(The above photo was taken on the Carnegie outdoor smoking patio on Main St. on Dec. 22 or 23, 2008)
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Rock in the New Year with a Civil Liberties Abuser
(The above photo was taken on the Carnegie outdoor smoking patio on Main St. on Dec. 22 or 23, 2008)
Four Cops with Guns Drawn at Main & Hastings
A male police officer reportedly asked underclass men standing around in front of Carnegie if they had witnessed anything. They said they hadn't. But they had of course seen something because they were chatting with one another about the incident. One guy later said, chuckling and shaking his head, that one of the knives the guy had been flashing was large.
There was blood on the sidewalk. In addition to the blood in this photo, there was a smaller area of blood nearby on the sidewalk. The blur on the right of this photos is someone's pant leg as they walked by. I asked a witness if the guy on the steps had been stabbed and he said, "No."
Police sat the suspect on the steps of Carnegie Centre in handcuffs. Paramedics arrived and put a white bandage around his head. He was apparently bleeding.
A person with a camera offered to take some photos and send them to me. Comments late made by the photographer via email left me with the impression that it's time Chief Chu had a talk with his constables about respecting the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. When the photographer went to take a photo, a female police officer with dark hair apparently made a point of stepping in front of the camera to block the shot. Photographers have as much right to work on a public sidewalk as police do. There is no expectation of privacy on a sidewalk and taxpayers have a right to see photos of police at work.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Mission Possible Impossible during Holiday Season
Mission Possible claims to be a 'relief' mission and sports a sandwich board that also claims they help break the cycle of homelessness and poverty, etc. The mission has closed for the past two holiday seasons since USA missionary Brian Postalwaite (sp) has taken the helm.
Hasn't the Xmas/New Year season traditionally been a suicidal time and the most needed time for pastoral care?
Sunday, December 28, 2008
What Comes Down Must Go Up
Saturday evening, I walked by the Chinatown bakery where the awning had fallen but the awning wasn’t on the sidewalk anymore. It was back up and two service men were on ladders under it.
One of the service men, who spoke good English with a Chinese accent, asked, "Why are you taking my picture?" "For the internet news", I said.
He then volunteered a comment about the awning business being brisk after the snowfall. "I've done sooooo many today." He listed some of the places he'd been working that day: "Commercial [Dr.], City Center, Victoria [Dr.]
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Snow-Packed Awning Crashes to Sidewalk in front of Chinatown Bakery
It was not until he and others went outside later that they realized that the awning over the bakery on Main St. (next to the Royal Bank at Main & Hastings) had fallen to the sidewalk. It appeared to have collapsed under the weight of the snow.
Friday, December 26, 2008
City of Vancouver Serves Free Christmas Dinner
Everyone who walked in the door was given a dinner ticket that had "City of Vancouver Dept. of Housing and Properties" written on it. They were also given a second ticket that they could take to Santa in the recreation room and exchange for a gift after they'd eaten.
Santa gave one guy thick socks. He gave a woman a package with three types of cocoa butter in it.
There was a Chinese woman serving the turkey dinner from the steam trays in the cafeteria who seemed to be enjoying Christmas. She was singing, "Christmas comes just once a year." One guy who had been in the line up said, she's probably happy about the double time she's getting paid.
Salvation Army: Turkey with a TV Camera
The dining hall was full, with new people constantly coming in from the waiting room. The wait was about 15 minutes in the waiting room where they played Christmas music. There was a red banner at the front of the room with something on it about accepting "Christ", but there was not a heavy emphasis on religion.
There was the occasional double-dipper. One guy who looked downtrodden said he had come through the waiting room twice so he was on his second turkey dinner, but he was too full to eat a second apple pie. So he offered it to the guy beside him who thanked him a couple of times. Another guy eating a dinner asked a middle-aged male server if he could take a second dinner home in a take-out container. The male server said they occasionally allow that but don't like to make a practice of it; a little later, a female server gave him a second dinner in a styrofoam take-out container.
Everybody who ate dinner was handed a gift as they walked out the door. The gifts were things people could use, like winter gloves or socks. And the gift packages included a couple of candy canes, a mini chocolate bar, and chocolates wrapped to look like large gold coins.
