Fight Breaks Out in Carnegie Kitchen

Photo: Opening of the Community Court in 2008. Judge Thomas Gove stands on the far right of the photo taken in the internal courtyard.

It's not easy getting volunteers to work alongside well paid union members in the Carnegie kitchen for 80 cents an hour in food stamps. Now the kitchen has started to take "volunteers" who are sentenced to community service by the new Community Court.

A fight that broke out Monday morning in the cafeteria reportedly involved at least one of these petty convicts/volunteers -- although that hasn't been confirmed, the kitchen definitely uses convicts from the Community Court. A volunteer with a long brown ponytail (he is a good volunteer, congenial with customers) and a customer buying breakfast (he also volunteers at Carnegie) started yelling at one another. The volunteer came around the counter to the side where the customer was standing. It got loud -- "Let's go outside!!" And there was a lot of aggressive gesturing.

But there was no actual violence. So spectators were surprised when police showed up later. Maybe if the Community Court is involved, police have to be involved.

Any defense lawyer, though, would be remiss if he or she didn't look closely at the records of staff and management at Carnegie who are writing reports or providing testimony about their clients from Community Court.

At Carnegie, the cons are not only in the kitchen.

There is evidence that when Director Ethel Whitty and Security Co-ordinator are producing reports on low income people, they allow politics to overshadow facts. If a CUPE member is involved in any sort of conflict with a volunteer, the CUPE member will be exonerated. As Whitty stated at a public meeting, "I have to support my staff." Management has been known to be selective about what witnesses they talk to, ignoring any who won't give them the slant they may find most politically desirable. And it is old news that management has been prone to manufacturing witnesses when convenient, not one or two but huge groups of them conjured up after the fact from an almost deserted room. There is even radio tape of Whitty manufacturing false accusations -- accusations that can be indisputably demonstrated to be false -- against a low income man who happened to have fallen out of favor with a CUPE staff person. Both Whitty and Everall should have been disqualified from any involvement with a Community Court.

Not only are convicts placed at risk by being sent to Carnegie for supervision by management staff with a record of operating in a manner, as lawyer Gregory Bruce put it, "contrary to the rule of law", the public is being put at risk by this joint venture between the Community Court and the Carnegie kitchen. A man who uses Carnegie on a regular basis has reported seeing a man injecting drugs into his arm in the alley next to Carnegie and, two or three days later, seeing the same man working in the kitchen at Carnegie. He told kitchen coordinator, Catriona, "You're putting us at risk!"

Judge Thomas Gove designed the Community Court. He got an award for innovation. What can eaters expect to get?

The food at the Carnegie cafeteria is actually good, much better than most cafeterias. They use lots of healthy stuff like kale and chard, which they reportedly get from stores when it is too old to be sold but still good enough to toss into salads.

Would you like the hepatitis dressing?

Downtown Eastside Musicians Frustrated by Retired CUPE Member Hogging Highest Paid Gigs

Photo:  Front steps of Carnegie Center on Sun. Feb. 22/09

Why is John Ferguson's band getting one of the few paid gigs at Homeground, a festival being held this weekend on Dunlevy St. next to Oppenheimer Park on the Downtown Eastside?  The Downtown Eastside is not Ferguson's homeground.   

Downtown Eastside musicians who live and hang out on the Downtown Eastside would have loved to get tonight's two hour paid gig at Homeground. The Homeground winter festival is a trial run for next year's Oasis Festival in which Downtown Eastsiders will be kept occupied at Oppenheimer Park for the duration of the 2010 Winter Olympics.  Taxpayers fund these festivals -- which some Downtown Eastside residents say are a grab by povertarians for a chunk of the City's $1 million Olympic Sustainability fund -- under the guise that they are an effort by Downtown Eastsiders to work with one another to enhance their lives.  

Not only does John Ferguson not live or hang out on the Downtown Eastside, his record in relation to Downtown Eastside residents has been far from life enhancing.  His alleged record includes stripping Downtown Eastside residents of their civil rights and dignity.  For years Ferguson worked as Carnegie Security boss -- he was a CUPE member -- enforcing a "security" system which involved routinely banning people from City facilities without due process. Ferguson is now retired from that job and enjoying a good pension ....topped up with paid gigs that Downtown Eastside musicians living hand to mouth would love to get.      

