Racist messages against Black Pasco councilman didn’t start with campaign signs
A Tri-Cities labor union has made public a second incident of hate speech targeting Pasco’s only Black city councilman.
Russell Shjerven, secretary-treasurer of the Teamster Local Union No. 839, says it’s proof a racist message left last month at a vandalized campaign sign for Councilman Irving Brown Sr. wasn’t “an isolated incident.”
“It was very much a shocker to me,” said Brown. “It’s disappointing and it’s very hurtful.”
The anonymous letter with racist comments was sent to the city of Pasco in January and was discussed by city council members at a Jan. 17 closed-door executive session, Brown confirmed.
The letter writer claimed the “Republican party of Pasco will not let a ‘BLACK’ serve going forward,” they would “block the upcoming election” and were “building and training a team to apply in numbers to overturn the ‘BLACK’ current council member.”
Brown was appointed a year ago to a vacant seat on the council and hopes to be elected in November to a full term. City council positions are non-partisan posts.
The writer signed the letter from “Pasco, WA Republicans.”
But Franklin County Republican Party chairman Stephen Bauman told the Tri-City Herald the party had nothing to do with the letter.
“It is not from our party and has nothing to do with our party,” Bauman told the Tri-City Herald. “I’m sorry that Mr. Brown has been treated this way, and I hope whoever wrote this letter is exposed and prosecuted.”
Local 839 held a community rally earlier this week in response to the letter, to show support for Brown’s reelection campaign and to promote the creation of a social justice campaign to “prove that the city of Pasco is an inclusive community that does not support racism.”
The event was also promoted by Tri-City Democrats.
Pasco racist messages
This is the second incident of anonymous racist messages targeting Brown since he joined the council.
A couple weeks ago Brown found a note next to one of his vandalized campaign signs along Road 68 that read, “No N****** for Dist-3.”
“This is unacceptable,” Brown said then in a Facebook Live video. “This type of behavior is gross and totally unnecessary. Pasco, don’t allow this.”
His opponent in the general election this November, Leo Perales, who is Latino, also condemned the racist message.
Days later, Pasco community members and elected officials from around the Tri-Cities gathered at the Local 839 hall to show support for Brown and to call on local leaders to disavow the hateful comments and broader discrimination.
Now, the union — which is also backing Brown’s campaign — has made public the anonymous letter sent to the city nine months ago.
“Local 839 did not believe that this was an isolated incident as Mr. Brown has experienced significant discrimination and harassment since his appointment to the city council,” Shjerven and union leaders said in a statement.
Union leaders also accused Pasco city officials of choosing to “keep this letter a secret from the Pasco community and did not make it a part of the public record” when they shared it in behind closed doors.
Brown said he didn’t know about the letter until the executive session, and viewed it then as a someone who’d gone rogue.
But after the incident involving the slur and his campaign sign, Brown said he and the union decided to go public with the letter.
“This thing has escalated,” Brown told the Herald, adding that his “goal is to inform and engage ignorance... It doesn’t matter what race, creed or color you are, we must stand together united to eradicate all types of racism.”
Pasco city attorney Eric Ferguson declined to answer questions about the closed-door discussion under the Washington’s Open Public Meetings Act.
State law gives cities the power to meet in closed-door meetings for a limited number of reasons, which must be cited publicly before the meeting. The Jan. 17 meeting agenda included an executive session related to receiving and evaluating “complaints or charges brought against a public officer or employee.”
“While I am not able to answer your questions related to this matter, the city council and the city of Pasco strives to comply with the requirements for executive sessions under the OPMA,” Ferguson wrote in his reply to the Herald.
‘Racism has no place in our community’
While the offensive letter did not include Brown’s name specifically, it did name three prominent Pasco Republicans — Bauman, as well as council members David Milne and Pete Serrano — after proclaiming: “We have strong front-line help to get Republicans on the Pasco City Council.”
Brown said he does not believe the letter is tied to either the Franklin County Republican Party nor his colleagues on the council.
“Neither one of those three have disrespected me or treated me any different,” Brown said. “If they say they’re not associated with that, I have to take them at their word.”
All three have denounced the racist message left at Brown’s campaign sign last month.
“Mr. Brown, I wanted to speak loudly and clearly as the chairman of a political party, and as somebody that cares deeply for my community: I’m sorry what happened to you and racism has no place in our community — in any form or any fashion,” Bauman said at the Sept. 5 meeting.
Speaking to the Herald, Bauman called the Teamsters’ release of the letter this week “suspicious and disappointing” and said it was inciting frustration in the community just as people were beginning to heal.
“It’s really disappointing that someone is trying to stir this up in our community,” he said.
Whoever wrote this letter tried to intentionally smear the names of local Republicans as well as the image of the city’s only Black council member, Bauman said.
This story was originally published September 14, 2023 at 12:58 PM.