The Salvation Army runs on government funding as well as donations. But the people serving were volunteering their time.
There was a television camera at the dinner for a while too. But not during the entire dinner.
Boxing Day Deception at Carnegie
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Has Jim Sinclair been Naughty or Nice?
The dinner consisted of turkey, dressing, gravy, a mixture of corn and carrots, cranberries, mashed potatoes, and a bun. People donating their Christmas Eve time to dish up food from the steam trays were warm and friendly, exuding Christmas spirit -- not a grouch among them. Volunteers were walking around the tables in the hall offering people pumpkin or apple pie for dessert, and coffee, pop or juice to drink.
Santa turned up too, with gifts for children. And there was live music too, although one guy eating dinner thought the singer ruined John Lennon's Christmas song. "He should give silence a chance."
There was also a clothing room with donated clothing.
The line-up into the dinner wasn't as long as last year, which according to Downtown Eastsiders was the case with other free Christmas dinners on the Downtown Eastside. That could be the reason many adults leaving the Maritime Hall after dinner were given whole pumpkin or apple pies to take home, along with the usual bag of groceries containing a couple of large potatoes, two large carrots, and a can of baked beans.
Jim Sinclair, President of the BC Federation of Labour, was there as he is every year, wearing a Santa hat. Sinclair looked thinner than last year, less paunchy. He was enthusiastically serving food from a steam tray along with union elves. (He is fourth from the left in the top photo.) He later walked around the hall and chatted up the volunteers. Sinclair didn't chat Santa up though, so he never got asked whether he's been naughty or nice. You be the judge: Evidence-tampering in CUPE police complaint
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Snowy Jack
Up to 20 cm. of snow is forecast for tomorrow.
Merry Christmas.
Pathways to be Locked all day Tomorrow
Brian Adams' Music Studio just before a White Christmas
A meteorologist on the radio said that Vancouver has a white Christmas about once every ten years. This is one of those unusual years.
This photo of Brian Adams' studio in Vancouver was sent to me just after it was taken this afternoon at around 2:30 p.m.
In previous years, I've seen Christmas lights in the windows when I walked by Adams' studio, but the photographer said there don't appear to be any this year.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Central Library Evacuated due to Fire Alarm on Roof
Later she came on the loud speaker again and in a more excited voice told us to evacuate. She said something about "the roof" but I didn't hear exactly what, because of the noise the alarm was making.
One staff person, a middle aged woman without an orange vest, zipped into the washrooms to make sure there was no one in them. She kept leaning on people lingering over the first floor computers to get a move on.
I wasn't paying close attention but it seemed to me that the entire library was evacuated in under five minutes. At the risk of sounding like I have Stolkholm Syndrome after being a taxpayer held hostage by library staff this summer, I will say I was impressed by the performance of library staff.
Some staff and patrons went outside and stood on the snowy steps. From the steps, billows of what looked like steam or smoke poured off the roof. People were saying it was probably just steam. One guy looked around and said that none of the other buildings had it.
Drug Addict Slapped Around by Drug Dealer
This afternoon at about 4 p.m., I was walking by First United Church at Hastings at Gore St. A man I presumed was a drug dealer grabbed a known addict and marched her to alley behind the church.
She was yelling that it was just three dollars that she owed him, and he didn't seem to dispute that. She was yelling at people in the vicinity, "Could somebody give me three dollars!" He was holding her tightly by the arm in the alley, yelling at her, shaking her. Finally he swatted her and threw her to the ground. In the above photo, you can see her on the ground in the alley behind First United Church, as a car passes on Gore.
This woman is one of the few Asian addict-panhandlers I see on the streets. She walks through McDonalds restaurant at Terminal and Main regularly to panhandle customers. She has a sense of entitlement that leaves my jaw dropping. Once she approached a couple sitting at a table in McDonalds and asked for money. They refused and she insisted that they should give her something, "I didn't walk all the way up here for nothing!"
But I've never seen her be violent.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Let Them Eat Turkey: The Sequel
Last year, I wrote,"Let Them Eat Turkey", about the annual Christmas dinner hosted by the film industry at Oppenheimer Park on the Downtown Eastside. This year's Christmas dinner took place today.
