Sex Harassment Ombudsman OKd : City Hall: L.A. council unanimously approves coordinator to streamline complaints by municipal employees. Before debate, women protest against alleged abuses by Holden.

The Los Angeles City Council agreed Friday to hire an ombudsman to streamline sexual harassment complaints by city employees, a development that won praise from a women’s group that led a boisterous protest earlier in the day against alleged sexual harassment by City Councilman Nate Holden.

The council unanimously approved a proposal by Councilman Michael Woo to create the $48,000-a-year post of sexual harassment coordinator and to increase training to prevent such harassment.

Mayor Tom Bradley had embraced such recommendations in September, after nearly two in five female city employees who responded to a survey said they had been sexually harassed on the job.

The issue resonated sharply at City Hall Friday, where just minutes before the council debate, more than 100 members of the Women’s Action Coalition banged drums and screamed chants against Holden and against sexual harassment.

Two former Holden aides last month accused the councilman of sexual harassment in complaints filed with the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing. Carla Cavalier and Connie Collins said they were subjected to leers, inappropriate touching and lewd comments by the councilman.

Holden, 64, who has vehemently denied the allegations, voted to hire the sexual harassment coordinator for the city. He said the City Council should go even further, hiring additional investigators in the city’s Personnel Department to focus on such complaints.

But Holden, who this week announced his candidacy for mayor, also demonstrated empathy for the targets of sexual harassment claims, arguing that those filing complaints should be forced to do so under penalty of perjury.

“Otherwise that means almost any individual can allege almost any situation” is sexual harassment, Holden said. “It’s an inherent danger.”

Earlier, Holden held a tense, private meeting with members of the Women’s Action Coalition and defended himself against the allegations. During the meeting in his office, Holden suggested for the first time that Cavalier and Collins made advances toward him.

The councilman is seen on a videotape of the meeting telling a handful of women from the group: “It was just the reverse . . . I can prove that they hit on me.”

Holden had previously declined to discuss the allegations against him in detail, saying only that they were politically motivated and designed to thwart his mayoral bid.

Attorney Melanie Lomax, who is representing the two women, could not be reached for comment.

Gloria Barrios, who helped organize the protest, praised the council vote to hire the sexual harassment ombudsman.

“It gives the women who work for the city someone to go to when they have complaints, and not necessarily their supervisor,” Barrios said. “This will be someone with expertise and who deals entirely with trying to settle these claims. It’s a good start.”

But she said the group, formed in the wake of last year’s U.S. Senate testimony by Anita Hill, will continue to campaign against Holden and do “everything in our power to prevent him from becoming mayor.”

Holden’s press deputy, Rachel Heller, said the women were “hostile” and refused to listen. “I found that they had made up their minds that the councilman was guilty before they walked in this door,” Heller said.

The issue of sexual harassment came to the forefront in September, when the city’s Commission on the Status of Women released a survey finding that many city employees felt they had been harassed but few complained.

Of the 37% of the women who said they had been subjected to harassment, about 2% filed formal complaints, the survey found. The problem was particularly prevalent in the public safety departments--police, fire, airport safety and security--where nearly half of the women responding said they had been harassed.

“Clearly, there has been a problem,” said Ray Allen, assistant director of the Personnel Department. “People have not been comfortable complaining, and one of the responsibilities of the new position will be to increase that comfort level.”

The coordinator would work exclusively on sex harassment issues, unlike other personnel officials who have a variety of duties.

Woo said the ombudsman decision would show that City Hall is “more serious about providing the means for protecting people from sexual harassment.” Woo, also a mayoral candidate, said the city needs to set an example that other employers should be intolerant of such behavior.

Holden agreed to join a unanimous City Council in supporting the hiring of the coordinator, even though he called the proposal “weak.” Holden said that one person would not be able to keep up with the hundreds of potential complaints of sexual harassment.