LAKEPORT — The Lake County Board of Supervisors (BOS) presented a series of proclamations, including one designating four sexual assault awareness events, during Tuesday”s regular meeting at the Lake County Courthouse.
The events will be observed throughout the month of April, which the BOS designated as Sexual Assault Awareness Month in Lake County.
April 5 will be Sexual Assault Awareness Day of Action and April 27 will be Denim Day. The BOS also designated the week of April 10 to 16 as National Victims Rights Week in Lake County.
Through its adoption of the proclamation, the BOS encouraged local citizens to work together to prevent sexual assaults in Lake County. County agencies reported responding to the needs of at least 165 sexual assault victims and their families during 2010, according to the proclamation.
The declaration recognized the commitment and hard work of the Lake Family Resource Center (LFRC), the Lake County District Attorney”s Office Victim-Witness Division and the Lake County Sheriff”s Office in responding to cases of sexual assault and aiding victims and their families.
Representatives of all three agencies watched as District 5 Supervisor Rob Brown read the proclamation and presented it to LFRC interim executive director Lisa Fronsman.
Fronsman urged local residents to take part in all of the events and emphasized participation in Denim Day.
People across the country wear jeans to school and work on Denim Day to protest a 1998 Italian court ruling that overturned a rape conviction because the alleged victim wore jeans that were so tight, the court deemed she must have helped her alleged attacker remove the pants, making the act consensual.
The ruling paved the way for a legal tactic known as “the jeans defense” or “the skinny jeans defense,” which has since been used by accused rapists in several countries.
Sexual assault victim advocates argue such defenses are deplorable and downplay the severity of the crime. They signify their condemnation by wearing jeans on Denim Day.
District 2 Supervisor Jeff Smith presented a proclamation earlier in Tuesday”s meeting designating the current week (March 20 to 26) as National Surveyors Week in Lake County.
The declaration recognizes the work surveyors do around the county, including mapping, water systems and housing projects.
County Surveyor Gordon Haggitt received the proclamation and eight other local surveyors stood as Smith read the declaration. Approximately 20 local residents are trained to practice land surveying, while about half of them are active surveyors, according to Haggitt.
District 3 Supervisor Denise Rushing presented Tuesday”s other proclamation, which endorsed the World-Wide Charter for Compassion.
The charter is a recently developed grassroots movement aimed at re-instilling compassion around the world. The need for compassion has become more relevant in light of the modern day political polarization, according to Rushing.
The BOS proclaimed that all county residents “urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world.”
Rushing called the BOS “a good example” of a compassionate governmental body that can effectively “work together even though we disagree.”
Rushing presented the endorsement to Pastor Shannon Kimbell-Auth of the United Christian Parish in Lakeport.
Kimbell-Auth said people locally and worldwide should be “recognizing that we are each human and we have lost that recognition.”
The compassion proclamation can be viewed online at http://lakecountycompassion.blogspot.com/.
Contact Jeremy Walsh at jwalsh@record-bee.com or call him at 263-5636, ext. 37.
