1. After a little over a year on the job, and just back from his first vacation (Las Vegas), mayor Ed Murray communications director Viet Shelton told staff yesterday morning he’s leaving the mayor’s team to take a job as a senior communications manager in the marketing communications shop with Microsoft.

Shelton will be the second Murray communications director to leave the key post just two years into the Murray administration now; Jeff Reading left the job after serving as Murray’s top spokesman during the mayor’s first year in office.

“I love this city and I love this mayor,” Shelton tells Fizz, “and when I got the chance to come back to work for him it was an amazing opportunity, and I leaped at it.” Prior to working for Murray, Shelton worked for U.S. Representative Suzan DelBene (D-WA, 1) back in D.C. as her communications director. Shelton will stay on for about another month he says, explaining that “after 15 years in politics and public service” he’d been thinking about “the next chapter” for the last few years and “this great opportunity popped up.” Murray has not found a replacement yet.

The media tends to think it’s a bigger story than the public when a communications director leaves, but Shelton, a smart, high strung, gregarious force with keen political instincts, is part of Murray’s inner circle. Shelton, 34, got his start working as Murray’s communications staffer back in 2005, forging a relationship with then state representative Murray as a Murray confidant, supporter, advisor and kindred hyperkinetic spirit. Before taking the gig with Murray and before working for DelBene, Shelton worked for former governor Chris Gregoire as deputy press secretary, for mayor Greg Nickels in ’09, and as the Washington State Democrats’ deputy communications director for former state party chair Dwight Pelz.

Shelton has been through several dramas with team Murray, most notably last summer’s housing affordability and livability agenda shit storm when Murray initially suggested loosening zoning guidelines in Seattle’s sacrosanct single-family zones. And most recently, navigating a similar backlash from antsy single-family homeowners, through the current homelessness crisis, including the remarkable day when Murray was giving a special TV address on homelessness just as the news hit that there’d been a shooting in the homeless encampment known as the Jungle. For his part, Shelton cites the $980 million transportation levy as a notable lift from the last year.

As opposed to his predecessor Reading, another longtime Murray confidant, who was a calm counterpoint to Murray, Shelton idles in sitcom existential crisis mode alongside the mayor, obsessing over political storylines and decisions. Somehow, though, Shelton managed to corral the rambunctious mayor into more formal protocol, stopping Murray from handing out his personal cell phone to reporters and trying to keep the argumentative mayor off Facebook.

Shelton makes $120,000 now and wouldn’t say how much he’ll be making at Microsoft.

There’ll be some chatter about the high turnover and churn in the Murray administration (Murray recently removed Shelton's close pal Chris Gregorich from the cheif of staff spot, though Gregorich remains on the team heading up special projects.) Murray has a reputation for being an unruly executive, but my sense is, even though Murray is a handful, Shelton and Murray were hyperactive peas in a pod. Shelton’s departure isn’t symbolic of problems in the executive’s shop, but it’ll certainly present a problem moving forward as the administration now tries to replace a key political voice like Shelton, especially as Murray moves into reelection mode next year.

 2. In other news, the Washington State Democrats report that 50,000 people have already preregistered for the Saturday March 26 caucuses (this is the first time they’ve ever preregistered…and you don’t have to.) About 280,000 people participated in the 2008 record breaking caucuses.