In December, Oakland announced the hiring of Dr. Jason Lester to lead the Human Services Department, which oversees homelessness services and programs for seniors, disabled residents, and children. In a press release citing his extensive career in social services, Mayor Barbara Lee said his \u201cexperience and dedication to Oakland values make him the perfect person for the role.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But after five months, the city terminated Lester\u2019s employment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
City Administrator Jestin Johnson confirmed Lester\u2019s departure to The Oaklandside last Wednesday. Johnson thanked Lester for his service and wished him well in his next endeavor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEffective immediately, Lea Lakes will serve as Interim Director as we work on a nationwide search for the next permanent director,\u201d Johnson said in a statement. Lakes was hired last October and previously served as the deputy director of Human Services.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy senior leadership team and I are working closely with the department and our partners to support [Human Services] and ensure continuity in our work,\u201d Johnson added.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lester, who moved to Oakland from Colorado, said his termination came as a shock. In an interview with The Oaklandside, he said the city had given him $10,000 to relocate, and he had been planning to move his family here.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a 43-year-old man who has had an extensive career,\u201d Lester said. \u201cI can\u2019t believe I would be fired from this role.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to Lester, Johnson told him that the city wanted to take the department in another direction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an email, city spokesperson Karen Boyd said it\u2019s the city\u2019s practice not to comment on personnel matters.<\/p>\n
Lester has his own theory about his firing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During his short time in Oakland, Lester said he repeatedly butted heads with Assistant City Administrator Michelle Phillips about department operations. He believes he was pushed out after these conflicts with Phillips, whose job includes providing support to Human Services. He said Phillips wanted to remove him to give the director\u2019s job to Lea Lakes, who previously worked with her in the city of Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this was the whole plan, and I don\u2019t think she expected me to come in pushing back on many things,\u201d Lester said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Johnson and Phillips denied this in an interview, with Johnson noting that if this were their intention, the city wouldn\u2019t have gone through a full recruitment process for the director role. He added that Lakes didn\u2019t apply for the director role and that the city has an outside firm handling the recruitment process for the next permanent director.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWith respect to ACA Phillips wanting that job to go to [Lakes], that is certainly not true,\u201d Johnson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Boyd said Phillips oversees Human Services as part of her management portfolio. For the past few months, Phillips has provided support and guidance to the department\u2019s managers \u2014 Lester and Lakes \u2014 as they were onboarded and transitioned into their roles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis guidance was intended to ensure they were well versed in city policies, procedures, and practices, as well as management expectations,\u201d Boyd said in an email.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Phillips said she maintained a direct line of communication with Lester during his tenure. Noting that the department lacked permanent leadership for a long time, and that Lester was coming to Oakland from a different state, she said she wanted to ensure Lester had the tools he needed for the job.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way I saw it was I was making myself available and coaching new leadership to be successful,\u201d Phillips said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A series of disagreements preceded Lester\u2019s firing<\/p>\n
One of Lester\u2019s big concerns was Lakes\u2019 role. According to Lester, Phillips asked him to ask Lakes to lead Head Start, the childcare and early childhood education programs overseen by Human Services. Lester said that when he asked about whether Lakes had completed a background check, Phillips appeared upset.<\/p>\n
Phillips said she had a conversation with Lester about the Head Start role after the former director resigned. But she maintains that she never told Lester to appoint Lakes to the role.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city has since appointed an interim manager with all the required training, Live Scan clearance, and Head Start experience, according to spokesperson Karen Boyd. City officials declined to share the name of this person, saying that they haven\u2019t been announced yet to staff.<\/p>\n
According to Lester, he also had a disagreement with Phillips over the reopening of the West Oakland Senior Center<\/a>, which has been closed for roughly two years for renovations. Lester said he proposed a soft reopening of the center on March 30, but Phillips wanted to postpone the opening to April 22 so Mayor Barbara Lee and Councilmember Carroll Fife could attend the ceremony.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPretty much everything I did, there was serious pushback,\u201d Lester said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Phillips and Johnson said the delayed opening had nothing to do with making sure elected officials could attend. According to Johnson, the center isn\u2019t ready to open; he noted that there was a break-in two months ago, and that they still need to furnish it and figure out staffing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Phillips said several seniors who did a walk-through of the center had been unhappy about the incomplete conditions. She said Lester told her at a meeting that he planned to reopen the center, and she asked him to delay it to address these issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Lester, Phillips opposed his meeting with representatives from SEIU Local 1021, who represent some Human Services workers. He said the union had grievances about workers not getting breaks, not receiving hands-on supervision, and being mistreated.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI got the information from the union and center directors, but [Phillips] twisted it to make it about my lack of leadership,\u201d Lester said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Johnson said all department directors are instructed to make sure they have representation from the city\u2019s employee relations team when they meet with the unions. Phillips said she repeated this directive to Lester after she learned he had met with the union without a representative.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI never told him he couldn\u2019t meet with them,\u201d Phillips said.<\/p>\n Human Services has had a rocky couple of years<\/p>\n In 2023, then-Mayor Sheng Thao\u2019s proposed budget called for merging<\/a> Human Services with the Parks, Recreation, and Youth Development Department, while removing homeless services to a different department. That didn\u2019t come to pass, but the proposal coincided with the beginning of a chaotic period for the department.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last summer, the city placed Diveena Cooppan, the director of the Head Start program, on administrative leave<\/a>, along with another employee. City officials didn\u2019t share why. This deeply concerned advocates of the program, who at the time were worried about the Trump administration targeting<\/a> funding for Head Start programs around the country. Lester said Cooppan was brought back but retired this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to public records, four city employees involved in Human Services filed legal claims against Oakland last year. Several made allegations that they faced discrimination and harassment.\u00a0<\/p>\n