The annual dinner is Hollywood North's way to "give back to the community" which is a magnet for filming due to the 'gritty' nature of the area. Unlike residents of more affluent areas such as Kerrisdale, Downtown Eastsiders are not paid for filming disruptions. They are reminded that there will be turkey at the park at Christmas.
The film industry has continued it's less than stellar performance on health and safety regulations when it comes to Downtown Eastside residents. One woman in the line-up told me that Muriel Honey at the City Film office is still giving permits to the film industry to park film trucks and dressing rooms with generators outside her only window, even though they promised to stop after she got ill from fumes. (She promised to send me photos of the trucks and dressing rooms that she took when they were parked there on Remembrance Day.)
Photo above: This woman was in a festive mood, wearing Christmas bows on her hood.
One man who had waited in line in the cold for half an hour -- not everybody had to wait that long -- called out to to the staff working over the steam trays, "You guys have the warmest spot."
It was cold outside today. Note the bunny ear muffs on the female server on the right of the photo, standing by the window of the catering truck.
There were a total of three catering trucks from which the turkey dinner was served. One can be seen in the center of this photo on Dunlevy St. with a line up of people headed toward it. (Oppenheimer Park is to the right of the line up.) Another catering truck, an orange one, can be seen in the top left of this photo. The line up for that truck was along Powell St.
A worker gives out plates of desserts. In the background of this photo is Oppenheimer Park.
There was a variety of cookies and cakes for dessert. I got a chocolate cookie with real chocolate chips, an almond cookie, and a date square. They seemed to have been made from scratch. Later a young woman came around and gave out muffins, the large ones that they often sell near the cash register in corner stores.
Along with cookies, there was also hot chocolate.
The pink building on the right of the photo above is a permanent park building. The tents seen in the photo were set up by the film industry for this event. There was one tent where women could pick up donated clothing, another where men could pick up donated clothing, and another which acted as a dining room.
At the beginning of the event, there was a small tent in the middle of the park where a couple of bands played.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Mayor Robertson Considers Treading on Civil Liberties to 'Protect' Homeless
Mayor Gregor Robertson has responded to the death of a 47 yr. old homeless woman at Hornby and Davie early this morning, by stating that he is considering infringing on civil liberties. Robertson's response to the death of "Tracy", who was spotted by a taxi driver engulfed in flames at 4:30 a.m., was reported on the CKNW radio website,
"Vancouver's mayor says letting people who can't take care of themselves die in the street is immoral, and something needs to be done, even if it means treading on their civil rights."Vancouver Police already have the power under the Mental Health Act via "Car 87", a police car carrying an armed constable and a psych nurse, to apprehend people who are at imminent risk of harming themselves. That is, if it's used as it was intended. And that's a big IF.
If the Vancouver police -- both the VPD in Vancouver and the RCMP at UBC -- in conjunction with psych nurses, would stop perverting such power for political ends such as intimidating whistle blowers who are embarrassing United Way, the Vancouver School Board, or CUPE, they might be more available to help homeless people.
Last night VPD patrol officers claim they made contact with Tracy twice, the last time being around midnight. They claim they offered her shelter but she declined. It's interesting that the police then dropped the issue. If you're a whistle blower, enormous resources will be expended on portraying you as a nut, digging through your medical records. I covered one such case involving an author of a United Way report who said her Christmas holidays were ruined because the VPD and their mental health nurse kept showing up at her home, flashing the lights on the police cruiser outside to create drama. All because, as United Way admitted in the police report, they were afraid her report could affect revenues.
As Chair of the Police Board, Mayor Robertson has the power to ensure Car 87 is used as it was intended.
Careful: not all homeless people who won't go to a shelter are mentally ill. Tenant Assistant Program Coordinator Judy Graves, who walks the streets and helps the homeless get a place to stay, says some homeless people won't go to shelters because they can't take their shopping carts or their pets.