While Ferguson is getting a paid gig, several long time Downtown Eastsiders in the Carnegie Music program say they have been invited to play at the Homeground festival -- as volunteers. They doubt they will even get the food vouchers worth 80 cents an hour that Carnegie generally gives volunteers.  

The miffed musicians acknowledge that Ferguson does have some Downtown Eastsiders in his band.  But they say these musicians tend to be the favoured few, people who get to "play all the time."  One such musician played in both the recent Shadows Project and the Condemned Opera, as well as playing with Ferguson at Homeground.  (Another Downtown Eastsider in Ferguson's band, Brian, is exempt from criticism as he's still "new", say musicians, so he doesn't have a history of playing more than his fair share.)  

The problem with staff or former Carnegie staff/CUPE members such as Ferguson coming to the Downtown Eastside and essentially taking food out of the mouths of neighborhood musicians is not new.  Two other Carnegie staff persons, Peggy and Sue, have been accused in the past of turning the Music Program into a "staff perk".  Peggy, a musician, was a Carnegie Street worker and on-again-off-again girlfriend of Carnegie security guard Ken Tenake.  [She now runs the Music program at the Health Contact Center next door, although she has been off work for awhile due to a car accident.)  Sue, also a musician, worked for the Carnegie Street Program and eventually got into a relationship with musician Mark Oakley, who eventually got a job running the Carnegie Music Program. This band, which at times included Carnegie security guard John"Trey" Williams as drummer, became known as the "staff band" by neighborhood musicians.

The staff band "monopolized the Music Program", says a musician. "This went on for three years!"  None of these staff musicians live on the Downtown Eastside.  John Williams lives way the hell out in Chiliwack! (although he's reputed to be one of Carnegie's better security guards, less prone to power-tripping than some.)  

Who is supervising the Carnegie Music Program to ensure that taxpayer funding for Downtown Eastsiders reaches Downtown Eastsiders?  Rika Uto is supposed to be supervising. According to one musician though, "Rika doesn't want to offend anyone".  But by not doing anything [about the problem], you offend people".  

Uto is supposed to be supervised by Dan Tetrault, the Assistant Director of Carnegie, but she's his girlfriend, according to musicians.  So he's hardly in a position to say, "Buck up little pony, you've got a job to do."  

Did I mention that retired CUPE member John Ferguson showed up to support Tetrault and Uto, and another supervisor of musicians, Colleen Gorrie, on the picket line during the last CUPE strike.  But of course, that wouldn't explain why Ferguson was given the next two highly coveted New Years Eve dances in a row -- reportedly $750 each -- as well as the last Christmas volunteer dance, and now of course the Homeground festival.  

So while Tetrault supervises Uto and Gorrie while they divert Downtown Eastside music funding to former or current CUPE members, who is supervising Tetrault? Ethel Whitty, who has a record of deferring to CUPE members, even when they are involved in unprofessional criminal conduct toward Downtown Eastside residents.  Whitty has openly stated, "I have to support my staff."   What CUPE members want, CUPE members get.  And that includes retired CUPE members. 

  

Dan Tetrault Lied

Dan Tetrault lied. A few months ago, a Downtown Eastside resident asked Carnegie Assistant Director Dan Tetrault and Security Co-ordinator Skip Everall if she would face retaliation if she made her story public by telling it to bloggers. Hers was yet another story of civil liberties abuses under Carnegie Security boss Skip Everall, Director Ethel Whitty, and Assistant Director Dan Tetrault.

Like other Carnegie members, this woman knew how Carnegie member William Simpson had been treated when suspected of chatting with bloggers. On two occasions, he was chased across the gallery on the third floor of Carnegie into the stairwell by Board member, Bob Sarti, who repeatedly yelled, "Tattletale Queen of the Carnegie!" This happened twice. Then Simpson was banned from Carnegie entirely under pretenses that involved fraud. If she was going to be subjected to this type of backlash, she wanted to know in advance.

Everall resisted giving the woman assurances that she would not face retaliation. Tetrault was reluctant at first but when she pressed him on it, he told her, "No", she would not face retaliation.

