Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao is trumpeting a 33% drop in crime and a new $2 million federal grant to the city's crime-fighting ceasefire strategy, but a couple major Bay Area newspapers just endorsed recalling her.  

It is now officially one week until Election Day 2024. Yikes! Are you feeling nervous? You are probably not as nervous as Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, who is facing a recall election on Tuesday, November 5.  

Thao has still not been cleared (nor implicated) in the FBI raid on her home a full four months ago. But there have been additional embarrassing developments for Thao since that raid, like the news that her boyfriend has some suspicious, undefined role at Oakland City Hall, and that she was driving a luxury SUV that the city hadn’t paid for. (That may be cleared up now.)

So Thao has gone on offense, or tried to, by touting her aggressive new encampment-clearing efforts, going on an interview blitz, and ramping up her anti-recall campaigning with the Asian American and Black communities. Now, as KRON4 reports, Thao is also hyping up a $2 million federal grant to fight crime that will go to Oakland's now-revived Operation Ceasefire violence prevention program.

“Crime is down. Crime is down, and you cannot hide bodies, so we know those numbers are accurate,” Thao said in a Monday press conference, per KRON4. “Due to the re-implementation of our ceasefire strategy, we are seeing a 33% reduction in homicides year-to-date. So far this year, 34 less people have been killed.”

KRON4 notes that in addition to the decrease in homicide, Thao is also promoting how violent crime is down 19% compared to this time last year.

The $2 million grant will be used to hire “life coaches” for 75 people who are deemed to be members of Oakland’s most vulnerable communities. Though as KRON4 also points out, “While the mayor is announcing the grant now, one week before Election Day, the city was actually notified they received the money one month ago.”  

Yet Thao’s campaign to fight back the recall did not get welcome news when the Bay Area News Group’s East Bay Times endorsed the recall in early October, saying, “On crime and the city budget, it’s hard to ignore how inept she has been in her nearly two years in office.” And then just this morning, the Chronicle endorsed recalling Sheng Thao as well.

“There’s no question that Thao has displayed a disturbing lack of basic management and organizational skills,” the Chron’s editorial board wrote. “At such a pivotal moment for Oakland, the city needs a leader who inspires confidence and has the competence to turn big problems around. Thao’s record shows that she is not that mayor. Voters should recall her.”

It would appear that Thao is polling poorly in the face of the recall effort. A recent poll from the Oakland Chamber of Commerce (an organization which tends to skew moderate and against progressives) claims that “a majority favors the Mayoral recall,” though it does not give specific polling numbers.  

Though as Oaklandside recently noted, about 80% of all recall donations come from one hedge fund executive living in Piedmont, which is technically not a part of Oakland. So does the recall really have true grassroots support across Oakland? Well, we’ll find out the answer to that a week from today.  

Related: Sheng Thao Insists She Was Not a Target of FBI Raid in Fiery Chronicle Interview [SFist]

Image: @Oak4Democracy via Twitter