Before Tracy's Death, the Dealth of a Homeless Man on Tuesday went Unreported
The following was posted today on the blog davideby.blogspot.com:
"From Stephanie, a regular reader and plugged in DTES resident, worker and observer:
I'm sorry to report this, but there was a death Tuesday night that didn't make the media - I found out about it Wednesday night from a colleague who works for an agency that serves people with mental illness. Three people went to sleep together, and only two of them woke. Apparently the young man who died was here from up north and had only been in town four or five days."
Thursday, December 18, 2008
McDonald's Asst. Mgr. Threatens to Call Police on Blogger
If Nike's slogan is "Just do it," McDonald's could be "Just wash it."
On the evening of Sun. Dec. 7, a customer in McDonald's restaurant at Main & Terminal near Science World -- that was the day of the Santa Claus parade so it had been busy in McDonald's -- went to the washroom and left her coat on her chair. When she returned, her coat was gone. She asked the cashiers about it and one young male with "Ali" on his name tag said, "I threw it in the garbage."
Ali, who has short dark hair, a calm demeanor, and appears to be of middle eastern descent, walked over to the garbage can and, as the customer watched, fished her coat out. He had to reach down under several trays of garbage and food scraps to find it. 'It had ketchup and grease on it from other people's food", said the customer.
"Just wash it," Ali said calmly, shrugging. The woman was upset and said she thought McDonalds should buy her a new coat. The Assistant Manager, Jennie, a young, thin, white woman with long dark hair, said that wouldn't happen. She used the exact words Ali had used, "Just wash it."
Jennie defended Ali, saying that he had been doing his job as "floor workers" are trained to do it. If there is an empty tray, she explained, the floor workers are under instructions to throw everything away.
When Jennie later realized that this incident was going to be reported on the internet, she insisted that she had never said that tossing coats in the garbage was official McDonalds policy. She asked Ali to back her up on that and he agreed. The boss is always right.
Jennie stated then that if her handling of this incident was reported on the internet, "I'll call the police." She repeated a second time that she would call the police, saying, "It's illegal to put somebody's name on the internet."
Not only the woman's coat but the contents of the pockets ended up in the garbage: her house keys, ear phones, and gloves. She hadn't realized when she went to the washroom that her keys were still in her coat pocket; usually she carries a purse. So she was grateful to find that they hadn't been lost in the garbage. When she got home she noticed that two of the keys were bent though. That could have resulted from the compressor inside the garbage can which presses the garbage to make it more compact. Her ear phones were still in her pocket too. But she was missing a glove.
And McDonald's is missing a customer.
(Above photo: McDonalds at Main St. & Terminal Ave. on the night of Dec. 24, 2008)
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Take Out Your Umbrella. It's Snowing!
Harassment Campaign Continues Against Woman Who Challenged Use of City Security Database to Compile Fraudulent Information
Fired! Judy Rogers' Legacy of Corruption at Carnegie Center
Judy Rogers has been fired after ten years as Vancouver’s City Manager.Judy Rogers has been fired after ten years as Vancouver’s City Manager. While Rogers acknowledged to the media that it was not her choice to leave the job she "loved", Mayor Robertson was twisting his tongue into euphemisms: “Technically, it’s a cessation of her duties by mutual understanding.”
The firing has swept Rogers off the world stage as the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver approach. She had been a City appointee to the 2010 Winter Olympics Organizing Committee in Vancouver [VANOC]. Robertson told the media that he will announce her replacement soon. She will remain as Chairwoman of 2010 LegaciesNow.
A pattern of human rights abuses at Carnegie Center was ignored by Rogers
Rogers’ removal from VANOC has come as a relief to alleged victims of human rights abuses under her reign as City manager. VANOC Executive Director, John Furlong, was asked last month by an alleged victim of human rights abuses and fraud at the City’s Carnegie Center to remove Rogers as an Olympic organizer. For a decade, Rogers had knowingly allowed human rights abuses to occur at Carnegie Center in Vancouver’s low income Downtown Eastside. Downtown Eastside residents pressing to improve this situation under Rogers had as much chance of success as the Jamaican bob sled team in the Winter Olympics.
