thank you very much. >> i have some brochures for you too. eap brochures hot off the press. >> my name is gene miranda >> and i am a licensed psycho therapist and has... thank you very much. >> i worked for 21 years, here in the city. and all of my work has been the employee assistance program, the eap. we are a counseling center for employees and their families

and significant others. we see people for any personal or work-related issue. that gets in the way of their personal or work-related lives. we offer brief solution-focused therapy medation service and critical debriefing and customized workshops and trainings throughout city departments. the eap, for the city like all of the eap ss a behavior risk management agency. and our mandate here is to provide services to city county employees at all levels. work teams, managers, and etc.. and so, not every day, and not every week, but, pretty regularly, we see city employees who are victims of

domestic violence. >> it does not just remain at home it comes to work. they know where the victim is eight hours a day and often send threatening and abusive e-mails, fax and phone calls to the victims during the workday. they also would... they may repeatedly buzz by the workplace, and even enter the workplace putting all employees at risk physical and psychological abuse, the victim's anxiety and fear impact the work performance, the productivity and the working relationships and ultimately, public service the eap actually does a great deal

of consultation to assess the situations of certain and support them in crafting a strategy for dealing with them creating restraining, orders for the workplace to keep the people safe and enhancing the personnel skills in plan and handling the situation. and so it is a delicate balance between focusing on achieving the business goals of the work unit, and providing compassion and support to victimized individual, managers, largely don't know how to handle it. they say, what do i do? what do i say? the work has to get done. but this person is in crisis.

they are traumatized. and a lot of it shows up in the workplace. this is one critical issue that we deal with, in general the eap tries to hit them from any time, so we prevent critical incidents and we intervene and we head off dangerous situations when we can and we help the city/county employees work through the trauma by debriefing following a traumatic incident and so for example, the zoo, i was out there doing critical debriefings with the zoo keepers and the dog mauling and i was out at animal control and the fire that killed two firefighters in diamond heights, i was there with the 911 dispatchers trying to help with their trauma and grief and

guilt, guilt feelings. so, being a behavior risk management agency, we are tooting our horn a little bit. one reason why you don't see headlines in the paper stating that a disgruntled city employee harmed their supervisor or co-workers. so a clear, specific policy on domestic violence in the workplace is really crucial for a dangerous tie to dangerous pattern of domestic violence in the workplace that negatively impacts employees' safety and well-being, and working productivity and ultimately service to the public. so, just a little highlight. you know, not all of this ends up at the eap. you know, by and large, people don't come directly to us, with this issue. but we do see a number of folks and right now, we are seeing

both victims and perpetrators in our office for brief solution focus therapy. >> they would benefit from great materials. >> supervisor campos? >> olague? >> i will wait until after public comment and i will have something to add >> any member of the public that would like to comment and i believe that i have one card. katherine berg. >> thank you. good afternoon, supervisors. my name is katherine berg and i am here from madres to support this resolution, thank you,

supervisor mar for putting it forward. the success of anti-domestic workplace policy ss first of all predicated on the demonstrative leadership and this resolution and the actions that it directs is an important first step in establishing that for the city and county of san francisco. so thank you.

the director of women inc and we are a agency in the mission and thank you so much for your leadership on this issue. as you will see, in the family violence council. family violence is the number one reported crime in san francisco unfortunately and we will echo our hope for a workplace policy on domestic violence and we spoke about the positive impact that that could have not only for the survivors

of domestic violence but for the co-workers and supervisor and everyone in the surrounding area at the workplace. something that i think is important to add, is that many of our clients come to us you know, they have been in these relationships that are abusive for some time. and many times we are one of the last calls out that they make. and they lean on the support of family, friends and in a lot of cases, people that are in their workplace for some support, some options. and someone to lean on, unfortunately is what we have heard is that many times the response is that they were greeted with were not productive or posive. and i think that it is important to add that we believe that people have the best of intentions, they want to help people get out of abusive relationships or at least support them with some

options. but they, if we don't give the community the tools to do so, workplaces, the tools to do so, and we can't really expect that great of an impact. and it can't all be done by community-based organizations. it is a huge. and we thank you for your support and leadership on this issue. if there are know other members who would like to comment. we can close the comment. >> supervisor olague? >> i just wanted to say that today i would like to sign my name on as a response of this important resolution and i co-response ored once before and it was met with opposition from the domestic violence which i find ironic. but, that being said, to set the record straight because the

