By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Katie Wilson told her staff this morning that she’s removing Kate Brunette Kreuzer from her position as chief of staff and replacing her, on an interim basis, with Esther Handy, the former head of City Council Central Staff who is currently one of six “executive operations managers” overseeing several city departments. Kreuzer is moving to a “special projects” role, according to an email that went out to mayoral staff this morning, and “will continue to hold our Intergovernmental affairs work.”

The decision, announced to mayoral staff this morning, comes after months of deteriorating council-mayor relations. According to sources in both branches, Kreuzer’s style rubbed some council members and staff the wrong way. (At a recent after-work event at a bar near City Hall, people said they heard her declaring herself a “dictator.”)

In an email to staff this morning, Wilson wrote, “While I understand change can be unsettling, I want to assure all of you of that it is common for a new administration to refine its internal staffing roles. Being open to new ideas coupled with an honest assessment of what might need adjustment is key to good governance. I strive to be as transparent as possible through this process, and I value your ongoing input as we move through it together.” 

Recently, after Wilson’s office asked the council to pull a bill allowing larger tiny house villages because the mayor didn’t like some of the amendments, Kreuzer and two other Wilson staffers met with councilmembers and, according to several council sources, directed them to pull the bill and make the changes.

That went over like a ton of bricks—the council and mayor are separate branches of government and councilmembers do not answer to the mayor—and the meeting reportedly erupted into shouting. The council ended up passing the bill, with the amendments, the following day, but only land use committee chair Eddie Lin thanked the mayor. Several alluded to a lack of “collaboration” on the three bills that made up Wilson’s shelter package.

But tension between the council and the mayor, or at least her staff, had been building for a while, with Kreuzer reportedly one of the sources of conflict. The shelter legislation, for example, was fraught from the beginning because Wilson did not work with the council in advance to identify a sponros or decide which committees to send the three bills through. The council had to pick up the ball, and newcomer Dionne Foster volunteered to sponsor the bill that Wilson’s team told the council they needed to amend at the last minute.

Prior to joining the mayor’s office, Kreuzer was the director of external affairs at the environmental group Futurewise and the 2017 campaign manager for Jon Grant, who ran for city council twice. Grant is now Wilson’s chief advisor on housing and homelessness.

According to the mayor’s email, there are more changes coming to the mayor’s office org chart, including the previously planned departures of Edie Gilliss and Jen Chan, Wilson’s directors of Mayor’s Office Operations and Pipeline and director of city operations, respectively. Both will leave in early July as previously announced.

“Esther will continue the process already underway to assess and make recommendations related to our staffing capacity and team structures,” Wilson wrote.