 8 proclamation recognizing Tessa's it's not okay awareness campaign Holly Williams commissioner Board of County commissioners All right Commissioner Williams and Tessa folks to include our former colleague, please come down Oh, you don't get out of this without saying something So I should go you want me to go ahead and start yep good morning. I moved the proclamation Recognizing Tessa's it's not okay awareness campaign Whereas Tessa was established as battered women's services in 1977 a collective community effort to address the number of calls that law enforcement was receiving from women reporting spousal abuse and Whereas for the past four decades Tessa has evolved from an information provider and resource referral service Into a multifaceted agency that provides holistic seamless services to all victims of domestic and sexual violence within our community and Whereas Tessa serves as many as 15,000 victims of domestic and sexual violence each year With confidential services including a safe house support services counseling children's program 247 hotline housing legal services and other community and youth outreach initiatives and Whereas Tessa hereby announces that May 22nd will be 2019 will be the official launch of it's not okay public awareness campaign in an effort to curb the high rates of Domestic and sexual violence plaguing the Pikes Peak region and Whereas the campaign is the result of work on the no excuse for abuse task force The task force has involved approximately 80 individuals representing more than 50 local organizations including law enforcement youth serving organizations media outlets hospitals businesses and the military and Whereas the campaign has a variety of facets Including public service announcements that will air on local television and radio Social media and printed promotions the public service announcements share the message It's not okay in the context of all forms of domestic violence to include verbal emotional and financial abuse in addition to physical abuse usually associated with domestic violence and Whereas the campaign will roll out additional features throughout the year including a youth focused pilot program With Harrison school district to an elite training team to provide presentations throughout the community and a workplace campaign and Whereas another goal of the campaign is to let people know that if they abuse they can get help The campaign is in partnership with a statewide effort called stand-up Colorado Now therefore the board of county commissioners of El Paso County, Colorado Hereby recognizes May 22nd 2019 as the official launch date of Tessa's It's not okay awareness campaign to reach people of the Pikes Peak region and proclaims its sincere gratitude to Tessa's efforts to initiate a campaign that says It's never okay for someone to be abusive Done this 16th day of May 2019 at Colorado Springs, Colorado The board of El Paso County the board of County commissioners of El Paso County, Colorado Mark Waller chairman Lohino Scanzales vice chairman Stan Vanderwerf Holly Williams and Cammy Bremer members and attested to by Chuck Brewerman County clerk and recorder second All right Please State your name and sign in and then you may begin Well, I'm Sherry Lynn Boyle's executive director of Tessa and I want to thank you so much Commissioner Williams for presenting that and reading all the way through that and I feel at home because I have a county attorney May here who was a board president of Tessa at one point and then Chairman Waller has gone to bat for Tessa before the gaming advisory board and then commissioner of Vanderwerf has Been a supporter of ours And so I just feel very at home and want to thank all of you for your support and just getting to meet you Commissioner Gonzales, and we look forward to getting to know you better I just want to say very briefly that a while back I was visiting with a CEO of another local nonprofit here in town and was talking a little bit about these Efforts that we were making around a prevention campaign and he said oh to help people get out of these situations Maybe coming up with some strategies for them and I said, mmm. That's not really prevention Prevention is stopping abuse before it happens And so the campaign is meant to erase awareness, but also address attitudes and beliefs So that we start changing and curbing these patterns and these trends in our community to further demonstrate the point I like to share a little antidote. I call the river Basically, let's just say that Chairman Waller and Commissioner Vanderwerf. They're walking along the river side Along the riverbed and they look over and Chairman Waller spots a baby drowning in the river And so of course he's going to jump in and he saves the baby and then Commissioner Vanderwerf He sees a baby drowning in the river and he jumps in and they see more babies coming down the river And they're saving babies and and they start shouting to the people on the river bank saying come join us We need to save the babies and so people are jumping in and they're saving babies and The babies keep coming down the river and so finally a couple of folks come by and say You know some of us need to go up the river and figure out what's going on and stop whatever's going on up there And so this it's not okay campaign is Tess's going up the river We want to start preventing the abuse and so we're excited to be launching next week as you read Commissioner Williams on May 22nd on Wednesday at 11 30 a.m Down at City Hall and of course want to invite all of you to participate and come and so thank you so much for supporting this this endeavor and Thank you for supporting all of the work that Tessa does serving 15,000 victims or so each year and then perhaps former Commissioner Glenn would like to say a few words First of all, I just