woman for accountability pack dropped 100,000 of dirty money to launch a spear campaign against me to per spet you ate misinformation it does not make it true, that money would be better spent going to domestic violence programs and shelters, what i and everyone else have learned from this experience is that there are certain faction in our political movement who will go to any length including exploiting an issue as important as domestic violence, i will not let this stop me from doing what i know and passionately believe is the right thing to do. in this case the right thing to do is sign my name as a sponsor and supporter and i won't be bullying into veering from my strong beliefs. >> as a woman from the working class, i will always and support the domestic survivors, my hope is that at the very

least that my being scapegoated has led to a more exposure and something good will come out of it and i recognize the bully when i am being bullied as a working class women of color i have been bullied by this community and i think that it is too bad. because i actually have worked with very, and low income women of color and other people of color and who are not people of color but people from the lgbt community and other communities that have been exploited and who have been victims of domestic violence. the women who have actually worked directly with the people who have suffered and been victims of domestic violence, i have. and so that being said, you

know, i think that this pack was composed of white women and not the people who directly worked with people who have been victims have been able to exploit, - i think that is unfortunate that that has been allowed to take place, and so, and in my experience working with the domestic violence victims, i think that there are things that are two things that are going on, one, is that many people who have been the victims of violence and bullying as i have been, actually, it takes a while before you start to recognize the patterns of violence that are kind of active in your life. so, i hope that this kind of

education that will help people who are victims of violence, actually recognize that they are being exploited that they are in violent situations and it will give them the courage to kind of move out of those situation buzz but what i have found is people who are from the working class and are strained and unemployed, don't have the means to leave abusive situations. president chu made sure that more money goes into this and it is long overdue and so if the experience of me, the experience of the level of discourse around the issue of domestic violence has increased this past year, and then, that is a good thing. you know? and i am glad that more money and more attention is being given to this.

i hope that in the future we see more women of color associated with this issue, today i don't see any. there are not any here, aliana lopez had a different perspective she was never brought into the conversation as somebody who was part of the conversation should never have bought into the conversation. and so hopefully, that occurs, and i hope that in the future, that women like myself, who actually have shown or who have a lot of compassion, who have been who certainly are not in support of domestic violence, perpetrators that this kind of bullying from the movement, does not continue to occur. and i think that it is really too bad that i have been sort of a scapegoated in this way. so, that being said, it is you know, again, i am glad that the

issue of domestic violence is being highlighted in this city. i hope that more resources again, go into educating people maybe, even on on the in the school levels where you have a lot of young people, a lot of people in elementary school age who are being exposed to violence in their homes. and that they learn early too that that is not the type of behavior that they should be engaged in as they get older and as they grow up. because we know frequently that the people who are witnessing this type of situation themselves they say, become perpetrators so i just hope that it leads to more education, in the schools. and it leads to more education from people who are being exposed to violence. and so that they understand how to extracate themselves from the domestic violence situations and that there are

more resources given so that women and men who are in domestic violence situations where the means to extricate themselves because that is frequently not the case, the people from the working class and lower income don't have those means. and people who are not from that economic class, don't always have the self-awareness, or the education to know that they are being exposed and victimized or victims of a violent situation. but, again, i hope that this escalates to the issue of bullying. you know, which we are seeing in a lot of you know, it is sort of like selective enforcement of bullying, it is okay for someone like me to be bullied and okay to go on in the housing authority with staff allegedly. it is okay for mayor staff to bully me, it is okay for some type of bullying to take place and other types of bullying if

it is selective enforcement of bullying. so i hope that we cast a more fair eye on bullying and a fair enforcement of bullying that it is not selectively relegated to people that we have political agendas against and that we really take the political out of the conversation of bullying and that it really become more of a situation or a thing that is like really fairly applied when we cast a judge mental eye on this bullying. that is all that i have to say, i want to sign my name on this as i was presented from doing so in the past and that is what i want to say. >> thank you, supervisor, olague and yes, i was actually very concerned here that you had wanted to sign on to this resolution in the past and were told that you were not welcome to do that. that is what i had heard as well. and i thought that that was

