Top administrator at Omni CRA leaves after change in political leadership
Weeks after a political shakeup at the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency, the semi-autonomous organization’s top administrator has agreed to step aside.
Jason Walker, the former village manager in El Portal, has served as executive director of the Omni CRA since 2016. On Thursday, he agreed to accept a $50,567.94 severance package to leave a job with an $180,000 annual salary. Walker is receiving a month’s pay, the value of half of his unused sick leave and health insurance for two months, according to the severance agreement.
No replacement was immediately named. The change comes two weeks after Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla was named chairman of the CRA board by his colleagues, a return to the position where he can set the agenda for the anti-blight agency with a tax-funded budget of about $66.5 million.
It’s no secret that Díaz de la Portilla didn’t want Walker. When Díaz de la Portilla was unceremoniously stripped of his chairmanship in March amid controversy, he suggested the CRA staff should be investigated for “improprieties” he never detailed.
On Feb. 10, commissioners took the chairman’s seat away from Commissioner Ken Russell, whose district includes the Omni area, and handed it back to Díaz de la Portilla.
On Thursday, Walker and Díaz de la Portilla said very little during the quick vote to finalize Walker’s exit. Walker only asked commissioners to change some wording in the resolution to reflect that his departure was mutually agreed upon, not voluntary.
Walker is leaving about six years after Russell, then a freshman elected official, brought him in after pushing out the previous director Pieter Bockweg, who’d helmed the organization for six years.
