Oakland’s top administrator abruptly resigned Friday after newly released text messages showed him making suggestive comments about women who worked at City Hall, a shake-up that leaves Mayor Barbara Lee without a key official as she pushes to overhaul the city’s governance structure.
Jestin Johnson, the city administrator since June 2023, submitted his resignation after his exchanges with another top staff member appeared in a large batch of records made public for the first time last week.
Lee, who had kept Johnson on staff after taking office last year, said Sunday she accepted his resignation before the weekend after learning of “certain degrading and unprofessional communications” involving the administrator, characterizing them as “wholly incompatible with the values of this administration.”
“Under my watch, I will not tolerate transgressions of this nature,” Lee said in a statement.
The city administrator, who is appointed by the mayor with the confirmation of the Oakland City Council, oversees thousands of city workers and has the final say in how policies are implemented, services are carried out, and most other officials are hired.
Johnson, hired by former Mayor Sheng Thao, was a rare top staffer who remained on the job after Lee took office a year ago, having proved himself as a collegial presence at Oakland City Hall amid an era of turmoil.
But the city administrator’s casual demeanor was cast in a new light by communications released this week that were first reported by The Oaklandside.
City Administrator Jestin Johnson announces the sale of a key infrastructure bond during a press conference at City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
In text messages in 2024 between Johnson and then-Assistant City Administrator G. Harold Duffey, the two men use suggestive language while discussing women colleagues.
During one exchange, in March of that year, Duffey tells his boss that a woman official “got the old player mesmerized,” referring to himself. Johnson responds that “you have to sit next to her … I have to force myself to look into her eyes.”
“She had me a little giddy yesterday,” Johnson writes.
In June 2024, the two described different women staff members as “kryptonite,” apparently referencing their appeal.
“My goodness, she has a helluva walk,” Johnson writes about an official.
Neither Johnson nor Duffey responded Sunday to requests for comment about the messages or Johnson’s resignation over the weekend. Johnson’s communications had been published by the city in response to an extensive records request filed last summer by an unknown party.
Elizabeth “Betsy” Lake, a longtime assistant city administrator in Oakland, will serve temporarily in Johnson’s role, officials said.
A native of Atlanta who previously served in a deputy role in the city government there, Johnson had carved out a role as an approachable diplomat in an otherwise contentious Thao administration.
He had previously worked for the Clarke County government in Georgia, and before arriving in Oakland, he served as a “corporate social responsibility” manager at IBM.
Duffey, who left the city earlier this year, was hired in April as the city manager for Brentwood. Before his departure from Oakland, he gave a key interview to federal agents in an investigation that led to criminal charges against Thao, the ex-mayor.
Brentwood city officials said Monday they expected to release a statement addressing Duffey’s conduct at his past job, but did not provide a time frame.
Johnson’s sudden exit, meanwhile, leaves the city without a top official just months before voters in the November election may decide on a new governance structure that could reduce the city administrator’s day-to-day authority by elevating the mayor’s administrative power.
Under the city’s current spread of power, the mayor does not sit on the council but can fire without cause the city administrator, who otherwise oversees most of City Hall’s operations.
In recent weeks, Lee has been recruiting council votes behind the scenes to place a measure on the November ballot that would give the mayor veto power over council decisions, though the council could also override a veto with a subsequent two-thirds vote.
By approving the measure, voters would also allow the mayor to absorb much of the administrator’s responsibilities, leaving the latter in charge of only the Human Resources and Finance directors, instead of all the city’s department heads.
Lee took office last May after Thao’s recall from office last year, kept Johnson in his role and often appeared beside him publicly, including at a news conference last week where both praised the benefits of a tax measure that will go before voters in the June 2 election.
Staff writer Hema Sivanandam contributed to this story.
Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at shomik@bayareanewsgroup.com.