want to thank you commissioners for the support for the proclamation and also for County clerk and Recorder for identifying that bill These are very sensitive now But I think it's important that Commissioner Williams highlighted that that we definitely want to work together on those particular issues because there are some unintended consequences when we start talking about Vulnerable people in the community that have been victims of domestic abuse and sexual assaults So I want to be able to take you up on your offer to work with you to be able to highlight Not only that particular piece of legislation and corrective action But anything in particular that we can continue to partner with to be able to get in front of and be able to highlight the Importance of addressing this issue in the community So I want to thank you very much for your support for the proclamation I want to invite everybody to come out to the kickoff ceremony But there are going to be a lot of activities a lot of events that we're going to be highlighting What we can do in this region to be able to get out in front of these issues So you will of course receive an invitation. So thank you very much. We're very lucky to have Daryl here on our leadership team at this point at tessa and I guess I will sign in Thank you Well, we enjoyed having him on our leadership team here as well I don't think we've been able to feel fill his shoes as the chair of the board. That's for sure Is there anybody else that would like to speak on behalf of this proclamation in the public? All right, well, I'll bring it up here for some discussion Then who'd like to kick us off commissioner Gonzalez. Thank you, mr. Chair I just want to thank you for coming out. You know even one is too many as we know But we have to do what we can to help prevent and provide that support And so with people like you and this community, I think we can do a good job of addressing that Or at least start to help address that and and so I look forward to working closely With you going forward on on these initiatives and let me know what support you need. Thank you. Thank you commissioner randworth Yes, thank you, mr. Chair and thanks also for all the great work that you do domestic violence definitely is something always to be worked on unfortunately It's never going to be something that is completely eliminated But as community leaders and as nonprofit organizations that work in this arena We just need to continue to do the best that we can To make sure it's as small a problem as we possibly can have in the community And I think you're right on Education and prevention is the starting point to all of that. So thanks for all the great work you guys are doing Thank you commissioner Well, I'll tell you as an old prosecutor, you know, I was the guy jumping in the river taking care of all the Criminal cases that came forward and it's uh, you know, I understand the significant work that Tessa does, you know, not only in that arena, but in the educational portion of it as well on it's been, you know Worked on these issues, you know, since my time in the legislature and certainly now that I've been on the board of county commissioners. I understand, you know, the importance of What tessa means to our community in terms of public safety and it's huge, you know, and that's why I I've As frustrating as it is I have been honored to be able to go to cripple creek once a year to fight for dollars for tessa and kasa When we're dealing with the gaming impact issues because I understand just You know how significant a piece of the budget that is in order to be able to take care of You know needy families and abused victims in our community And commissioner williams. I will give you the last word Thank you your resolution Thank you very much. I just greatly appreciate everything you do. It is it's not okay And that's the message that we need to take out to the public It's it's not okay if you wet whether you're the victim or you're the perpetrator of domestic violence It's simply not okay. It's not okay against your spouse. It's not okay against your wife or your husband or your kids Um the there's long lasting effects to it that we know that are proven And we need to make sure that Individuals understand that they have the resource to call you and to get away from their situation And we know it's a big step for them to do that So we just want to continue to encourage individuals to step forward and get out of that situation So thank you very much for this resolution. Thank you. Thank you I I guess we're not going to give you the last word on your resolution commissioner vander wharf Of of course has something to add and my apologies to commissioner williams on that so but I I think it actually one last thing I think it's important you have a help number And I just pulled up your website And maybe it would be a good idea to get that number on the record just in case somebody watches the This meeting. I know there's not a lot of people to do it But uh, if anybody might need the number I'd be happy to give you the opportunity to give that number and put it on the record here If you don't have it off the top of your head. I've got on your website. I'll say it six three three three nine one eight or three eight one nine three eight one nine six three three three eight one nine Thank you very much. Thank you for giving us that opportunity And I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of people watching us right now without a doubt We certainly can hope for that. Mr. Chair may help one may help even one All right anything else uh on this resolution All right, uh, seeing nothing else. I'll call the roll commissioner vander wharf. I commissioner williams Commissioner gonzalez. Hi the chair votes. I that passes unanimously. We will stand in a brief recess for a picture