Sexual Assault Survivor, Mayor Liz Kniss Watches Testimony

PALO ALTO, CA -- The city's Mayor Liz Kniss sat transfixed to the television airing CNN in council chambers, partially reliving an experience with a woman she doesn’t know but who lives and works in her city.

That woman is Christine Blasey Ford, the Palo Alto University professor who provided testimony before a U.S. Senate committee that challenges the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It’s more emotional today than it was last week,” Kniss told Patch. “She’s so credible.”

She should know. She was sexually assaulted at home near Cape Cod when she was 18 years old. She didn’t tell her parents and waited years to tell her sister.

She understands Ford’s plight in keeping a tight grip on her secret for so many years.

As far as parallels with Ford’s remembrance of the tragic incident, she said: “I don’t remember feeling as much of the aftermath. She remembers very well.”

Ford told the Senate panel she recalls the time with “100 percent” accuracy.

Most of the people who assembled in the council chambers were spellbound and struck by Ford’s vivid account of a painful time in which she alleges Kavanaugh wrestled with her clothes. They cringed with the notion that the boys “laughed at my expense.”

The mayor joined a group of citizens at City Hall – where a rally was staged outside in the plaza. About 100 people gathered chanting and commiserating about how Ford has been treated by a male-dominated Senate. The mayor briefly came out to address the feminist group – all the while she was keenly in tune to the television coverage inside the chambers.

“I think she’s doing extraordinarily well to have to answer clearly. We have a long way to go in how we treat sexual assault survivors,” she said, quipping: “I’m surprised they haven’t asked her what brand of bathing suit she’s wearing.”

Kniss, who was referring to the claim Ford was wearing a swimsuit under her clothes at the time of the incident, was joined by League of Women Voters board member and longtime Palo Alto resident Jackie Wheeler.

“This is riveting. I’m incredibly impressed by how well she’s doing with all the anxiety in the atmosphere,” Wheeler said, pointing to Ford’s demeanor portraying sincerity and honesty.

“Just like I think it was incredibly brave for Liz to come out,” she said, referring to Kniss’ public recanting of the incident that has stayed with her.

Wheeler isn’t alone.

One of Palo Alto’s city staffers, Lena Perkins, came out of her utilities office to tell Kniss she was moved by her mayor’s announcement.

She cried when Kniss walked back in the room.

It was as though a torrent of tears had been opened on Thursday.

"This is the power of the 'Me Too Movement,'" colleague Hiromi Kelty said, referencing the women’s charge to hold sexual predators accountable.

--Images by Sue Wood, Patch