Guess what the woman is now experiencing? Retaliation. She says the retaliation began shortly after her story was published on the Downtown Eastside Enquirer.

Under the Whitty administration, staff, volunteers, Board members, and a number of regular users of Carnegie have been told not to speak to her. One longtime friend told the woman that she had been warned twice by two different people not to talk to her as anything said "will end up on the blog." The two friends still talk, but trust has been eroded.

The woman has been chased into the stairwell at Carnegie and yelled at -- sound familiar? -- by a guy who writes plays, according to witnesses who were having dinner at Carnegie this month. Witnesses say the playwright, whom they identify as one of Whitty's "pets", lives outside the Downtown Eastside but is paid to write plays in which he provides a 'voice' for Downtown Eastsiders. Like Whitty, he apparently has little tolerance for Downtown Eastsiders providing their own 'voice' by speaking to bloggers. According to witnesses, this playwright chased the woman into the stairwell and yelled "Blogger! Blogger! Blogger!" after her as she climbed the stairs.

I asked the woman to corroborate witnesses' account when I saw her at Quest food store last week. She remembers the incident and she remembers that the playwright seemed "wound up" But she couldn't make out what he was saying, recalling only that, "He was shouting one word over and over. It could have been 'blogger....I was almost at the top of the stairs before I stopped to see who he was yelling at." There was nobody else on the stairs or in the stairwell at the time, but she didn't know what was going on so she continued up the stairs.

The woman feels most harassed, she told me at Quest on Saturday, by the brazen breaches of confidentiality involved in the "leaks" from the Whitty regime that she was the focus of a "security" report. When you're banned from an area of Carnegie for alleged misconduct, the ban is supposed to be confidential, she explained. Only staff with access to the Carnegie Security log book and computer database are supposed to know about it. (It hasn't been bloggers who have breached confidentiality, as we did not publish this latest victim's name to avoid extending the defamation she had already been subjected to by Whitty, Tetrault, and Everall.) Come to think of it, the Carnegie Security log book and data base would be covered under BC's confidentiality legislation.

Whitty is blatantly classist in her breaches of confidentiality. She vigorously upholds the right to confidentiality of staff accused of misconduct, but she allows the names of low income people barred for alleged misconduct to be spread far and wide. This woman estimates that 50 people have now been told of her banning and that she is somebody to be wary of as she talks to bloggers. This information spread to povertarians as far away as the Learning Exchange in Chinatown. (More will be written on Whitty's breach of confidentiality as we collect more information on it.)

The woman says that Whitty has been breaching her confidentiality from late 2006 to the present, approaching one of her male neighbors on two occasions to discuss her, fish for information, ask him leading questions, and encourage him to "turn me in for things I didn't do." All of this was done on regular City work hours.

"Incitement of hatred" is what an advocate she spoke to calls this.

Special Meeting Tonight Over Demand for Recount of Election Results at Carnegie

There will be a Special Meeting at 5:30 p.m. today in the Theatre of the Carnegie Center. Members will vote on whether to have a recount of the June 2008 election results. Members have been demanding a recount.

Board President Mathhew Mathhew has announced that at least 30 Carnegie members have to show up to make the election valid. But Carnegie member, B.B., alleges that number is "arbitrary". Sort of like the arbitrary 150 signatures, Mathhew said members had to get on a petition before the Board would consider a recount.

Even if a recount is granted, it is unlikely that the results will be trusted by members. The election was just too sloppy. One member has pointed out that the ballots are photocopied and that anybody could photocopy a few more, add some Xs, and substitute these ballots for others. This could have been done over the two months that have passed.

Some members such as B.B. say that the request for an election recount is actually pre-mature, that members should first demand that the Board release the results of June's election. To date, Carnegie Board of Directors and Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty (who is given an automatic seat at the Board) have avoided releasing the Teller's Report from the June election that would reveal how many votes each candidiate got. Members have been waiting for two months for this report. The Board is required by Roberts Rules, which was adopted by the Board, to make the Teller's Report public. But fair elections have never been a strong point of the Carnegie Board or Whitty; they after all colluded with the locking of an elected Board member out of the building for a year, denying him access to Board meetings.

