Brookhaven Communications Director Fired

[bu2]

Originally Posted by Atlanta_BD

If it was a white teen--and more specially, a blonde--in make up and a low-cut blouse, do you think she would've said the same thing?

Both models are clearly minorities.

According to her, yes. She didn't want any models. She wanted real people. Now I can't say the PR director's version is true, but the photographer's version seemed fishy:

Former Communications Director Responds to Incident at Cherry Blossom Festival | The Brookhaven Post | Brookhaven, GA

....On viewing the photographer’s work from the kick-off party, the event producer, communications manager, and I agreed that the quality of the photos was simply not acceptable. We decided to hire another photographer at extra cost to assure we had photos from the festival that were of magazine quality for publicity purposes.
In no discussions with anyone in the city’s communications department was the subject of hiring models raised prior to the event. If it had, we would have nixed that idea immediately because a park filled with thousands of people provides enough opportunities for good, authentic photos — a standard industry practice —without hiring models to stage anything. In my professional opinion, it simply wasn’t necessary.
When I questioned him about the models and why he was posing them in the festival’s VIP tent, against the festival’s branding, etc., as if it was a photo shoot, he got agitated and defensive. My mistake was getting agitated back, as he continued to tell me he was the official photographer and he had hired top models and this was going to be good for the city. I told him it wasn’t and that it was not what we wanted. It was simply a matter of the photographer not honoring the requests of what we needed for future publicity use — authentic photos of attendees at the event.
In various articles, the photographer has said he was “photographing the models for a separate promotion of his own company, and he was not planning on handing those photos over to the city.”
If that was indeed the case, then he shouldn’t be asking for reimbursement for his models…and, in fact, he should return part of his advance pay to the city as he wasn’t really doing our work. He showed up several hours late on top of all this. Bringing models for his own promotional purposes was a conflict of interest.
I believe strongly that when I complained about this photographer’s work and the tourism manager said he would not hire him again, that the photographer saw the end of his money from the city and blamed me. Thus, a completely fabricated racism accusation towards me, while generating tons of publicity for the photographer and his models.
Anyone who knows me knows that this accusation is untrue. My main concern was for the City of Brookhaven when I saw a blatant misuse of the festival brand and potential waste of city funds. I stick to my professional decision behind the reasons not to utilize the photographer’s services.

[JMatl]

^Hmmm, sounds pretty logical and straightforward to me.

I live literally across the street from Brookhaven. While I am glad we aren't in the City Limits for various reasons, I honestly don't believe there is anything remotely 'racial' about this incident as Atlanta_BD is clearly insinuating - and obviously without all the facts.

[cqholt]

Turns out she was a political hire that knew someone, somewhere.