COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES 

Wednesday, April 27, 2022 

5:00 pm 

San Francisco City Hall, Room 408 

 

Members Present: 

Vice President Shokooh Miry Commissioner Sophia Andary 

Commissioner Sharon Chung Commissioner Anne Moses  

Commissioner Ani Rivera  

 

Note: The Commission will hear public comments on each item on the agenda before or during consideration of that item. 

1. CALL TO ORDER  
    
   Vice President Miry called the meeting to order at 5:01pm. Vice President Dr. Miry reviewed the ground rules. Ms. Battung conducted Roll Call and read the Ramaytush Ohlone Land Acknowledge. President Zwart and Commissioner Rihal were excused from this meeting.  

2. FINDINGS TO ALLOW TELECONFERENCED MEETINGS UNDER CALIFORNIA GOVERNMENT CODE SECTION 54953(e).      
    
   Vice President Miry described the resolution drafted in response to the Mayor’s February 10, 2022 order, allowing members to participate by video from a separate location for COVID-related health reasons and providing members of the public an opportunity to observe and provide public comment either in person or remotely. 
    
   No Commissioner Comments.  

No public comment. 

(Roll Call Vote) Andary/Chung  5 ayes, 0 nays – Unanimous  

3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES FOR MARCH 23, 2022 MEETING                   
   No changes to the March 23, 2022 regular Commission meeting minutes. 

No public comment.  
 
(Roll Call Vote) Chung/Moses  5 ayes, 0 nays – Unanimous 

4. DIRECTOR’S REPORT                            
    
   Director Kimberly Ellis discussed the highlights from the report including: 

 

• Denim Day, Sexual Assault Awareness, Blue Shield Collaborative, AND educating the public on sexual assault awareness month.  

• 2 spring convening meeting, end domestic violence cohort  

• A podcast series on healthy relationships from Women inc.’s young community developers. 

• May 11th quarterly, OEWD, and survivors to access workforce development programs. 

• The May 5th, MMIW Event collaboration at City Hall 

• California tied for 5th for MMIW, 10th in SF 

• California COSW funding as part of women’s recovery program – 623 applications, 63 million in assistance. 

• Attended grantee orientation, using funds for UBI.  

• The Departments Digital campaign on civic engagement and political empowerment.  

 
No public comment. 

 

Commissioner Comments: 

VP Miry: Thank you, total grant amount for CA COSW? 

Director Ellis: Received $50k, the largest amount CA COSW has awarded.  

Commissioner Rivera: Podcast with Women Inc – would love to know the schedule of the podcast. 

5. NEW BUSINESS             
    

1. Resolutions for SISTER Case Managers                                                  
    
   The Department recognized Maria Lara and Shaelyn Jones as case managers who have served the City and County of San Francisco through SF Pretrial’s Sisters in Sober Treatment Empowered by Recovery (SISTER) program.  
    
   Public Comment: 

Joanna Hernandez: Thank you to the commission for recognizing the work of Maria Lara and Shaelyn Jones, they are fierce fighters, work with 2 jails, amazing job serving both. Thank you to Shaelyn for holding us down and representing us well. 
 
David: Shae and Maria energy and effort it takes to work in that facility, deep heartfelt thanks for their work, thank you to the commission for recognizing them.  
 

Commissioner Comments:  

Andary: Thank you to pretrial projects and sisters. We don’t talk enough about incarcerated women and enough support. Seeing both of you, I can’t imagine that type of work, appreciate that there are people like you helping women who are incarcerated. 

 

Miry: Personal thank you, greatest humanitarian work, sacred work from love, honored to be in the same space with you both.  
 

(Roll Call Vote) /  5 ayes, 0 nays – Unanimous 

 

2. Presentation by SHARP     

The Office of Sexual Harassment and Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) advocates for sexual assault survivors in the Bay Area. SHARP will present on the work of their office, their complaint process and policy priorities from their Gender-Based Violence Collaborative. 

• KellyLou Dunsmore, Director and Dulce Garcia, Policy Director  

• Mission & Vision  

• Anti-oppression framework to end all forms of violence  

• Advocacy, policy and prevention 
  receive complaints from survivors concerning the ways city agencies have responded or failed to respond incidents of sexual assault  

• Update policies that get rid of barriers for survivors trying to get city services  

• Collaborative of community partners around public education and culture-shifting so we have an sf without sexual violence  

• Highlight outreach of youth on social media – diversity of folks they are highlighting – encourage to check out our Instagram and Facebook to see the stories we have been highlighting 

• Complain process:  

• Individuals can file a complaint to SHARP office if they didn’t feel like they were heard from that city agency  

• Anonymous complaint form – can be filled by survivor or service provider on behalf of survivor  

• Advocacy request form – contact them directly, take every complaint individually and listen to each survivor, build an action plan on hopes and desires 

• We honor your decision to not report – want to know why they want to share whether its not trusting the system, create a better response system for survivors 

• How city agencies have not addressed the needs of survivors and community needs outside of the criminal justice system 

• Prevention Work – GBV Prevention Collective, meets every 4th month of the month, mission statement, May 23, community highlight is young women’s freedom center  

• Planning one day summit on youth healing and working with caretakers supporting youth  

• Advisory Committee  

 

No Public Comment 
 

Commissioner Questions/Comments: 

Moses: Parent of a public school girl – work with schools, a better handle on this with schools, leadership, work with schools to educate, follow the leadership of the community members. Project Survive  
 
SHARP: Challenges with the school with turnover, youth are not invested as leaders. Want to recenter their voices and invest in the leaders that they are, hope to work with them on this. Have had success working with specific teachers, peer healthy relationship curriculum. 
 
Andary: What is the percentage of those who reported from 2021? 80% don’t report to the police, ¼ experience sexual violence, change to 1/3 after the age of 13, 1/11 for men. Usually harmed by someone they know. 

SHARP: 20% reported w/ 1% are prosecuted nationwide. Don’t have community needs assessment around this data in SF. Can file police report at SFWAR rather than police dept, can get more calls than reports. 
 
Rivera: do you have findings to share with nonprofit/independent communities on coalition building with the collective? How can communities address this? 
 
SHARP: Interns from Project Survive are doing research on the transformative justice models. 
 
Miry: Thank you for a helpful presentation. What is happening with medical care? Advocates are provided during normal business hours and after hours it’s on a volunteer basis. 
 
Chung: what type of advocacy do survivors most need – complaint is taken by case by care, systemic issues where policies need to be changed, like what does accountability looks like if a city employee is part of it.  

6. GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT     
    
   Emberly Cross: 26 anniversary at CROC. Thank you to the dept and commission for supporting us  

Antonio Moore: deep thanks for all the work we do because of the dept and commission, trafficking survivor at the cameron house, 6 figure settlement.  

 

Sarah Ahmed: Asian Women Shelter – culturally specific of this work.  
 
Mary from Women Inc: good news, long-time client just got news that her visa was approved after 20 years. 

 

Beverly Upton: denim day, all dv has some sexual coercion to it, as we all work together to make SF safer, some upsetting stats (FVC report).  

 
 

7. ADJOURNMENT             
    
   Meeting adjourned at 6:20pm