DNC Board meeting - February 23 2012

DNC Board meeting
February 23 2012

Opening: Kelvin
Constitution reading: Herb
Clean-up after: Ivan, Dave D, Herb, DJ, Elroy
Projected closing time: 7pm

Present: Paul, Herb, Ann Marie, Roland, Jenn, Ivan, DJ, Harold, Ann, Jada, Wendy, Dave M
Guests: Jacek, Dave D, Elroy, Paul T

Agenda:
1) Opening and check-in
2) DICUSSION: Gentrification, interim rezoning workshop
3) DICUSSION: Violence in DTES
4) GUEST: Paul Taylor from DTES N'hd House
5) Treasurer motion
6) Committee reports
1. Shelter committee
2. Street market
3. Police committee and copwatch
4. Feed the Roots report
7) March 3 General Meeting
1. Theme
2. Framework
3. Food, location, time, etc
8) New business
1. Statements and resolutions
9) Closing

1) DISCUSSION: Gentrification and Interim Rezoning workshop
Ivan
 (Presentation on interim rezoning)
Paul
 The Balmoral is getting threatened with shut down by the city which says we're serving underage people, but it's not true
 They want to close down the Balmoral to make it more attractive to condo buyers at Pantages
Wendy
 We have to focus on winning a moratorium at LAPP

2) DISCUSSION: Violence in the DTES
Wendy
 Last night at the LAPP workshop Scott from Alive said that the DTES is violent so they don't support a moratorium
 Jogi from the Strathcona BIA and Kevin from the city were nodding with agreement
 Some people in the neighbourhood agree with this. The LAPP could be the place where we get the facts about violence and discuss it
Ann
 The Strathcona BIA put out a newsletter claiming that some school girls were robbed on Hastings. We have to get away from stories and work on getting facts
Harold
 Violence against women is a specific issue and we should talk with some people who work on stopping violence against women
Jenn
 If they chase women out of this neighbourhood and out to Surrey then the same women will go missing in Surrey
Paul
 To hell with the statistics. This neighbourhood is violent like every neighbourhood is violent but in this neighbourhood it's all out in public.
Wendy
 Scott also said that too many “challenged” people in one building without “adequate supports” in buildings together create violence
Ivan
 Scott is not deluded, I think he's building his own political carreer
Roland
 When they talk about “high impact” or “challenged” people it's disgusting. They're talking about human beings
Wendy
 I went to the Alive board meeting last week and was well received. I knew a lot of the people there.
 Unfortunately we convinced them to join the LAPP committee.

3) Paul Taylor, DTES Neighbourhood House
Paul
 The Neighbourhood House is working on food justice programs to bring food to people who are undernourished and whose right to food is impeded by low welfare rates, charity models, etc.
 We are doing outreach too, taking bananas out on shopping carts in evenings, taking smoothies to groups where they don't have access to nutritious foods
 We're working with Jen's Kitchen to do food support for survival sex workers
 We're interested in working with the DNC on projects
Wendy
 Ann and I founded the Neighbourhood House and then Joyce picked it up
 We need a space and we need a homemaker to run the space
Ann
 How much space is there at your space?
Paul T
 About 40 people worth
(Not big enough for us)
Paul M
 We should talk about how we can work together
Ann
 Can we do a funding proposal together to create a space that we work on together?
 The Neighbourhood House is creating a space and DNC does advocacy so it would be a good partnership
Paul T
 2015 to 2018 the City of Vancouver is supporting the Neighbourhood House to do a “capital investment project” for increased space for the Neighbourhood House
Paul M
 The city and province aren't supporting any property buying or building
Paul T
 The city kind of owes us because we are the most underfunded neighbourhood house in the city
Ivan
 I think we should seriously think about forming an alliance with the N'hd House, the House can run the space and the Council can do the advocacy and political work and programming
MOTION (moved Ivan, seconded Paul) To form a committee to meet with the Neighbourhood Council Board and work out a proposal on sharing a space. (Passed unanimous)

TREASURER MOTION
Roland
MOTION (Moved by Paul, seconded by Jada): That Harold Lavender, Ivan Drury, Tami Starlight, Jamie Richardson be signers for the DTES Neighbourhood Council bank account at VanCity Credit Union. (Passed. One abstention – Wendy).

