DNC Board Meeting - September 24, 2013
Attendees: Anthony G., Leo M., Jezz M., April S., Roland C., Jacek L., James O., Bill B., Clea, Ludvik S., Jewels C., Rob M., Hendrik B.
11 board members present
Agenda
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Review of Last week
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Review of Last week
Traffic
LAPP
Copwatch
62 Update
Tenant Bill of Rights
Board Members
Summary of 3pm meeting
Conflict Discussion
Hendrik does the opening
Jewels reads the constitution
Traffic Campaign Discussion
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7th victim in the last 6 months
3rd accident since we met with the bus company
Anthony filed a complaint on Saturday with bus company for almost getting run over
suggestion of an additional letter to bus company
discussion of doing a follow up with them based on new information
do we know what kind of background check they do on the drivers?
do they do drug or alcohol testing on the drivers?
what is our next step?
Decision to follow up with the bus company to request a report on all the serious pedestrian accidents in the DTES in the last 6 months. Request that they provide full accident details and causes and tell us what what is being done to prevent similar accidents in the future.
Jacek requests that Jewels follow up with VANDU to ask if they still have the radar gun
Discussion of possible plan to issue our own traffic tickets
LAPP
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Rob describes the conflict at previous LAPP meeting
Rob says that he was removed from the LAPP, and Herb was not removed from the LAPP
DNC does not need to make a statement about not wanting to extend the broken LAPP process because Rob says that they were already denied an extension at city hall
LAPP was a money grab and a PR exercise, a big waste of time
The protest going right now at city hall is essentially rejecting the entire concept of these LAPP processes.
Copwatch
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Last week PSS meeting was cancelled due to client having death in the family
PSS agreed to go forward and meet on Friday, water street sky train.
VPD guy is a senior swat team guy. Terms are that meeting must be taped and there is no option for refusing
Police are clearly scared of copwatch in the DTES because they are being watched
Other board members agree to tweet if they see anything going on
Rob reports on previous process of complaining and so forth
One of the witnesses was unreliable. Says that there was an incident where they clearly acted more professionally because he made a previous complaint
Copwatch setting up patrols in Yaletown, Chinatown, and Gastown
Intimidation of Jamie is continuing
62 Update
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Today was second day open on Tuesday. We actually had vendors today.
We had tents, tables, and ran from 11am to 2pm and had about 12 vendors
We signed up about 20 members for the DTES Street Market Society
charity online - provincial government - infrastructure grants
Applying for social innovation grant, and core grant direct social services
One of the vendors said that they would be willing to pay for space
We need to be careful not to ever charge the poor vendors and keep it a safe place for binners
Pigeon park on Sunday will never be surrendered.
Tenant Advocacy
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We need to give tenants a voice, make it a safe place for tenants to complain. Rob started a tenancy union when he was at the washington hotel. Just because people are placated with housing does not make everything better. Lots of arbitrary rules in social housing, and Hendrik never signed anything. Finally they got rid of security guards because what they were doing was illegal - stopping me from having guests. Jezz lived above the dugout and had bed bugs, cockroaches and everything.
Decision to develop a tenants bill of rights that will be equally applied to non-profit run buildings as well as private SROs. Advocacy groups in DTES will not help because they are allied with the other non-profits. We can hold the non-profits to account and make them afraid of bad press and bad reputation.
Decision to set up a DNC table at the street market to do outreach and membship signup
James O is now getting evicted from his SRO for advocating for residents in the building. It is a private SRO run by the woo family.
Board Members
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April gives a brief introduction and describes why she wants to be a member of the board of the DNC. Urged by Hendrik to join the board. Interests are women, children, families and social change. Can be a documentor for the group.
Clea gives a brief introduction to herself. Trying to write positive stories about the DTES.
Hopes to make a difference as a journalist and write a different kinds of articles.
3pm meeting with Catherine L
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Jacek summarizes the meeting. She is our funder. We described the strange difficulties that we seemed to be in. We asked her to help. The help will probably be in the form of a mediator and a conflict resolution process. She will find someone that is trusted, impartial and not necessarily from the DTES. She was at the general meeting in April and saw the attacks, she could not believe what happened.
Hopefully she will help us with the conflict resolution process and maybe come up with a plan for surviving general meetings. It may be pointless to try and have a general meeting before we begin this resolution process.
There was some discussion of the constitutional challenges by the opposing group, but the consensus was that if the present board was acting in the best interest of the organization that we could continue to proceed.
There was some discussion of the constitutional challenges by the opposing group, but the consensus was that if the present board was acting in the best interest of the organization that we could continue to proceed.
Rob - CCAP put out pamphlets for our meeting. Gerry saw the pamphlets and that is why he got scared.
Jewels - one of the residents said that there was going to be a rally here and Gerry got scared.
Rob - Gerry told him that Ivan called him on Friday. Ivan also called Rob several times.
Rob - Gerry said that he called Wendy and felt that there would be two groups so the situation was dangerous.
Gerry also said that he phoned Wendy right away to cancel the meeting. Gerry said that Wendy asked if Roland said it was going to get rowdy. Gerry said no that it was his call to cancel it.
Decision for board to wait for a) a letter from the opposing group and b) a follow up from Catherine L on next steps, and details of the mediation process.
Bill says that he has been in contact with Ivan about having some kind of truce in order to figure out what is really going on. Ivan said that he would go back to his group and discuss it.
Many board members joke and say that they weren't even offered one of these yellow Tshirts.
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