DNC Board meeting
September 27, 2012
Present: Kelvin, Jen, Harold, Richard, Ivan, Dave M
Guests: Jacek, Aiyanas, Rob M, John Sk
Opening: Kelvin
POLICE DEMO
Jen
Ivan is doing the poster for the event
We will start at district 1. Ivan will speak about the lack of accountability for police brutality. At city hall Aiyanas will speak with a VANDU member about the ticketing. Rob will speak about his assault and complaint against the police.
We want to start recording the police destroying peoples drugs
Ivan
Is it going to be good or bad for us if the police start processing drug seizures?
Dave M
Could be good or bad. If they start pressing charges then we could clog up the court system.
Rob
I was assaulted last month by the police. They bruised by wrists and ribs with an attack by beat police. A month earlier it was the same two cops who cleared all Aboriginal people from Pigeon Park. I approached those two cops and said, On whose authority did you kick all the natives out of Pigeon Park. It was the same cops who assaulted me. I think they're targeting me.
These days there's a real heavy police presence up by the bottle depot.
I think the cops are following me and harassing me. I keep seeing Constable Ballantyne near me. I'm asking for DNC support because I don't have VANDU support anymore.
Aiyanas
Challenging the police practice of seizing and crushing drugs needs to be discussed some more, I hope it's referred to the VANDU board and Tuesday group for more discussion.
The other thing is that I'm uncomfortable with Rob bringing up his treatment by the VANDU board, which is unprincipled. Should not be talking about VANDU business with other groups.
Jen
The police are more concerned about what Copwatch says about the police than how the police act. We need to have a discussion about whether to meet with the VPD professional standards unit or not.
AGREED: To have a report from Jen at the next board meeting to discuss Copwatch's experience with meeting with the VPD.
RIGHT TO RESIST CONFERENCE
Aiyanas
I'm here as a member of the Alliance for Peoples' Health, part of the International League of Peoples' Struggles, which is a grouping of more than 300 mass organizations from around the world.
We are organizing a major conference in November. Last year we launched a Canada chapter of the ILPS and started a campaign for the right to resist.
The conference will have four themes: The war on resistance, the war on working people, the war on communities, and the war on land defenders and the environment.
I'm coordinating the track, War on communities. I'm calling it the emerging police state, about how poor and working class communities in Canada are now facing police state tactics.
The Vancouver Renters Union is interested in putting forward an analysis on social control and gentrification.
We are approaching the DNC because we would like to ask you to be involved as a model of a representative community based resistance group. Unfortunately we don't have funding for the conference. But if the DNC is interested in participating there are a few ways to participate. Could read, give feedback on the conference paper. Could meet with the preparatory committee for comment. And, if you can, we would like to have you present in the third section of the conference.
Jen
I'm going as a representative of Copwatch.
Harold
I don't think it's appropriate for DNC to provide money to send someone to participate, but I don't think it's realistic. We have demands on our time and resources right now. But if someone will kick in money then maybe they could go.
Ivan
Maybe we can think about it when we are assessing our work for the AGM we can consider some lessons from DNC that we can communicate over to this conference.
AGREED: We should stay in communication with this effort.
LAPP
Ivan
The What we are hearing event tomorrow is going alright. The good thing is that we have low-income committee members working on all the presentations.
The other thing is the co-chairs issue. Penny Ballem is pushing hard to get Ivan off the committee.
I think this is becoming a diversion and we should try to get rid of this problem. I want board support to ask Herb to take over as primary co-chair and me as his assistant.
Harold
We need to send a letter to the city saying that this treatment is not acceptable and that we have the right to determine our own representative.
We have never voted for anyone to represent DNC except Wendy and I would support Herb as the new representative.
We should meet with him and find out of he's willing to take it on.
Kelvin
If the city attacks Ivan then how do we know that they will not attack our next replacement. They might attack the next person with his specific issues. We all have our vulnerabilities and our reps should not be vulnerable.
I agree that we should send a letter to the city, not just the chair but the city council. They keep on rehashing something that happened months ago. It's not acceptable.
We should send a harsh letter to the city. They are holding us back.
Rob
I worry that if they attack Ivan then if we go and speak our minds and do what we have to do to be heard then when will they attack us?
When this first happened months ago I sent a letter to Penny complaining about her conduct and saying I thought it wasn't acceptable. She never responded. That shows her lack of respect for the low-income community. She didn't respond to me because she thinks she's better. Three times I asked Tom from the city to get her to respond and she never did.
We should get our group of low-income committee members together and talk about this. We need to discuss it and have agreement on how we should respond to this.
Richard
They don't like Ivan because he's a good leader in the community and they want to shut him up. I don't think we should back down from this.
Jacek
If you decide to do something like give the co-chair position to Herb then you should negotiate something first. They should give us something in exchange.
Harold
I agree that we should push for concessions as much as possible.
AGREED: The board supports Herb as chair and Ivan as alternate but any agreement must come back to the board first. And will discuss it at the anti-gentrification caucus.
