Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s former press secretary files $1M claim against city

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s former press secretary has filed a $1,000,000 claim against the city, alleging she was discriminated against because of her race and gender before being removed from the position after just three months on the job.

In a claim filed on September 26, Rosalind Brazel claims the mayor was “cool and aloof” toward her, while “affable and friendly” with other staff members. Brazel claimed the mayor was “often snapping at her about media events she had scheduled for him.”

“Ms. Brazel was assigned to ride in the Mayor’s car with him to certain media interviews and events. She was instructed that she was not to speak to him while in the car with him,” the claim stated.

Brazel, a former journalist, served as the mayor’s press secretary from January to March 2014 before being reassigned to another department and eventually let go.

“Ms. Brazel was the only African-American professional level official working for Mayor Murray,” the claim stated. “Ms. Brazel was replaced by a white male who is paid $5,000 per year more than she was paid, despite frequent mentions by Mayor Murray to the public that the Race and Social Justice Initiative, which affords equal pay among race and gender, is fully recognized in his office.”

Brazel was hired on at the mayor’s office at a salary of $95,000. The press secretary position was eventually filled by Jason Kelly, who was hired in August at a salary of $100,000 a year. The mayor’s office also promoted its correspondence manager, Mike Gore, to the newly-created position of deputy press secretary. He has a salary of $62,640.

In a statement released Tuesday morning, the mayor denied wrongdoing.

“Ms. Brazel is a talented communications professional and a hard worker who, at this point in her career, was not well-matched to the demands of the press secretary role, particularly for a brand new administration working to find its feet. This is neither a criticism of Ms. Brazel as a professional nor a commentary on her skills as a communicator,” the statement read.

“While I take very seriously the charge of discrimination made by Ms. Brazel, I stand by my decision to make a change at the press secretary position during those early days as one of many changes necessary to bring greater structure and stability to the daily operations inside the Mayor’s Office.” (Read the mayor’s full statement)

Brazel served as press secretary for the mayor’s office during several embarrassing media gaffes, including announcing the death of Jim Diers, the former director of the city’s Department of Neighborhoods, who was very much alive.

In her claim, Brazel argued that the Diers gaffe was as much the fault of the mayor’s communications director as it was hers.

“On or about February 27, 2014, Communications Director Jeff Reading inquired as to whether Ms. Brazel knew Jim Diers. When she replied that she did not know Mr. Diers, Mr. Reading told her that he had recently died and instructed Ms. Brazel to prepare a press statement about Mr. Diers’ death,” the claim stated.

Brazel claimed that Reading later told her she should have “known better about the Deirs matter.”

Before the Diers gaffe, Brazel also mistakenly released two drafts of the mayor’s response to the state’s passage of the Dream Act. One version included a note to her boss describing it as having a “tisk, tisk feel.”

According to a bio released about Brazel when she was appointed to the press secretary position, she worked as a project account coordinator at The Feary Group, a Seattle public relations and public affairs firm. Before that, she worked as a writer and producer at KIRO-TV, and was an anchor and reporter at KTAL-TV in Shreveport, Louisiana.