OAKLAND — City leaders may consider offering a year’s worth of salary to a former top staff member who resigned after publicly released text messages revealed he had described women colleagues in inappropriate ways.
Jestin Johnson, who served as Oakland’s city administrator from June 2023 until his resignation in May, would waive any future legal claims against the city by accepting the severance package, which totals over $409,000.
His abrupt exit left Oakland without its highest-ranking unelected official. The administrator, appointed by the mayor with the confirmation of the Oakland City Council, is responsible for running all the city’s daily operations and has the final authority in implementing policies, carrying out services and hiring most employees.
The compensation offered would be close to what the former official earned in a year. Transparent California lists Johnson’s total pay in 2024 as more than $383,000.
Councilmember Ken Houston had proposed the severance plan, but on Thursday he temporarily withdrew its consideration, intending to re-introduce the item following a planned summer recess.
“It’s controversial,” Houston acknowledged in an interview. “I’m going to get a bunch of calls about this. But you’ve got to be proactive when you could get hit with a lawsuit.”
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)
Houston said he has not spoken to Johnson — either about a lawsuit, severance or anything else — since Johnson’s resignation. The council member has been outspoken in defending the former city administrator’s past actions, suggesting that the matter could have been resolved without the administrator leaving his job.
A potential future lawsuit by the former administrator, Houston said, could end up costing the city more money than the severance plan.
Text messages released to the public earlier this year — in response to an anonymous request — indicated that in 2024, Johnson had used suggestive language to describe women who worked at Oakland City Hall in conversations with then-Assistant City Administrator G. Harold Duffey.
During one exchange in March of that year, Duffey told his boss that a woman official “got the old player mesmerized,” referring to himself. Johnson responded 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 wrote.
In June 2024, the two men described different women staff members as “kryptonite,” in an apparent reference to their appeal and attractiveness.
“My goodness, she has a helluva walk,” Johnson wrote about an employee.
Soon after the messages surfaced, Johnson submitted his resignation to Mayor Barbara Lee, who characterized the administrator’s texts as “degrading and unprofessional.” Duffey, meanwhile, was placed on leave at his new job in the city of Brentwood.
Oakland city council member district seven Ken Houston speaks during the 2025 Inauguration Ceremony held at Oakland City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)
“We promptly conducted our own investigation and verified these communications, which are wholly incompatible with the values of this administration and those of the people of Oakland,” Lee said in a statement at the time.
The council has since confirmed a longtime assistant administrator, Elizabeth “Betsy” Lake, to fill the job on an interim basis while Lee’s office conducts a broader search for a permanent replacement.
Houston, known for his candor and stark informality, said Thursday that “if I were (Johnson), I would sue the city.”
“He made a mistake,” Houston said of the former administrator. “People make mistakes. The man did a great job; he should have been reprimanded, not fired.”
Lee kept Johnson — a holdover from former Mayor Sheng Thao’s administration — in his role after taking office last May and often appeared beside him at public events and news conferences. Following the release of Johnson’s text messages, however, the mayor said she “will not tolerate transgressions of this nature.”
Separately, Lee is urging voters this November to transfer many of the administrator’s daily responsibilities to the mayor’s office, including implementation of city policies and the ability to hire and fire most department heads.
The mayor’s sweeping reforms to the Oakland City Charter would dramatically reduce the administrator’s authorities. Lee began pursuing the changes earlier this year, before the scandal emerged around Johnson.
Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at shomik@bayareanewsgroup.com.