POLICE COMMITTEE
Ann
 We had a meeting at my house but everyone ran out to harrass police
 We're planning two actions in March:
 International Women's Day, March 8th. To have a protest against violence against women.
 March 15th International Day Against Police Brutality. To have a protest starting at Main and Hastings and then outside the police station
Ivan
 The police committee should be open to all members. Make an announcement and send it over the DNC email list. Make sure you contact the people who signed up for the committee too
Ann
 The police committee is also concerned about “The Beat” TV show
Jenn
 The Int'l Day against Police Brutality action will demand that the Beat stop filming, say that they're not welcome
Dave M
 Can we demand instead that the BET squads be driven out?
DECISION: That the police committee have details on the actions back at the next board meeting for further discussion before we have a motion.

SHELTER COMMITTEE
Jacek
 The shelter committee is continuing to go to meetings with BC Housing, where we'll get an update on what's going on with First United. We'll also ask about other shelters too.
 We are also going to GVSS meetings and VPD meetings to be there when they talk about shelter stuff
Wendy
 Can the shelter committee make a budget for their work, including bus tickets and food for meetings
DECIDED: That the shelter committee will make a budget and bring it to the next meeting

STREET MARKET COMMITTEE
Wendy
 We have been getting complaints from the police and the city that we are blocking the bike lanes and blocking doorways
 We should

GENERAL MEETING
Wendy
 Can we have it on violence in the DTES?
Ivan
 I worry it's too loaded and we won't be able to have a fair discussion
Jenn
 Can we talk about safety and policing?
Jada
 We could do it on the interim rezoning policy
Paul
 The police are wrecking our community, pushing people around
Wendy
 I think CCAP will do a townhall on interim rezoning
Ivan
 I was thinking that we do something on agencies working with developers in order to make the community aware about Atira, PHS, and Lo Foundation
 Could also put pressure on the agencies and
 Could create a statement to send to the agencies
Paul
 Straw poll to see which point we should focus on: “Do you feel safe with community policing” and “Stop agencies from collaborating with developers”
 3 for policing, 3 for agencies and developers
Harold
 I think we should talk about both. Keep some space for policing discussion too
Dave D
 I think the market forces of gentrification are working with policing violence to gentrify the community
Ivan
 Should we combine the issues into one point or seperate them into two?
Jacek
 They are trying to gentrify the DTES by getting rid of the low-barrier shelters like First United
DECISION: Theme will be “How PHS, Atira and Terra Housing are destroying the DTES” and there will be a point on policing and safety

FRAMEWORK OF GM
MOTION: To do food a half hour before the meeting and then put it all away for the rest of the meeting. (Passed unanimous)
DECISION: We will advertise sign-in at 2:15, food at 2:30, before the meeting. Meeting will start 3pm sharp until 4:30pm with no break.


FOOD FOR GM
 Dave and Teresa doing food
 Coffee will be provided by AFD and will only be available during food time and will be put away for the meeting.

STATEMENT ON BANNERS ON HASTINGS
Wendy
 (Reads a statement on banners on Hastings)
MOTION: To support and send the letter Wendy wrote regarding banners. (Passed Unanimous)

DNC Board Meeting Minutes - February 2, 2012

DNC Board Meeting
Thursday February 2nd, 2012
Jacobs Well, 5pm

Attendance: Tami, Harold, Paul, Roland, Herb, Wendy, Ann-Marie, Jada, Kelvin, Dave Hamm, Jamie, Ivan, Jen, Louie, Yvonne, Joe, Richard
Minute Taker: Jada
Agenda Scriber: Wendy

Tami:
- Protocol
- Cleaner-upers: Kelvin, Dave Hamm,
- Suggests that we clean our own plates

Kelvin
- Acknowledgements

Paul
- Reads constitution

Tami
- Goes over the Agenda
- Meeting proposed to end 7:15pm

GENERAL MEETING

Wendy
- Louie is bringing coffee
- Craig is bringing cream and sugar and cups
- We need an extension cord

Yvonne
- Im couch surfing
- Im stressed, I need to use a recreation pass

Wendy
- We'll add it to the agenda
- You should go to the shelters committee meetings on Monday night
- Who is going to prepare food?  Craig is willing to support

Yvonne
- I can see if my sister can make bannick
- I can make chile, I can cook

Paul
- Salary board members can pay for pizza

Louie
- At AFD we have a women who cooks for us for free
- Whatever you give her she'll cook it and deliver it, are you up for it?