AGREED: To write and send a letter to the city protesting their aggressive move against DNC and our co-chair rep.
GENERAL MEETING
Harold
We need a theme for the meeting, at least in general.
Rob
The police are really being aggressive these days.
James
The police are really sweeping the bottle depot block.
Harold
Other agenda points:
AGM and the preparatory meeting
DTES Not for Developers public meeting about 955 E Hastings. We should also present on the 955 E Hastings project.
Update on the Save Social Housing Coalition
Ivan
I think we should do a discussion on the social housing coalition in December or so.
Harold
The coalition has a research committee that has started working on the numbers of units we need, how to talk about ending homelessness, etc. We are trying to come up with some solid demands based on research.
AGREED: To focus the meeting on police sweeps on Hastings St.
STREET MARKET
Jacek
We have an agreement with the city. They released the first $10,000 to the market. We are going to buy some tents and tables.
Jen
Are there any rules about the conduct of leaders of the market?
Jacek
There are two rules; don't do anything to hurt the market and don't do anything to hurt the market.
Jen
How do you receive complaints?
Jacek
I can bring you the form.
Rob
Who receives the form?
Jacek
The committee.
Richard
How can you join the committee? I wanted to join it and I never heard about.
Jacek
We announced the committee meeting at the volunteers meeting and two people came.
The city asked for Vandu and DNC support for the agreement before they released the money but they released it anyway.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Ivan
I'm frustrated that Roland has not come to the board meetings two weeks in a row when we had agreement to deal with the next step of resolving board conflict here in our meetings. Instead he went to my employer and criticized me there.
Harold
It's not productive to have rants. We need a process to resolve this.
Jacek
The problem is the process. Ann was supposed to set it up with Aiyanas and Ivan took over.
Harold
We should not have a back and forth
Kelvin
We need a safe space to have this resolution. We can use AFD as this space, I am willing to help facilitate this discussion.
Jacek
This is an example. Ivan can criticize Roland but I can't criticize him.
Harold
I like Kelvin's suggestion for direct resolution.
Jacek
Ivan is a good speaker and he is controlling all of you now. He knows how to speak last in a meeting and control the meeting. An example is at the end of the meeting when Aiyanas was here. Ivan was the last to speak at that meeting and he said that he didn't know about something from the treasurer report and I know that's not true.
MOTION: For Kelvin to attempt to set up a conflict resolution meeting between Ivan and Roland. AGREED, by board members present, but we didn't have quorum.
September 27, 2012
Present: Kelvin, Jen, Harold, Richard, Ivan, Dave M
Guests: Jacek, Aiyanas, Rob M, John Sk
Opening: Kelvin
POLICE DEMO
Jen
Ivan is doing the poster for the event
We will start at district 1. Ivan will speak about the lack of accountability for police brutality. At city hall Aiyanas will speak with a VANDU member about the ticketing. Rob will speak about his assault and complaint against the police.
We want to start recording the police destroying peoples drugs
Ivan
Is it going to be good or bad for us if the police start processing drug seizures?
Dave M
Could be good or bad. If they start pressing charges then we could clog up the court system.
Rob
I was assaulted last month by the police. They bruised by wrists and ribs with an attack by beat police. A month earlier it was the same two cops who cleared all Aboriginal people from Pigeon Park. I approached those two cops and said, On whose authority did you kick all the natives out of Pigeon Park. It was the same cops who assaulted me. I think they're targeting me.
These days there's a real heavy police presence up by the bottle depot.
I think the cops are following me and harassing me. I keep seeing Constable Ballantyne near me. I'm asking for DNC support because I don't have VANDU support anymore.
Aiyanas
Challenging the police practice of seizing and crushing drugs needs to be discussed some more, I hope it's referred to the VANDU board and Tuesday group for more discussion.
The other thing is that I'm uncomfortable with Rob bringing up his treatment by the VANDU board, which is unprincipled. Should not be talking about VANDU business with other groups.
Jen
The police are more concerned about what Copwatch says about the police than how the police act. We need to have a discussion about whether to meet with the VPD professional standards unit or not.
AGREED: To have a report from Jen at the next board meeting to discuss Copwatch's experience with meeting with the VPD.
RIGHT TO RESIST CONFERENCE
Aiyanas
I'm here as a member of the Alliance for Peoples' Health, part of the International League of Peoples' Struggles, which is a grouping of more than 300 mass organizations from around the world.
We are organizing a major conference in November. Last year we launched a Canada chapter of the ILPS and started a campaign for the right to resist.
The conference will have four themes: The war on resistance, the war on working people, the war on communities, and the war on land defenders and the environment.
I'm coordinating the track, War on communities. I'm calling it the emerging police state, about how poor and working class communities in Canada are now facing police state tactics.
The Vancouver Renters Union is interested in putting forward an analysis on social control and gentrification.
