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In the conversation with Duffey, Johnson floated the idea of promoting a female department head to an assistant city administrator role.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Duffey, who himself was then serving as an assistant city administrator at the time, texted back: \u201cI would have to quit. I could not take it. I would go insane.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cShe is kryptonite\u00a0\u2014 I get all weak,\u201d Duffey continued, following up with: \u201cShe is such a nice person, happy and smart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson responded, \u201cMy kryptonite is one of her deputies,\u201d he texted back, naming the woman. \u201cMy goodness, she\u2019s has a helluva walk,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
In another exchange, Duffey mentioned the female department head again, saying she was \u201ctough.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGot the old player mesmerized,\u201d Duffey texted Johnson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m telling you, you have to sit next to her. I have to force myself to only look in her eyes,\u201d Johnson responded. \u201cShe had me a little giddy yesterday when we had to take pics \u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Johnson and Duffey did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.<\/p>\n
Johnson started as city administrator in June 2023, appointed by Thao. He has continued to serve under Mayor Barbara Lee, overseeing the city\u2019s daily operations. Johnson\u2019s contract\u00a0\u2014 which guarantees him a salary of $340,000 a year plus a transportation allowance of $750 per month\u00a0\u2014 was set to expire in January 2027.<\/p>\n
Prior to joining Oakland, Johnson worked as IBM\u2019s corporate social responsibility manager. Before that, he was Atlanta\u2019s deputy chief operating officer from 2019 to 2021, and assistant county manager of Athens-Clarke County in Georgia from 2016 to 2019.<\/p>\n
Messages show that Duffey and Johnson had a personal relationship that extended beyond work. In texts, the two discussed grabbing dinner together at Scott\u2019s Seafood and meeting for hikes at Reinhardt Regional Redwood Forest.<\/p>\n
Duffey served as director of the public works department from July 2021 through May 2024, then as an assistant city administrator.\u00a0 He left Oakland in September 2025 to take a job with the city of Brentwood in Contra Costa County.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Elizabeth \u201cBetsy\u201d Lake, who has served in the city administration for eight years, will serve as acting city administrator, the mayor said.<\/p>\n
Council Member Ken Houston came to Johnson\u2019s defense in an interview, saying that the city administrator\u2019s comments to Duffey shouldn\u2019t have\u00a0pushed him to resign.<\/p>\n
\u201cJestin Johnson was one of the best city administrators I\u2019ve seen in decades,\u201d said Houston told the Chronicle. \u201cI\u2019m truly devastated for this loss, and this has been taken way too far, just for people being human.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a man goes too far, men will check each other \u2026 there is a point you don\u2019t go past,\u201d Houston added. \u201cBut there\u2019s nothing wrong with men sharing their natural feelings with friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oakland City Administrator Jestin Johnson is resigning. Courtesy of Jestin Johnson Oakland City Administrator\u00a0Jestin Johnson submitted his resignation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[184,7,332,143,145,144,13],"class_list":["post-320322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-east-bay","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}