Saturday 6 October 2012

DNC General meeting minutes - October 6, 2012

DNC General meeting minutes
October 6, 2012

Chairs: Herb and Tami

Agenda
1. Welcoming and opening
2. Discussion: Police brutality and harassment
3. Board reports
1. AGM & elections in November
2. Treasurer
3. Presidents report
4. Committees and coalitions
1. LAPP
2. Street market
3. DT East
5. Event reports and announcements
1. Copwatch
2. End prohibition
3. DTES Not for Developers & 955 E Hastings
6. Closing

OPENING
Kelvin does acknowledgement.
Tami reads constitution (everyone cheers)
Herb reads the agenda
MOTION: Accept the agenda. Moved Richard Cunningham, seconded Rob Morgan. Passed unanimously.

DISCUSSION: Police brutality and harassment
Herb
As many of you have noticed over the summer the numbers of police in our neighbourhood have been increasing, especially around the new condos.
We know about assault and harassment mostly through anecdotal evidence, and we need to start documenting it.
(member)
What if the cops take your phone? They do that too.
Herb
That's why we need to be careful. We need to only go taking pictures of them in groups, with our friends with us. And make sure we take badge numbers.
Rob
About a month ago I was walking home from buying some rock and the cops attacked me and they didn't even identify themselves as police.
We need safety for people in the community against the police.
Lorna
I saw the cops handcuffing two black guys in an alley. I saw them and took out a camera. They took his handcuffs off and drove away right away. Taking pictures does work.
Richard
I have been stopped twice this month because they were looking for a black man. It's racial profiling.
Ivan
Rob's case has led to five charges against the constable who assaulted him. And Pivot, with the Eidge group is working on starting a campaign to end the police targeting of Aboriginal men and drinkers.
(member)
It is not only the police directly. The government is encouraging us to spy on eachother and increasing
Darrel Knight
In 2000, January 28 I was in Saskatoon and the cops got me. They took me out of town and they beat the shit out of me. I was scared. For 12 years I have been scared but I don't care. I'm going to stand up now and tell you that we can fight back against them.
The cop who did that to me, they only gave him 2 months in jail. I was like, that's it? Two months? I nearly died, I almost froze. He should have gotten 10 years!
I still think about the police, I'm still scared of them every day.
We have to stand up against them together.
Herb
What about Transit cops? In the past few weeks I have gotten four transit tickets. This is becoming a major problem for us.
Why do police need guns and tasers to check transit tickets?
(member)
Even if a driver lets you on the cops can get you.
Diane
One thing that happened in San Francisco is a guy didn't pay for the train and ran and the cops shot and killed him.
Ben
A few years ago I was driving the shuttle bus for Lynch bus lines. I was taking my lunch break in the Safeway parking lot near the Surrey Central Skytrain.
A guy came and asked me to trade some change for a $10bill, we exchanged bags. The transit police saw this from the skytrain and as I tried to drive out of there they attacked me. They took me to the ground and humiliated me.
Skytrain cops are federal police, they can cross jurisdictions.
(member)
People on welfare have so little money, it's not rational. Low-income people need to be able to take the bus to get their food and everything they need.
Rob
The police are attacking us as Aboriginals. And our organizations are fighting back.
Richard
If you're not carrying two pieces of ID on transit then you will get a ticket. How many people down here have ID? They're making it so they can ticket us any time they want.
(member)
I am getting followed around by this one cop who says he's the ticketmaster. He says he can ticket me any time he wants. I took my ticket to VANDU and they're helping me fight it.

AGM AND ELECTIONS
Harold
The AGM and board elections have been held generally in November so we are starting to prepare for that.
We elect our new board, 21 members, and also work on our constitutional issues. We can edit our constitution and make other changes to our bylaws.
We will have a pre-AGM where we explain the nominations process and prepare the election and present anything that will have to be voted on.
Last year we made a change so that in order to vote at the AGM you have to have been a member for one week in advance, in order to protect us from anyone stacking the meeting.
We encourage you to come and get involved in the work of the organization.

TREASURER REPORT
Roland
We have no money, so there's no report.

PRESIDENTS REPORT
Herb
If you want to get more involved in the DNC then you should run for the board
We have a constitution that governs how we treat eachother.
We are having some conflict in our board right now. As presidents we are having a hard time resolving these conflicts and we want to ask the membership for help. We want to turn to the membership to create a five person committee to help resolve this problem.
Lorna
At VANDU we have a process where if there's a conflict then each person chooses someone to help with resolution. They can usually work it out.
Richard
Can't we put it off until after the AGM?
Herb
It's kind of like an infection. If we let it go for a month then it might get worse.
Kelvin
As a board member I'm exhausted. We have been hashing it over all summer and we're still dealing with it. AFD has been trying to get this going and it has fallen.
Ivan
I feel that the board does not have the ability to resolve this conflict. We need help from membership. I am also hearing Kelvin and AFD's offer and think we should accept their offer to help.
MOTION: To create a five-person committee of members, led and organized by Kelvin. Tami and Herb, as co-presidents will help set up this committee. Moved, Tami. Seconded, DJ. Passed, 1 abstention (Grant Fraser)

LAPP
Ivan
(About our conflict with the co-chair issue)
Support Herb, I consider it an opportunity for him to take more leadership.
Richard
Is there a second co-chair position.
Harold
We're doing this under protest. No one is happy about this.
Ivan
Also first time a young, low-income
MOTION: For DNC, under protest against city's abusive treatment of Ivan, to elect Herb Varley to take over as DNC's co-chair delegate to the DTES Local Area Planning Process. Moved, Rob. Seconded, DJ. Passed, all in favor. One abstention (Herb).

STREET MARKET
Jacek
About 6 months ago we realized we were running out of money and we worked really hard to meet all the conditions of the permit.
We got the permits now and the city has released another block of money.
We have raised the amount of the stipend by 25%
Next we are going to make the market for DTES resident vendors only. We have a lot of people coming in from Surrey
Lorna
The people in the new building on the east side of Carrall have been complaining about the market so we have hired three more volunteers to keep vendors from setting up on the sidewalk there.

DOWNTOWN EAST
Harold
The DT East will be going to one issue every two months instead of every month.
We have two major issues: division of labour, and financial organization.
We are working on sorting out these two issues. We now have a financial and fundraising team that will sort these things out.
Our mandate was to be financially independent of DNC and we didn't 100% succeed in that but now we have paid our debt back and we are free of debt to the DNC.

COPWATCH REPORT
Richard
We had a march yesterday against police brutality and harassment specifically to deal with the BET Squad assault on Sandy on the street in the DTES.

DTES NOT FOR DEVELOPERS
Dave
Major condo project coming across the street from Raycam. We will have a townhall next Wednesday, 6:30pm at Russian Hall.

Closing: Tami


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