought in millions of dollars to combat organized retail theft.
Ms. Thao argues that her ouster would only create more instability for the beleaguered city. If she were to be recalled, the president of the Oakland City Council would immediately take over as interim mayor until voters select Ms. Thao’s replacement through a special election, which would very likely occur early next year.
Ms. Thao said in an interview that she understood the frustration but needed more time to prove herself.
“Oaklanders want a safe city. They want to have their kids be able to walk to school and not have to pass up an encampment on the sidewalk or needles or what have you,” she said. But, she added, “These issues didn’t happen overnight, and they’re not going to be solved overnight.”
Crime increased nationwide in 2020 amid pandemic lockdowns, but in most places it dropped by 2023 to levels seen before the pandemic, including in San Francisco. In Oakland, the numbers for every type of crime, from burglaries to homicides, continued to rise through last year.
Oakland “does stand out when you compare it to the statewide numbers,” said Magnus Lofstrom, policy director of criminal justice at the Public Policy Institute of California.
Ms. Thao, however, said the city had begun to solve its crime problems.
Soon after taking office, she expanded a violence prevention approach that identifies gang members likely to commit gun violence, and then offers them job training, counseling and referrals to drug treatment. Researchers have found that the program has reduced fatal shootings by about third.
Ms. Thao also asked Governor Newsom to deploy California Highway Patrol officers in Oakland and provide automatic license plate readers to locate criminals. Since February, C.H.P. officers have seized more than 2,000 stolen vehicles and 100 illegal guns, and made more than 1,000 arrests, according to the state.
“We’ve only been in office for a year and a half, and we’ve already curbed crime,” Ms. Thao said.
In 2024 so far, violent crimes in Oakland, including homicides and robberies, have dropped by 19 percent from the same time period last year, according to police data. There has also been a 55 percent drop in burglaries. Most significantly, Ms. Thao said, the city is on track to log fewer than 100 homicides in a calendar year for the first time since 2019.
Still, business owners say they do not feel safe.
When In-N-Out Burger closed a location in Oakland in January, the company cited too many vehicle thefts and armed robberies. Denny’s also pointed to security concerns when it shuttered a location that had been open for more than 50 years. Other businesses have hired private security and told employees to stay inside during their lunch breaks.
At one of Oakland’s oldest restaurants, Fentons Creamery, the owners are considering closing up shop after 130 years of operation.
Generations of customers have visited Fentons and slid into plastic red booths to order heaping sundaes and milkshakes, under black-and-white photos of a bygone era. On the storefront glass, bright yellow signs now warn customers not to leave any valuables in their cars.
Last year, there were 300 break-ins in the store’s 15-car parking lot, often in broad daylight, and one employee was sent to the hospital because of injuries suffered during a robbery, said Gregory Scott Whidden, the Fentons owner. Mr. Whidden, who has lived in Oakland for more than 60 years, said he planned to close if another staff member or guest were injured.
“Wars, pandemic, blackouts, earthquakes, floods — we’ve stayed open for business 363 days a year, but this is different. We can’t in our right mind continue to open up and say, ‘Come on down,’ knowing we’re drawing you into harm’s way,” Mr. Whidden said in an interview.
He said he was supporting the recall of Ms. Thao, and the ouster of Ms. Price.
Ms. Thao served as a member of the City Council for four years before she became mayor. She grew up in Stockton, Calif., and is the daughter of Hmong refugees who fled warfare in Laos. She is also a survivor of domestic violence who once lived out of her car with her son when he was an infant. When she was sworn in, Ms. Thao became the most prominent Hmong American officeholder in the United States.
Several notable Democrats have tried to defend her and criticized recall backers as wealthy outsiders undermining the will of the city’s voters. Among her supporters are Representative Barbara Lee and State Senator Nancy Skinner.
It is a theme Ms. Thao’s campaign has used throughout the fall. At an anti-recall demonstration in the city’s Chinatown last month, her supporters held signs declaring that “Oakland is not for sale” and “Rich people manipulate the recall, citizens fight back.”
When the mayor assumed the podium, she took a more measured approach. She asked Oaklanders to give her two more years to finish out her term.
“Run against me in 2026 when I’m up for re-election,” Ms. Thao told the crowd.
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