actually, you know, very troubling because a lot of us come with very strong commitments against domestic violence and have a history of working against it and being counselors in the past as you have been as well. and that is very, very troubling. that we all share a common goal of making the city safe and her that is pretty much of purpose of this committee as well. and the election, that you just experienced was something that was really troubling for me as well. that there was a large amount of money at the end of the election was thrown in and used domestic violence as a tool and a wedge to split you from would be supporters as well. and i thought that was troubling based especially because of your experience and history working in the field. so, i'm actually going to be putting my name on this as a co-sponsor for this resolution as well. and i look forward to working with domestic violence community in years to come to make the city a safer place.

>> can i just say that i strongly stand behind my colleagues, supervisor olague and comments and sentiments and when a coalition group comes to my office to bring resolutions forward or ordinances i am in total solid tarty with the organizations that bring it to me. if they ask for certain people to be on the resolutions i abide by that with them. i disagreed with their request to pull you off of the resolution. and i am sorry for that. but i abide by my solidary that brings them to me. but i will say that i totally gr with your comments about the need for a much better dialogue on race and class within the anti-domestic violence movement and how, political bullying and other efforts behind the scenes, we need to come together as different movements

and i as allie am urging that as well but i feel terrible about what happened to you and i also support the domestic violence organization to have autonomy and when they bring issues to us and i am respectful of that that is why i abided by the request to pull you off now that it is before the committee i am proud that you and supervisor avalos are on as co-sponsors and the point that you made about youth organizations and we did also have the department of children youth and their families as a key part of this and that is an effort that the young people are aware of the resources around them. this is one piece of raising awareness of the domestic violence in the workplace and also making sure that people know of all of the resources around them. and another piece of our efforts with the domestic violence and the commission on the status of women is also to

strengthen the city's domestic violence by creating clearer department plans, a key point person in each of the departments, to identify the signs of domestic violence and to have action plans. and we are looking at other cities and how they have workplace domestic violence policies and there is a budget analyst report that we will be analyzing soon but i am proud to have you on as co-sponsors because i know of the great work that both supervisor avalos and you. and what you have brought up especially on race and class differences in the movement and my goal is having a stronger movement but i always respect the autonomy of organizations that bring the resolutions and ordinances to us and i hope that you understand what i am saying about that. >> i believe that a lot of these organizations came to you

with an outside political agenda. and i believe that if i hope that in the future, rather than bullying people and basically sort of marginalizing and the voices of two latino women, me and lopez to a large degree, that we were actually approached by the domestic violence community, and engaged in some kind of healthy dialogue around rather than bullying and being marginalized by that very community that claims to be attempted to empower women in my case, women from the working class. and i think that they need to look at that too and look at how can in the future, we not ex-ploid person for their own... in some instances

agendas that included pg&e monopoly on power issues and there were hit pieces on that that went out and it seems to me that there was a larger political agenda at play here. and i am sad that i was you know, i believe unfairly characterized and there was a lot of character assassination and a lot of what i would border on slander, i believe in these hit pieces that went out and i just think that it is sad that at the end of the day that anybody in this community would have a more compassionate and less violent and bullying approach to engaging me and mis lopez in the conversation of domestic violence no one picked up the phone other than sending an e-mail claiming something that was untrue and baseless. and so again, i think that it

is unfortunate that we were dealt with on a way that was bordering on bullying from the very community and i think that it is sad during the hearing that there were people that felt that they were in the community that they were not heard and i think that some something good comes out of it and more resource and more education going to the dv issue, and then we all win. >> so i just think that it could have been me and it could have taken me out of the picture it is not a personal thing, it is, you know, it is not about me. >> thank you, and i really appreciate your comments and i will just say that within the commission on the status of women and the domestic violence that it has been many years that they have improved the workplace policies and i think as some stated in the public comments that this is the first step forward that i am very proud that both you and supervisor avalos are co-sponsors of this. >> okay, this item is before us, and could we have a motion

to move it forward with recommendation? >> yes, and we will also provide the citations and i really appreciate the support and so moved. >> and we will take that without objection and madam clerk do we have any other items? >> there is no further business. >> we are ajournd. >> we are adjourned.