The resignation follows the surfacing of texts in which the administrator made disparaging remarks about women who worked under him. Not policy disagreements. Not tough management. Degrading personal commentary about the people he was supposed to lead.

Let's be clear: this isn't a partisan issue. This is a leadership issue. Oakland taxpayers fund these positions with the expectation that city administrators will, at a bare minimum, treat their employees like human beings. That bar is practically underground, and this guy still managed to trip over it.

What makes this particularly galling is the broader context. Oakland is a city drowning in real problems — a budget crisis, rising crime, businesses fleeing, and a population that's been losing faith in its government for years. Every dollar spent on city leadership is supposed to be an investment in competent governance. Instead, residents got a administrator who apparently spent his time sending juvenile texts about the women on his team.

The resignation is the right outcome, but it shouldn't be the end of the conversation. How long did people in Oakland's city government know about this behavior before it became public? Who saw the warning signs and looked the other way? These are the questions that matter, because the rot in municipal government is almost never about one bad actor — it's about the systems that protect them.

Oakland residents deserve better. They deserve administrators who show up, do the work, and treat public service like the serious responsibility it is. They're paying for professionals and getting a middle school group chat.

Here's a radical idea for Oakland's next hire: find someone who can manage a city and manage basic human decency. The two shouldn't be mutually exclusive.