Rogers was at the $292,000 a year pinnacle of a triad of women earning six figure salaries under whose supervision the City’s Carnegie Center — the “livingroom” of the Downtown Eastside — has gained a reputation for being Vancouver’s Guantanamo Bay. One of these women, General Manager of Community Services Jacquie Forbes-Roberts, “retired” earlier this year after a lawyer informed the City in writing that her civil liberties abuses targeting a male Carnegie member (which had been widely publicized and were known to Rogers) were “contrary to the rule of law”. The last woman standing is Ethel Whitty, Director of the Carnegie Center.
Correspondence signed by Rogers as early as 2000 leaves no doubt that she was aware of a pattern of civil liberties abuses at Carnegie Center. Yet not one formal recommendation for change by residents has been implemented.
Here is Rogers' legacy: Low income people are routinely barred from City services at Carnegie Center and expected to serve their sentences, sometimes without being told what they are accused of, and virtually always without the right to appeal. In addition, there is evidence that the City Security database is being used to compile fraudulent information about Downtown Eastsiders, an issue that Mayor Sullivan was asked to ensure was criminally investigated. But the Rogers' administration may be most notorious for setting a precedent in allowing interference in election results; a homeless man who accomplished the feat of getting elected to the Carnegie Board was swiftly barred from the building and from Board meetings by City Hall. And let's not forget the atmosphere of blog-burning which emerged at the City under Rogers; a witch hunt for bloggers was carried out at Carnegie to expel those calling for a forensic audit and squealing to taxpayers when the poor found doors locked to richly-funded computer and educational services. And Rogers never stopped allowing the City's official website to provide a link to the Carnegie Newsletter which is subsidized by the City while giving a political opponent labels like “blog bozo”, “slimy”, a “blank”, a “four year old spoiled brat pissing his pants”, a “pest”, a “neighborhood snitch”, a “dismal excuse”.
Not only did Rogers do nothing to curb civil liberties abuses at Carnegie, she exacerbated the problem. She allowed Whitty and Forbes-Roberts to hire a new Security boss, Skip Everall, whose experience had reportedly been at a hospital mental ward. Now a Carnegie member targeted by Security for some real or imagined infraction, has about as much power as Jack Nicholson up against nurse Ratshit.
Not only did the poor who use Carnegie have little protection from civil liberties abuses, they also became accustomed under Judy Rogers to having little protection under British Columbia’s confidentiality laws.Take the case of the barred elected official, William Simpson. As part of a damage control strategy when news media began asking questions about the barring, Rogers apparently had no problem with Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty appearing on CBC Radio to announce that Simpson had been found guilty of posing a WorkSafe risk. Strange, there had been no mention of any WorkSafe risk in the official letter on City letterhead that Simpson had been delivered informing him that he was barred. A year has gone by and he still has not been informed that he posed a WorkSafe risk. But a hundred thousand radio listeners have been informed.
A woman who was barred from the Seniors Center for talking back to a notoriously abusive man has also had first hand experience with the approach under Rogers' reign that confidentiality could be disrespected when convenient. Everall avoided telling the woman that she was barred – even though she saw him at least twice on the date of the barring -- and she was instead informed by an alcoholic dumpster diver. When the woman complained, Whitty told her during a taped conversation that it was “not practical” for Everall to find her in the building to inform her himself. But it is apparently practical to break confidentiality laws.
Again, none of this is news to Rogers. Rewind to a 2000 case involving the mysterious barring that occurred a little too conveniently after a woman had spoken up about ongoing sexual harassment. Rogers personally handled that case and was aware that the barring had been executed on behalf of the City of Vancouver by a self-acknowledged ‘John’ who was vocal about his sex life with a prostitute when he volunteered once a week as a coffee seller at Carnegie.
Rogers lackadaisical attitude toward confidentiality in City institutions under her supervision may have caught up with her when it touched City councilors who have more power to create consequences than low income people with no money for lawyers at Carnegie Center. When City councilors attended an in-camera meeting about a $100 million loan guarantee to the developer of Vancouver’s Olympic Village, Rogers allowed an aide to breach confidentiality by telling the media that Council members had voted “unanimously” to support the loan guarantee.