Kelvin
- She'll cook up to 200 people, if it gets larger then that then we need to find a place large enough for her to cook

?
- We need to ask for donations from the neighbourhood. Save-on-Meats, and restaurants, the new pastry shop, time to ask them

Wendy
- If somebody wants to be a backup, we need volunteers

Tami
- We need a food committee or something

Paul
- Mark from Save-on-Foods, he's got the kitchen upstairs, cooking for all these supportive housing (through contract)
- Ask him to give up his kitchen

Tami
- We didn't check-in, protocol issue

Ivan
- Fraser use to bottom-line it, we need a new person

Dave H
- Vandu had a presentation put on Saturday, people will be fed well there at the presentation

Wendy
- If there were people here to make food, I'll be willing to organize a costco run for us to create a sandwich assembly line

Tami
- Will go shopping at Costco, pick up the food

Wendy
- We need people there are 2pm to put it together
- Need petty cash

Roland
- We have $2800 in the bank

Paul
- Thought we decided it was Dave Murray

Herb
- Specifically for the market though?

Tami
- I don't recall that

Tami
- Motion to have Roland bottom-line the petty cash and details, give a report every week
- Carried unanimously

Tami
- Motion to spend $60 to buy costco food
- 1 abstained, Motion carried.

Wendy
- Phone Calls - Jada first 3 pages
- Distributing phone sheets
- Motion to spend $100 on Roland to robo-phone the DNC phone lists
- 4 against, 9 for. It passes.
- Discussion: Ivan says he doesn't like how impersonal it is.  Jada says that residents aren't able to ask questions to board members if they have it.

Wendy
- Any other logistics?
- Postering is done
- Agenda needs to be worked on, by the presidents
- Can be a combination of presidents and other board members

Dave
- Should we ask our members if they want to be called by a machine or a person

Wendy
- Who wants to do the board report? A summary?
- Paul?

Paul
- Do we need robophone to be ratified?
- Sure.

Wendy
- Any other board type committee reports that need to be presented at the GM?

Harold
- DT East editorial meet tomorrow, might be useful to report where we are with that

Wendy
- Which reports are we doing at the GM?

Roland
- We invited a lot of First United people at the meeting as well
- Will that be a break-out groups or present to the entire audience?

Ivan
- What we've learned is that we're able to only have one meaningful discussion at every meeting
- The rest aren't really engaging. There is no space to make any comments
- If we break into small groups, what should they be?
- LAPP, Homeless/Shelters, Street Market, Tenant Union, Policing

Wendy
- Does anything need to be ratified?

Tami
- Chance for people to talk

Herb
- Add Cop Watch

Paul
- We made a decision about what our bottom-line if we would go ahead with the LAPP

Ivan
- Then it should be a full group discussion

Richard
- Policing, we should, lots of stuff is going on here
- Ominus bill
- Getting pretty bad down here, lots of harassment by the police
- It should be a part of the GM

Ivan
- Gentrification discussion for the first 45 minutes of the meeting
- Then have the LAPP follow straight afterwards

Harold
- My concern is that there's not a lot of room, and it's thrown together, not really clear what people are being asked
- We need to be clear on what the situation is
- We need to figure out what stage we're at
- I do think there will be some key decisions coming up

Ivan
- We have a meeting tomorrow
- Uneven amount of knowledge about the LAPP, put this off until the LAPP meeting discussion
- Full meeting discussion: report of gentrification, possibly the LAPP, board reports (treasurer, president report), then break out to committees, then new business

STREET MARKET 50/50 DRAW

Wendy
- Roland has the key for the box, and he will come in to do the draw and handle the money
- Cigarette money?
- Anyone else want to participate in this discussion on Friday?

