{"id":401588,"date":"2026-07-17T01:22:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T01:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/401588\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T01:22:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T01:22:22","slug":"oakland-could-pay-400000-to-official-who-resigned-over-degrading-texts-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/401588\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland could pay $400,000 to official who resigned over ‘degrading’ texts"},"content":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND \u2014 City leaders may consider offering a year\u2019s worth of salary to a former top staff member who resigned after publicly released text messages revealed<\/a> he had\u00a0described women colleagues in inappropriate ways.<\/p>\n

Jestin Johnson, who served as Oakland\u2019s city administrator<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s daily operations and has the final authority in implementing policies, carrying out services and hiring most employees.<\/p>\n

The compensation offered would be close to what the former official earned in a year. Transparent California lists Johnson\u2019s total pay in 2024 as more than $383,000.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s controversial,\u201d Houston acknowledged in an interview. \u201cI\u2019m going to get a bunch of calls about this. But you\u2019ve got to be proactive when you could get hit with a lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CityCity 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)<\/p>\n

Houston said he has not spoken to Johnson \u2014 either about a lawsuit, severance or anything else \u2014 since Johnson\u2019s resignation. The council member has been outspoken in defending the former city administrator\u2019s past actions, suggesting that the matter could have been resolved without the administrator leaving his job.<\/p>\n

A potential future lawsuit by the former administrator, Houston said, could end up costing the city more money than the severance plan.<\/p>\n

Text messages released to the public earlier this year \u2014 in response to an anonymous request \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

During one exchange in March of that year, Duffey told his boss that a woman official \u201cgot the old player mesmerized,\u201d referring to himself. Johnson responded that \u201cyou have to sit next to her \u2026 I have to force myself to look into her eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had me a little giddy yesterday,\u201d Johnson wrote.<\/p>\n

In June 2024, the two men described different women staff members as \u201ckryptonite,\u201d in an apparent reference to their appeal and attractiveness.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy goodness, she has a helluva walk,\u201d Johnson wrote about an employee.<\/p>\n

Soon after the messages surfaced, Johnson submitted his resignation to Mayor Barbara Lee, who characterized the administrator\u2019s texts as \u201cdegrading and unprofessional.\u201d Duffey, meanwhile, was placed on leave at his new job<\/a> in the city of Brentwood.<\/p>\n

\"OaklandOakland 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)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d Lee said in a statement at the time.<\/p>\n

The council has since confirmed a longtime assistant administrator, Elizabeth \u201cBetsy\u201d Lake, to fill the job on an interim basis while Lee\u2019s office conducts a broader search for a permanent replacement.<\/p>\n

Houston, known for his candor and stark informality<\/a>, said Thursday that \u201cif I were (Johnson), I would sue the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe made a mistake,\u201d Houston said of the former administrator. \u201cPeople make mistakes. The man did a great job; he should have been reprimanded, not fired.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee kept Johnson \u2014 a holdover from former Mayor Sheng Thao\u2019s administration \u2014 in his role after taking office last May and often appeared beside him at public events and news conferences. Following the release of Johnson\u2019s text messages, however, the mayor said she \u201cwill not tolerate transgressions of this nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Separately, Lee is urging voters this November to transfer many of the administrator\u2019s daily responsibilities<\/a> to the mayor\u2019s office, including implementation of city policies and the ability to hire and fire most department heads.<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s sweeping reforms to the Oakland City Charter would dramatically reduce the administrator\u2019s authorities. Lee began pursuing the changes earlier this year, before the scandal emerged around Johnson.<\/p>\n

Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at shomik@bayareanewsgroup.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND \u2014 City leaders may consider offering a year\u2019s worth of salary to a former top staff member…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[7,8,100,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-401588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-california","tag-california-news","tag-news","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401588","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=401588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}