When a confidential document was taken from that in-camera meeting and leaked to the media, an investigation was launched. Incomplete results of the investigation which was under the control of Rogers were leaked to the media, pointing to Vision Councillor Raymond Louie as the culprit. Louis was put in the position of insisting, ‘I am not a crook’, in the last week of an election campaign. He threatened to sue. Vision won the election. It was time to judge Judy.It was not only City councilors who appeared ready to judge Judy, but ironically the union representing City staff whose backsides she had covered for years while they subjected the poor to civil liberties abuses. She had angered the Canadian Union of Public Employees during last summer’s strike when she distributed a confidential memo to City staff suggesting that rather than sincerely negotiating a new contract, CUPE was exploiting the strike so that the political left could win the next civic election. When the union-backed Vision-COPE party won the election, CUPE wanted Judy judged.
Rogers continued to cover backsides even when her own was being given the golden boot. The Vancouver Sun's Jeff Lee, who spoke to Rogers after she was fired, wrote, "And she made a plea for her professional staff and colleagues to keep their jobs, saying they were continuing to do good work in trying to wrestle down troublesome issues such as homelessness, poverty and the Downtown Eastside."
Good work? Too often there is no sign of work at all. David McLellan who took over as General Manager of Community Services after Forbes-Roberts got fired....typo, "retired", seems to have done nothing about fraud at Carnegie. Same goes for Deputy Manager Brenda Prosken. Evidence that the Security database to compile fraudulent information about Vancouver residents should have been pounced on instantly by these two. Mayor Sullivan was eventually asked to ensure a criminal investigation into one particular case involving the alleged retroactive entry into the database of 15 allegedly fabricated witnesses without names. A 16th witness -- the only one with a name -- who could contradict this claim of 15 witnesses predictably was not entered into the Security database.
Calls for a forensic audit of Carnegie during Rogers reign may have to be revived now that a taxpayer rip-off at Carnegie is re-emerging under McLellan and Prosken. The problem of Carnegie taking millions a year from the taxpayer but not consistently delivering educational and computer services was curbed to some extent when bloggers persistently exposed it -- but it was not curbed until after a coordinated effort by City staff to, as George Bush would say, "smoke 'em out", and bar bloggers from the building failed. This month and last month -- I've had several reports this week -- low income people have arrived at Carnegie on several occasions to find the computer room locked, even with the weather bitterly cold and people needing indoor activities. McLellan and Prosken have also not reinstated the homeless man who lost his right to enter the building after he got elected to the Board. At least one victim of human rights abuses at Carnegie would like to see McLellan and Prosken's heads roll along with Rogers'.
But that is unlikely to happen. Mayor Gregor Robertson, co-founder of Happy Planet Juice, who fired Rogers just four days after being sworn in as Mayor, says he will not be doing further house cleaning at City Hall. After sweeping Rogers out of the City Manager's office and off the Olympic Organizing Committee, Robertson says he's done.
Sweeping Rogers off the Olympic Committee will be easier than sweeping away the mess she leaves though. One alleged victim will be asking Olympic sponsors such as Coca Cola and RBC to ensure that complaints of human rights abuses at Carnegie are addressed before they lend their names to the Vancouver Olympics. The world is watching, and they may see a less than happy planet.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
I'm Not Holding Doors for Strangers in Vancouver Anymore
But what happened next bugged me, as it has bugged me so many times in Vancouver.
As I was leaving McDonalds, even though my coffee was getting cold -- it's freezing in Vancouver this evening -- I waited and held the door for an elderly woman with a cane hobbling toward the restaurant. As I was waiting, I was thinking, "I bet she won't even say thank you." She walked through the open door. Not a thank you to be heard.
When this happens, it always knocks my mood down a notch.
I'm finished. I'm done. I'm not going to hold doors open anymore for strangers in the uncivil city. I'm going to be Vancouverude.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Halle Berry Scantily Dressed during Filming after Vancouver's First Snowfall
The movie was set in California. I noticed California plates on one of the cars when I walked up Hastings. "There was bloody ice on the street," a Downtown Eastsider pointed out afterwards, laughing.
Photo: Note the snow on the roof of the police SUV which was in an accident on the block where the Halle Berry movie was being filmed. This photo was taken around 8 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 14, just a couple of hours before Berry was running through the intersection at the end of the block.
Related Story: Real Life Police Crash at Halle Berry Film Set