Texts reveal how Sacramento managers talk about the council. It’s not pretty | Opinion
Howard Chan was so influential as city manager of Sacramento, he remains on the city payroll for all of 2025 despite resigning from his position last December. Not long after walking away because the city wouldn’t meet his contract terms, it appeared that Chan was returning to a new position of influence as a “special advisor” to his successor, interim City Manager Leyne Milstein.
Or so Chan announced on social media mid-January, to the surprise of pretty much everyone at City Hall.
It turns out this latest drama involving Chan was about his outsized ego running headlong into city officials who were done with all the drama he created in 2024 with his constant lobbying for himself, his pay and benefits. By the end, even some friends in business and labor had grown weary of it and him.
So, how precisely did Chan come off declaring a specific role for himself?
Text messages obtained from the city paint a complicated, contradictory and expletive-laced narrative.
An ‘auto-generated’ job announcement
At first, Chan texted new City Councilman Phil Pluckebaum and interim City Manager Leyne Milstein that the inaccurate announcement he made on the business networking site LinkedIn was not his fault. He said his posting had been “auto-generated” by LinkedIn as he edited his profile to update it with his new job title, one that he had seemingly invented entirely on his own.
Even after the city was forced to publicly disavow any such role for Chan and after private texts from Milstein to remove it from LinkedIn, Chan did not. Supporters of the former city manager had already begun congratulating him.
Communications between two public officials via text are public records along with email, confirmed by the California Supreme Court in a landmark 2017 case. The day after Chan’s unexpected announcement on Jan. 14, The Bee requested copies of all digital communications between him and Milstein for the first half of the month.
After no less than five delays in providing the records, the city provided some of the texts only after phone calls from a public records attorney representing The Bee.
It has been no secret on social media sites like Facebook that Chan, Milstein and Pluckebaum socialize, particularly on weekend bicycle rides. In Sacramento, the lines between friendships, political decisions and power have long been blurry.
For eight years Milstein was a lieutenant to Chan as she rose to an assistant city manager position during his tenure. Then the roles were reversed.
In his unrelenting campaign to increase his salary and extend his contract, the city council, led by former Mayor Darrell Steinberg, punted the final decision to his successor, new Mayor Kevin McCarty. In his second meeting as mayor, McCarty and a council majority rejected a contract extension on Dec. 17, leading Chan to resign.
The councilman who ‘doesn’t know anything’
On Jan. 7, seven of the nine council members voted to appoint Milstein as the interim while a search for a permanent manager commences. Councilmember Mai Vang voted no and Roger Dickinson abstaining.
The vote was texting fodder between Milstein and Chan.
Why didn’t she get the support of Vang and Dickinson?
“Mai is racial equity,” Milstein texted Chan, date uncertain. “Dickinson wanted outside.”
In previous months, Vang and Chan had repeatedly clashed on setting racial equity policies for the city. And at the Jan. 7 meeting, Dickinson had expressed interest to search for an interim leader outside of City Hall.
“He doesn’t know anything!” Chan texted back to Milstein. She did not defend the councilmember. And Chan went on.
“I will be here to support you however you need,” he said. “These doofus’ (doofusi????) are going to beg you to stay, you watch?” Again, Milstein did not defend her council. Instead, she thanked Chan. And as for staying on longer than an interim manager, she responded, “No, no, no!”
A few days later, Milstein texted Chan with a request.
“Hey, please change your title in LinkedIn to ACM (assistant city manager),” Milstein texted. “Thanks.”
Mind you, at this point, Milstein was very much the boss, and Chan the subordinate. But he would not act like one. He refused the request.
“It is a working title reflective of what I will be doing this next year…supporting you!” Chan responded. “I want to make it clear that I report to you, and not the council in any capacity. The council has made it crystal clear they do not value me or my perspective on city matters.”
“Please reconsider,” Milstein said.
Even after Chan’s self-elevation became a media event and drawing questions from city council members, Chan wouldn’t budge.
“I read the article today from the (Bee) ed board and it’s absolutely ridiculous!” Chan texted to Milstein and councilman Pluckebaum. “I hope either/both of you can share with the council that the message on my LinkedIn page was autogenerated as a result of me updating my profile.” Again, he would make it quite clear that neither Milstein nor Pluckebaum had any authority over his city job description. “And for the record, no one needs to approve or ‘decree’ my working title.”
“Breathe. It needs to end,” responded Milstein.
City Hall has moved on. Everyone is still breathing.
In reviewing how Chan comported himself, one of his own texts sums him up nicely: “doofus.”
This story was originally published March 31, 2025 at 5:00 AM.