SEATTLE CITY COUNCIL DISTRICTI
COUNCILMEMBER LISA 

Dear Mayor Durkan,

First, as the Chair of the City Council?s Civil Rights Committee, I thank you for taking leadership
on the issue of sexual harassment. I was heartened to read your December 20th letter outlining
your intent to update the City?s discrimination and harassment policies and reporting systems.
Specifically, thank you for taking immediate action by ensuring that ?no individual department
may agree to settle any Step 3 or 4 grievance, lawsuit, or formal investigation, related to claims
of harassment, without providing 30?day notice to the Director of 

As a nation and as a city we are in the midst of a national conversation about the impacts of
sexual violence on our communities. We have been flooded with story after story of people
experiencing sexual harassment and assault and the numerous system failures faced by the
people who come forward. TheEqual Employment Opportunity Commission reports receiving
12,000 allegations of sex-based harassment each year. Eighty?three percent of the
complainants come from women. As with other forms of gender?based violence, we know that
many people experiencing such harassment never tell anyone. As such, these 12,000 annual
allegations are likely a vast underreporting in comparison to the true impact this issue has on
our communities.

I recently had a constituent reach out to my office after an experience of sexual harassment on
her college campus. In reaching out for help this young woman had been bounced around from
agency to agency and system to system. She was eventually referred to the Seattle Office of
Civil Rights (SOCR) only to discover that the City?s 180-day statute of limitations on harassment
claims had already passed. In reaching out to my office this young woman?s request was not to
ask for anything for herself but to ensure that, in the future, people who experience sexual
harassment do not face the same barriers that she did.

We understand that it often takes time for people to come forward because of shame, fear of
reprisals, denial, history of prior sexual violence, and lack of information about what constitutes
sexual harassment and how to report it. In my capacity as the chair of the Council?s Civil Rights
Committee, it is my intention to work with SOCR to examine how the current statute of
limitations impacts people experiencing sexual harassment and to bring this statute into parity
with current best practices on the state and federal levels. The current 180-day SMC statute of
limitations for harassment is an outlier; the statute of limitations in other areas, such as
discrimination experienced in housing, is one year and many otherjurisdictiOns allow a year or
more to report sexual harassment. This issue, as it relates to felony sex crimes, is before the
state legislature with House Bill 1155 that would eliminate the statute of limitations for felony
sex crimes.

An equal opportunity employer
600 Fourth Avenue, Floor 2 I PO Box 34025, Seattle Washington 98124-4025
Phone (206) 684-8803 Fax (206) 684?8587 TTY (206) 233?0025
Email lisa.herbold@seattle.gov

In addition to sharing with you my intent to work to address statute of limitations on
sexual harassment claims, I am writing you today with a request. I would like to work with you
to initiate an effort led by the Seattle Office of Civil Rights to complete a review of the human
resource practices and policies used to investigate sexual harassment claims for the human
resource divisions within each of the executive departments, and the Legislative Department,
as well as designing a survey of Human Resource Division Directors and an Employee Climate
Survey.

The Human Resource Division, Director Survey could be designed to allow those charged with
this important responsibility to share the barriers that they have experienced in trying to
investigate complaints, sustaining complaints when appropriate, and meting discipline
addressing sexual harassment complaints when sustained. The Employee Climate Survey
should be designed in recognition ofthe fact that the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) has found that ?approximately 30% of individuals who experienced
harassment talked with a supervisor, manager, or union representative? and that reports of
incidents increase when the acts that count as harassment are specifically defined in surveys.

In addition, according to the EEOC, sexual harassment trainings have a limited efficacy because
they are too focused on avoiding legal liability. Innovations to anti-harassment programs like
bystander training have proven results in ensuring that city employees understand that
preventing and addressing sexual violence in the workplace is a shared responsibility. I request
that you explore these human resource innovations.

I look forward to working with you to ensure that all people experiencing violence in this city
get the support they need.

Sincerely,

?xvi/at 79/ 21/?

Lisa Herbold
Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee, District 1

CC: Seattle City Council
Mariko Lockhart, Interim Director of Seattle Office for Civil Rights

An equal opportunity employer
600 Fourth Avenue, Floor 2 I PO Box 34025, Seattle I Washington 98124?4025
Phone (206) 684?8803 Fax (206) 684?8587 TTY (206) 233?0025
Email Iisa.herbold@seattle.gov