We are approaching the DNC because we would like to ask you to be involved as a model of a representative community based resistance group. Unfortunately we don't have funding for the conference. But if the DNC is interested in participating there are a few ways to participate. Could read, give feedback on the conference paper. Could meet with the preparatory committee for comment. And, if you can, we would like to have you present in the third section of the conference.
Jen
I'm going as a representative of Copwatch.
Harold
I don't think it's appropriate for DNC to provide money to send someone to participate, but I don't think it's realistic. We have demands on our time and resources right now. But if someone will kick in money then maybe they could go.
Ivan
Maybe we can think about it when we are assessing our work for the AGM we can consider some lessons from DNC that we can communicate over to this conference.
AGREED: We should stay in communication with this effort.
LAPP
Ivan
The What we are hearing event tomorrow is going alright. The good thing is that we have low-income committee members working on all the presentations.
The other thing is the co-chairs issue. Penny Ballem is pushing hard to get Ivan off the committee.
I think this is becoming a diversion and we should try to get rid of this problem. I want board support to ask Herb to take over as primary co-chair and me as his assistant.
Harold
We need to send a letter to the city saying that this treatment is not acceptable and that we have the right to determine our own representative.
We have never voted for anyone to represent DNC except Wendy and I would support Herb as the new representative.
We should meet with him and find out of he's willing to take it on.
Kelvin
If the city attacks Ivan then how do we know that they will not attack our next replacement. They might attack the next person with his specific issues. We all have our vulnerabilities and our reps should not be vulnerable.
I agree that we should send a letter to the city, not just the chair but the city council. They keep on rehashing something that happened months ago. It's not acceptable.
We should send a harsh letter to the city. They are holding us back.
Rob
I worry that if they attack Ivan then if we go and speak our minds and do what we have to do to be heard then when will they attack us?
When this first happened months ago I sent a letter to Penny complaining about her conduct and saying I thought it wasn't acceptable. She never responded. That shows her lack of respect for the low-income community. She didn't respond to me because she thinks she's better. Three times I asked Tom from the city to get her to respond and she never did.
We should get our group of low-income committee members together and talk about this. We need to discuss it and have agreement on how we should respond to this.
Richard
They don't like Ivan because he's a good leader in the community and they want to shut him up. I don't think we should back down from this.
Jacek
If you decide to do something like give the co-chair position to Herb then you should negotiate something first. They should give us something in exchange.
Harold
I agree that we should push for concessions as much as possible.
AGREED: The board supports Herb as chair and Ivan as alternate but any agreement must come back to the board first. And will discuss it at the anti-gentrification caucus.
AGREED: To write and send a letter to the city protesting their aggressive move against DNC and our co-chair rep.
GENERAL MEETING
Harold
We need a theme for the meeting, at least in general.
Rob
The police are really being aggressive these days.
James
The police are really sweeping the bottle depot block.
Harold
Other agenda points:
AGM and the preparatory meeting
DTES Not for Developers public meeting about 955 E Hastings. We should also present on the 955 E Hastings project.
Update on the Save Social Housing Coalition
Ivan
I think we should do a discussion on the social housing coalition in December or so.
Harold
The coalition has a research committee that has started working on the numbers of units we need, how to talk about ending homelessness, etc. We are trying to come up with some solid demands based on research.
AGREED: To focus the meeting on police sweeps on Hastings St.
STREET MARKET
Jacek
We have an agreement with the city. They released the first $10,000 to the market. We are going to buy some tents and tables.
Jen
Are there any rules about the conduct of leaders of the market?
Jacek
There are two rules; don't do anything to hurt the market and don't do anything to hurt the market.
Jen
How do you receive complaints?
Jacek
I can bring you the form.
Rob
Who receives the form?
Jacek
The committee.
Richard
How can you join the committee? I wanted to join it and I never heard about.
Jacek
We announced the committee meeting at the volunteers meeting and two people came.
The city asked for Vandu and DNC support for the agreement before they released the money but they released it anyway.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Ivan
I'm frustrated that Roland has not come to the board meetings two weeks in a row when we had agreement to deal with the next step of resolving board conflict here in our meetings. Instead he went to my employer and criticized me there.
Harold
It's not productive to have rants. We need a process to resolve this.
Jacek
The problem is the process. Ann was supposed to set it up with Aiyanas and Ivan took over.
Harold
We should not have a back and forth
Kelvin
We need a safe space to have this resolution. We can use AFD as this space, I am willing to help facilitate this discussion.
Jacek
This is an example. Ivan can criticize Roland but I can't criticize him.
Harold
I like Kelvin's suggestion for direct resolution.
Jacek
Ivan is a good speaker and he is controlling all of you now. He knows how to speak last in a meeting and control the meeting. An example is at the end of the meeting when Aiyanas was here. Ivan was the last to speak at that meeting and he said that he didn't know about something from the treasurer report and I know that's not true.
MOTION: For Kelvin to attempt to set up a conflict resolution meeting between Ivan and Roland. AGREED, by board members present, but we didn't have quorum.
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