Council Member Koski reveals stalking, harassment and restraining order

Council Member Emily Koski shared her two-year experience of escalating harassment in an email to constituents today. She was granted a harassment restraining order and hopes to now heal:

December 16, 2025

Greetings Ward 11,

Today, I am writing you to share something deeply personal and profoundly difficult. It is something I have carried silently for a long time.

For more than two years, I have been the target of escalating harassment by an individual whose actions have left me, and those closest to me, living with stress, anxiety, an unshakeable sense of being unsafe. What happened was not a misunderstanding. It was not a disagreement. And it was not an isolated incident. It was a deliberate, relentless, escalating pattern of behavior.

At first, it was interruptions, disruptions that were unsettling but still felt manageable. Then the yelling grew louder, the outbursts more aggressive, the messages more hostile. Over time it turned into waiting and watching, invading personal space, following me and my staff, even to our cars. From there, it escalated to vandalism. And in the end, it became physical intimidation and threatening behavior. Each incident chipped away at the sense of safety I once felt.

My staff and I tried everything we could with this individual: listening, talking, providing information, offering resources, de-escalating when tensions rose. We even tried to simply endure it, to tolerate the harassment and intimidation and keep doing our jobs. Nothing worked. When that failed, we turned to every resource we had: security, police, park police, crisis response. And still, we were left to manage it on our own. Again and again, the answer was the same: there’s nothing we can do – call 911 when it escalates. What that left us with was the harsh reality that until verbal assault and physical intimidation became actual physical violence, we were on our own.

I was reduced from an elected official to a target, and my staff were reduced from public servants to security.

This reality forced impossible choices. It forced us to ask ourselves, every time we stepped into public spaces: Will this be the day something crosses the line? Will this be the day this escalates into physical violence? No one should have to live with that burden.

The breaking point came after a particularly traumatizing incident, one that made clear I had reached the limit of what I could tolerate. That was when I made the decision to file for a harassment restraining order. But even that was something myself and my staff had to take on ourselves.

My staff and I researched the process, prepared the filing, drafted documents, and readied ourselves for the initial hearing without any assistance. A process that is already hard enough for victims was made even harder because we were on our own, navigating a system we did not understand, reliving what had happened again and again as we prepared testimony, pulled together evidence, and gathered witnesses. After the first hearing, with more questions than answers and no one in the City to turn to, I reached out to a friend who is an attorney. Upon hearing the full extent of what we were facing, that friend stepped forward and offered to represent me for the remainder of the proceedings. It was support I remain deeply grateful for.

During the harassment restraining order process, my staff and I found ourselves withdrawing from the public. I stopped showing up in the way I once had, not because I wanted to, but because it became the only way to keep residents, my staff, and myself safe.

Recently, I heard back from the courts: I was granted a harassment restraining order. My staff and I are deeply relieved. But the truth is, we still live in fear – fear of retaliation, and fear of whether this order will truly be enough to bring the harassment to an end. That fear leaves us questioning what comes next. Do we go back to “normal”? And is that even possible after all that has happened?

It is hard to put into words the toll this has taken. The exhaustion of constantly looking over our shoulders. The burden of asking, every time we entered a public space, if we were putting ourselves or others at risk. The trauma of living these incidents and then reliving them again and again in testimony and evidence. And the heavy weight of carrying all of it alone.

I share this now not to cause alarm, and not to seek sympathy, but because you deserve to know. You deserve to know why I have been less visible this year. You deserve to know why public meetings ceased to happen, why gatherings shifted from open forums to private conversations, and why the cornerstone of my platform when I first ran for office – presence in and with the community – seemed to change so drastically.

With all the resources the City has with security, police, park police, crisis response, attorneys, it should not be this hard to protect and support victims. And yet, it is. And if it was this hard for me, as someone serving inside City Hall, I cannot fathom how impossible it must feel for residents without that access. That thought weighs so heavy on my heart.

This is not just my story. It is the story of others who have faced harassment in public life. Sadly, several of my current colleagues are managing similar experiences. It is a sobering reminder that harassment, intimidation, and threats are being normalized in our politics. And unless we confront this reality, good people will continue to be driven out of public service, silenced, or harmed.

Representation should not come with the price of fear. Public service should not require trauma. My hope in sharing this now is that together, we can insist: this cannot and must not be the cost of serving one’s community.

And my hope for myself and my staff is that, with this step behind us, we can begin to heal from the trauma this has left.

In Gratitude,