Bryan Frierson, an assistant public information worker at the Passaic Valley Water Commission, has filed a racial discrimination lawsuit alleging a co-worker called him a racial slur in 2023 and then said, "We don't like Black people." (Source: NorthJersey.com)
The complaint says the same co-worker also verbally abused a different African American commission employee during a staff photo shoot. Frierson's suit says both incidents were captured on video and audio recordings.
Frierson says he showed the recordings to the commission's assistant human resources director, Danny Rodriguez — who, the complaint alleges, did nothing. A private lawyer hired to investigate the claims two years later allegedly never interviewed the witnesses Frierson named. The co-worker's comments were "deemed non-consequential," the suit says, and the water company pushed Frierson to resign.
The complaint also alleges the commission's chief operating officer, Mike Marotta, was in the room when the "We don't like Black people" remark was made — and said nothing.
In March 2025, Frierson says he took the allegations to Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh. The suit says Sayegh called the claim "categorically false," asserted the city has no jurisdiction over employment matters at the water commission, and said accusations of racism "must be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated." The water commission is jointly owned by Paterson, Clifton and Passaic, whose mayors appoint its members.
Then in February 2026, the commission went into closed session to discuss Frierson's discrimination and hostile work environment claims. The lawsuit alleges the two Black commissioners — Ruby Cotton and Ron Van Rensalier — were asked to leave the room for that discussion, "preventing the only Black/African-Americans on the commission from participating in the discussion centered on plaintiff's claims of discrimination and hostile work environment." Frierson was returned to active employment the following month.
Why this matters: this is a textbook case of why documentation alone doesn't guarantee accountability — Frierson had recordings and named witnesses, and still watched an investigation that allegedly skipped his witnesses and pressured him to resign. It also raises hard questions about who gets to sit in the room when discrimination claims are decided. All claims above are allegations from the lawsuit as reported; the co-worker and commission have not been convicted of anything.