Former administrative office staffer Nina Johnson has filed a bombshell lawsuit against the City of Santa Barbara, alleging harassment, retaliation, discrimination, and that she was blacklisted before her resignation two years ago.

Johnson, former assistant to the city administrator, claims in the lawsuit that she was paid less than male employees who did similar work, given a title that didn’t reflect her responsibilities, and had her responsibilities stripped from her after she complained.

The suit was filed last week by attorney Christina Humphrey in Santa Barbara County Superior Court. The city has not yet filed a response in court.

“Ms. Johnson is seeking legal resolution of issues that significantly impacted her,” Humphrey told Noozhawk.

“She wants to improve how these matters are handled at the city to ensure transparency in decision-making, equal pay for equal work, and more equitable employment practices.”

Santa Barbara City Attorney Sarah Knecht declined to respond to a request for a statement.

“We have no comment at this time,” she said.

According to the lawsuit, “When plaintiff brought the issue to her managers in 2016, instead of being reclassified, plaintiff experienced a demotion, and negative and retaliatory actions for the remainder of her time at the city.

“Plaintiff was subjected to blacklisting efforts from peers, rumors to discredit her, and was ultimately cut off from her career path.”

After Johnson submitted her reclassification request, the suit says, “the city removed half of plaintiff’s long-time work responsibilities, added a new duplicate position in the office and hired Matt Fore for the position at the top salary step, although he did not have any direct reports as plaintiff.”

The suit alleges that the city gave Fore half of Johnson’s work assignments and responsibilities. Fore now works for the City of Goleta as general services director.

In addition, Johnson alleges in the suit that the city eliminated an analyst position that reported to her, while forcing her to perform the same duties of the analyst she had supervised even though the city added positions overall.

“Plaintiff was excluded from meetings, cut out of work processes she had led, denied access to clerical staff to assist her in her work, given low-level duties, denied promotion and special assignment opportunities, and made to report to a manager instead of the city administrator and assistant city administrator as she previously had for years,” the suit alleges.

Johnson was hired in 1998 and was a familiar face at City Hall. Before the city hired formal public information officers, she worked with the news media, answering a wide array of questions about city governance.

In addition to communications, she worked on the city’s legislative platform, sustainability initiatives and economic revitalization. In 2017, she led the effort to close a portion of State Street to vehicles to throw a popular block party event.

She also served as a final review of weekly reports to the City Council, and “other high visibility and complex assignments on behalf of the city administrator and City Council,” according to the lawsuit.

In 2021, Johnson took a leave of absence and ran unsuccessfully for a City Council seat, losing to incumbent Meagan Harmon in the November election.

She had not returned to the job as of February 2022, and the position was vacated and filled by someone else as of June 2022, according to previous Noozhawk reporting.

“Over the course of 25 years, she invested significant time and energy in her career, regularly spending evenings, weekends and holidays at work to ensure high priority projects were completed in a timely manner,” the suit alleges.

“Her work responsibilities were often performed by an executive level or director position in other cities.”

After Johnson returned to work from her council campaign leave of absence, she was told her few remaining job functions had been “officially reassigned to other staff,” the lawsuit alleges.

“The city’s retaliatory response to plaintiff raising issues about her pay grade caused plaintiff to lose advancement opportunities, suffer a steady decline in her health, and ultimately forced her to resign from employment in 2022,” the suit states.