Rocky says he is the victim in Seed firing

"But I come from long Mormon tradition, which Deeda doesn't," Anderson said. "It's a tradition that I have a lot of respect for and I don't countenance bigoted responses from people about Mormons any more than I do bigoted responses about anybody."

Seed was fired Friday after a week of dealing with media and the protest Anderson helped organize to coincide with President Bush's speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention downtown.

Anderson's Chief of Staff Sam Guevara said the protest increased tension throughout the office.

"There was definitely more tension in the office," he said. "We had never had that much national and international and local coverage."

Seed complained throughout the week that Anderson blamed her for not doing a better job of defusing the criticism the mayor received over the protest. Anderson, meanwhile, complained he had to write his protest speech and his speech for the VFW at midnight the night before convention because Seed hadn't done her job and written the speech for him.

The last straw may have come with a flap over the mayor's e-mails and how they should be disseminated to the press. The Deseret Morning News filed an open-records request with the Mayor's Office Tuesday, asking for all of Anderson's e-mails relating to the protest.

Wednesday, the newspaper contacted the mayor's office to determine if the e-mails were ready. Seed said they were ready and "sitting on my desk" but that the mayor had instructed her not to release them until the last possible day allowed by law. The Morning News then informed Seed it wanted to run the e-mail story along with a story about Anderson calling for an apology from Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who referred to the protesters as "nutcakes."

The apology story was one Anderson had encouraged a Morning News reporter to write, and Seed was informed that if the e-mails were released, it would mean the Hatch story would likely run on that same day.

Seed relayed that information to Anderson, who said he would release the e-mails if the Morning News wrote a story about the mayor's campaign to encourage people who are with friends who overdose on drugs to take them to the hospital.

The Morning News reporter, who was planning to write that story anyway, agreed to a story about Anderson's efforts to help those who overdose. But there was no agreement about what would be in the story or where or when it would run.

The next day a Salt Lake Tribune reporter called and wanted the e-mails as well. Anderson wanted to make a similar demand of the Tribune in exchange for the e-mails, Seed said. The Tribune was indignant that the mayor would make such a requirement and an editor complained to Seed, she said. Seed then told the editor that the Morning News had agreed to the mayor's request.