Daysog's reponse to National Women's Political Caucus (Alameda County branch)

By Tony Daysog

Daysog's reponse to National Women's Political Caucus (Alameda County branch)

ANSWER: Supporting full equality between races, generations, sexual preferences, and gender is absolutely vital. I have supported the spirit and substance of the Equal Rights Amendment in my five years on Alameda City Council (two years as Vice Mayor), and will continued to do so if elected to the County Board of Supervisors District 3, by (1) ensuring equal representation by gender on county commissions and Ad-Hoc committees (2) designating myself or a senior staff member as a member of the Commission on the Status of Women within the Office of Diversity and Human Relations in the Social Services Agency (3) advocating a continuation of the CAO's commitment to early recruiting through informational interviews, recruiting, and hiring qualified women in decision making and senior staff positions. As a Council member, I have advocated, encouraged and supported our City Manager in his efforts at hiring women in senior positions. As a result, he has hired a woman to run our municipal electricity company, another to serve as Director of our esteemed local parks department, and yet another woman to serve as Director of Human Resources. Many women have been promoted to Deputy Director positions with other agencies as well, such as in Public Works and the Bureau of Electricity. I have an excellent and respectful working relationship with our City Attorney and City Clerk, both of whom are women.

B. REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS: In recent years, there has been an orchestrated effort to chip away women?s right to reproductive choice by dividing the issue into sub-issues including parental consent, late-term abortion and public funding of family planning and abortion. Do you unequivocally support women?s rights to reproductive self-determination? Do you support public funding of family planning?

ANSWER: I unequivocally support women?s rights to reproductive self-determination, and am determined to use the position of District 3 as a bully pulpit to educate the public about false information spread by opponents of women?s reproductive rights, as evidenced in the matter of ?partial birth? issue. In this issue, opponents of reproductive rights created a stir in the media, and state and federal policymaking circles by grossly over-blowing the number of late-term abortions, when in fact these were infinitesimally few in number and conducted mainly in situations where the health and life of the mother was at stake, which was conveniently ignored by reproductive rights opponents. I unequivocally support public funding of family planning.

C. CHILD CARE Do you support expansion of child / dependent care facilities including government participation in funding?

ANSWER: As a Councilmember, I supported the creation of model youth-operated childcare center in a charter school located on the former military base, and personally supported and participated as a volunteer in the construction of the site. I have also worked with the Alameda?s Social Service Human Relation Board to create the Child Care Task Force, which has produced data on childcare needs in Alameda, breaking information down by infant, toddler and day care. I encouraged staff and Council colleagues to place high on their respective social service agenda the matter of the Woodstock Child Development Center, which provides child care for low-income families and whose financial situation this year was greatly at risk by state-mandated increases in reimbursement rates for providers and the need for the school district to cut programs. I advocated to the school district and Council colleagues continued support of Woodstock Child Development Center.

As a professional city and regional planner, I have managed and conducted community assessment research for the United Way of the East Bay (Contra Costa County) in 1998, which, in addition to setting United Way funding priorities, also gathered data and provided analyses for the state-mandated child care assessment for Contra Costa County and the federally-mandated Contra Costa County Head Start needs assessment. Coordinating these three assessments laid the data-foundation for improved grant making and outcomes for moving families from welfare to work.

D. ADDITIONAL KEY ISSUES Will you actively support legislation in the areas of rape, domestic violence, women?s health, discrimination in the workplace, sexual harassment and other issues that gave a profound and direct impact on women?s ability to obtain equality?

ANSWER: "Alameda does not have a domestic violence problem", said a Council member in 1994, the year I first ran for City Council at the age of 28. I ran in order to change the mind-set, tone, and direction Alameda?s City Council. I was proud to support the passage of a resolution this year in which Council declared October as Domestic Violence Month in Alameda, and I referenced that comment to show how far we have come. As Vice Chair of a 10-city welfare reform consortium called the Alameda County Community Action Program, I lobbied ACCAP colleagues and staff to help a San Leandro women's shelter regain critical funding it had lost in early 2001: it received the needed money. I supported this women?s shelter as early as 1996, when it expanded from San Leandro onto Alameda's closed military base, where it continues to operate today. I will actively support legislation in the areas of rape, domestic violence, women's health, discrimination in the workplace, sexual harassment and other issues, making sure to obtain input and guidance from leaders from the grass roots.