Dave
- Call it a Vendor Raffle

Paul
- Cops are trying to push people out of the area
- Between Carrall Street and Gore, 15 cops harassing left right and centre

Richard
- They do 50/50's at sports events

Paul
- Get the City to donate the permit

Jada
- Forgive the permit

LAPP STRATEGY

Wendy
- Committee is struck, 2 empty seats: ALIVE and SRA
- First meeting is happening on February 15th
- BIAs have filled all the seats
- City has dumped us a work plan, headache.
- Planner who is doing it didn't incorporate the terms of reference in the planning framework and left out all the actors and didn't explain what the committees roles would be
- Hopefully we'll get another edit
- Trying to hold everyone to the terms of reference
- Delightful surprise. This is a work plan that will go as an appendix for a report to Council. In the back of this work plan, interim rezoning policy for the entire area
- Tom is going to push for no rezoning during the entire LAPP
- Mike harcourt supports

Jada
- Will the recent canning of the Director of Planning influence this LAPP in a good or bad way?

Harold
- People will be meeting with the city manager tomorrow, we're going to get a sense of which way the wind is going
- Discussion on how far we want to push this
- If we got the no rezoning during the LAPP, would be good, some of us want to go further than this
- How do we deal with new stores? We need to figure out a formulation that works
- Question of incentives of proactive development
- People would really like to stop all new development, whether we get support on that or not, those are the types of questions
- We're going to do a presentation and push as hard as we can
- Potential issues with the timing of the LAPP, the City is under pressure from developers etc so they want to streamline the process

Dave H.
- The petition for the street market, do we have it so we have our logo on it?
- It will be part of the newspaper, DT East

Wendy
- Maybe the way to deal with the LAPP is get someone to do a presentation, talk about our strategy with the LAPP and the correlation with the condo development

Jada
- Show the correlation between the LAPP and the condo development projects, the connection between the two

Herb
- Work Program needs to have some wiggle room, not set in stone
- Look at incentives of the hipster joints and cafes, facades etc.

Ivan
- The LAPP meetings have been dominating by Tom talking and Ray Spaxm, its a bad sign
- It means that they are setting the pace and the terms of the discussion, and the framework of the discussion, and we're just responding to it
- He responds with anger to our criticism
- He makes over 100 grand a year, probably $100 per hour to meet with us, he should listen
- This is not going to be a easy to get this interim zoning
- Going at this pace takes a toll on us

Wendy
- We are not going to slow this train down
- We want this interim zoning

Harold
- There is tension around this
- It's up to the LAPP committee to deal with the pace of the process

Ivan
- We're going to half to push back

Wendy
- We want a moratorium on all new development

Herb
- We're slogging through this 30 page document, makes us do busy work

Tami
- I appreciate all the information
- Got my email of acceptance letter

Jada
- I got my rejection letter!

Tami
- Logo thing in the email, with City of Vancouver, BCS and DNC logos all together

Yvonne
- I talked to a guy who was in a car accident
- Seen the conditions of his place
- The city took it away, now he's in a room in gastown
- I want to get a lawyer for him
- 9th and Kingsway
- He was upset, crying, his head was stitched up, he was hit by a drunk driver, it was his place
- Who can I get to help him?

Kelvin
- Listening as an elder, what I would suggest is to introduce him and put him in the end so he's not taking up all the time with just him
- As we've seen, people with "degrees", just so that the whole meeting is not hearing just long-winded, blowing hot air, we need to worry about our people to blow hot air back

Wendy
- Willing to talk to Tom and Ray, people are picking up on this
- They called this the partners meeting, weekly partners meeting, it has to be a sharing between all the partners
- I can talk to them on the side

Tami
- I don't think adding him at the end would be the last word

Harold
- We'll have to have the facilitator guide around this is

Paul
- Do we have a short-list on the facilitators?

