{"id":320991,"date":"2026-05-18T09:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T09:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/320991\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T09:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T09:06:15","slug":"oakland-city-administrator-jestin-johnson-resigns-after-degrading-text-messages-allegedly-discovered-mayor-barbara-lee-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/320991\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland City Administrator Jestin Johnson resigns after ‘degrading’ text messages allegedly discovered, Mayor Barbara Lee says"},"content":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND, Calif. — “Degrading and unprofessional…” Those were the words used Sunday by Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, describing text messages that the City Administrator Jestin Johnson made about female employees.<\/p>\n

Johnson resigned over the weekend after inappropriate workplace communications were allegedly discovered, according to Lee’s office.<\/p>\n

Lee said in a statement Sunday that Johnson offered his resignation and she accepted, after an investigation into the communications was opened last week.<\/p>\n

The San Francisco Chronicle<\/a> reports those texts from 2024 were released last week as part of public records requests that were subpoenaed during a corruption investigation into recalled Mayor Sheng Thao.<\/p>\n

Johnson could not be immediately reached Sunday to corroborate or refute Lee’s characterization of the communications.<\/p>\n

MORE: Ex-Oakland mayor, co-defendants in court seeking to suppress evidence in federal corruption case<\/a><\/p>\n

“On Friday evening, I learned about certain degrading and unprofessional communications involving Mr. Johnson,” Lee said in a statement. “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. Under my watch, I will not tolerate transgressions of this nature.”<\/p>\n

Lee appointed Assistant City Administrator Elizabeth “Betsy” Lake to take on the position on an interim basis. Lake has worked with the city of Oakland for the past 8 years and has 30 years of experience practicing law, according to Lee’s office.<\/p>\n

Johnson was appointed by then-Mayor Sheng Thao in 2023 for the position, which draws a yearly salary of $340,000. Johnson was city administrator for just under three years.<\/p>\n

ABC7 Eyewitness News contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

\"Now<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, re-transmission or reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. Is prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND, Calif. — “Degrading and unprofessional…” Those were the words used Sunday by Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, describing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[133877,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-320991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-133877","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320991","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=320991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}