Wendy
- No. The agreement is that the DNC, BCS and CoV will facilitate
- We're not ready for a facilitator, we'll chair different sections, take-turn on presenting

Paul
- I don't think Tom should be a co-chair in the first meeting, especially if he's dominating

Wendy
- I disagree, we need to work with him
- The 3 groups need to work together to produce this plan, in partnership, we need all 3
- They are the planners that are suppose to help us make this plan

Paul
- I'm concerned about Tom dominating

Wendy
- Partly the way he speaks

Yvonne
- What if we could write a letter to address that people aren't happy with him, go above him, not talking directly to him

Ivan
- He's terrified of being fired
- We don't know what we'd get if Tom was out, someone could be worse
- We need to put some pressure on him
- If he doesn't respond well then we'll try to fire him

THANK YOU LETTERS

Ivan
- Write one to Jacob's Well for using their space
- Write a letter to UBC Social Justice Committee
- Give a letter with $100 to Jacobs Well (one time $100)
- Wrote a proposal for another $1,500
- Write a letter to Craig for bringing us food and money for tenant organizing

Paul
- When we write these letters, we should have DNC letterheads

Ivan
- We have those
- Motion to write these 3 letters plus a gift to Jacob's Well
- 2 against, motion carries.

FEED THE ROOTS

Ivan
- 8 week workshop
- We want them to go to a board meeting with a sample workshop so we can understand whats going on
- They are not available to do it Thursdays. They can do it on Mondays
- Lets do it at 5pm Monday, an hour before the Shelter Committee Meeting
- Who's interested in attending the workshop?
- I'll give them the go ahead to come here on Monday
- The workshop won't be a big meeting

SHELTERS

Roland
- We had a meeting at Vandu today with First United residents, about 30 showed up
- Unanimous that residents want the shelters to stay open
- Consensus of residents continuing to get together and talk about issues
- Meeting again in 2 weeks
- Already big difference in how the shelters are operating from a few months ago
- They shrunk First United by 40 beds, slowly turning people away
- We need to have a resolution for the shelter to stay open at a certain size and get the City to replace the beds
- March 31st their funding runs out
- Shelters can continue to shrink, doesn't mean they're housing anyone
- Lineups are getting longer
- Motion to support the will of residents and be ready to issue a letter to BC Housing (either replacing beds, or providing more low-barrier shelter space that is being reducing).
- Committee to draft a letter, present to board for approval

Wendy
- Maybe encourage BC Housing to have smaller low-barrier shelters

Roland
- You're right

Ivan
- There is also New Fountain

Roland
- That will continue, it's not new though

Ivan
- It is a low-barrier shelter
- I'm concerned about supporting First United Shelter because what is there already and because of having a logic track with that
- Push for safe spaces for everyone. 250 spaces is not a safe and humane space for vulnerable people
- It's going to take more than one meeting than 30 residents in that space in order to come up with a vision for what that space should look like
- There is no reason to hurry to make a statement this week because the closing date isn't set for another 2 months

Paul
- We should support First United stay open upon meeting with everyone, if they are willing to adhere to a certain set of rules of operation
- We need to write up that Bill of Rights
- There are a lot of tricky things in that
- I support First United stay open, but not as it exists

Roland
- I agree we don't need to rush with the statement
- There's a meeting on 7th with people from BC Housing coming. Is there something we can tell them that the community feels? And that the reduction of low-barrier beds is an issue?
- It's about the general beds. It can come anywhere or go anywhere, but we need them.

Joe
- It's going to change, it's in transition right now
- It won't be what it was, too much negative press, it's a sensitive issue
- We have to protect our sisters more than we do right now

Tami
- Supporting First United is really tricky

Ivan
- We should not be shy about expressing our vision
- There should not be a sanctuary that provides risks to people
- We should put that forward with our discussions with BC Housing
- Champion those safe models, like RainCity Housing with 30/40 people per building
- We want housing!

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Tami
- Roland will bring the cheque book to board meetings so we're organized

Kelvin
- February 14th Annual Women's Memorial March

Dave H.
- February 8th Beyond Prohibition at the Carnegie Centre 7-9pm

Herb
- February 17th is my birthday!

Dave H.
- Gord, he was so verbally abusive to Lorna on Sunday
- Cat and mouse game with the cops
- Losing perspective, personal attacks on people
- Going to have a security volunteer
- Alcoholism is really affecting him

Kelvin
- Nisga'a new year Friday at the PNE!

Meeting Closed.