Carnegie member, Jim A., who is usually not politically active, is one of several members asking about the Tellers Report. He asked Whitty why the Tellers Report was being concealed from voters. She responded that it was tradition not to release it.

Board President Mathhew Mathhew has told a different story than Whitty. According to B.B., Mathhew said the Teller's Report would be printed in the Carnegie Newsletter. Three Carnegie Newsletters have been published since that promise was allegedly made. No Teller's Report.

A primary reason behind the demand for a recount and for copies of the Teller's
Report is that Rachel Davis, a popular candidate amongst members who frequent Carnegie on a day to day basis, didn't get elected. Davis was the only incumbent who had spoken up -- and continued to speak up -- about the fact that homeless man, William Simpson, was banned from the building two weeks after Carnegie members elected him to the Board last year. Whitty told him he would not even be allowed into the building for Board meetings.

Paul Taylor, Editor of the Carnegie Newsletter who was forced to retract libelous commentary about the homeless Board member, and Jean Swanson, a paid organizer with the Carnegie Center Action Project on homelessness, stacked the election with pals who were instructed to vote for a slate which didn't include Davis. Low income Carnegie members who had not planned to run, report that they were instructed by Taylor or Swanson to show up at the election as they were going to be nominated. Taylor and Swanson were manipulating the poor.

Swanson's stacking, though, also involved bringing unfamiliar faces to the Carnegie election and getting some of them elected to the Board. These virtual strangers will now be making decisions affecting the lives of regular users of Carnegie. So much effort expended by homeless advocate Swanson so that incumbent Rachel Davis, who was speaking up about the banning of an elected homeless man and the banning of other members without just cause, would not get re-elected. Here is one of the few election results clearly revealed: Jean Swanson is not an anti-poverty activist, she is an anti-democracy activist.

Skip Everall Hit on his Bike

Have you wondered why Skip Everall, Security Co-ordinator at Carnegie Center, hasn't been at work since his day off on Canada Day? He was hit by a car while riding his bike on the afternoon of Wed. July 2. But he wasn't seriously injured and will return.

Here's a tip for ICBC. Don't believe a word Everall says.

Everall has been caught lying in a barring case of a female Carnegie member from the Seniors Lounge for standing up to the notoriously abusive coffee seller, Devor, who has been yelling at her for ten years. The Enquirer will be reporting on this issue later. This woman, who was sitting on the Carnegie patio sipping green tea when she learned that Everall had been banged by a car, said, "I wanna talk to ICBC....They should look at his history of lying."

In addition to this woman's barring, Everall has become notorious for personally supervising the barring on fraudulent pretenses of William Simpson from the Carneige Learning Center by Co-ordinator Lucy Alderson. Everall demonstrated that he was not a man of integrity when he refused to provide Simpson with the reasons for the barring in writing.

The woman sitting on the outdoor patio at Carnegie today -- that would be the woman mentioned above who was barred from the Seniors -- was wondering out loud if Everall had been wearing a helmet when he got hit. She saw Skip on the day she was barred (he had evaded telling her she was barred but she suspected something was up); he was talking to Carnegie receptionist Dan Feeney on Main St. and when he saw her, she recalls, he averted his eyes and took off on his bike, going west on Pender. "I noticed he wasn't wearing a helmet."

She said repeatedly between sips of tea that ICBC should not accept statements by Everall or give him a pay out without first examining his history of lying.

Happy Independence Day

Happy 4th of July to our Amercian cousins.

And thanks to Canadian residents born in the U.S.A., like Rachel Davis and Dag Walker, who have been making it uncomfortable for Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty and the Carnegie Board as they deny democratic process to Downtown Eastsiders, including the right to free speech.

Even Corky, reportedly born in the U.S.A., who gained a reputation in Canada as a nudist activist, showed up at the Carnegie Board meeting last evening. At the meeting, members were asking questions about why they were being denied a recount of June's election results for Board of Directors. Board President Matthew Matthew had obstructed that process last week by insisting that those requesting the recount obtain 150 supporting signatures. Last night Matthew said that this Board meeting was not the place to work through this issue, that it would be on the agenda at a subsequent meeting.

We have just learned that a week ago as the request for a recount was being obstructed, lawyer Gregory Bruce, retained by Rachel Davis, wrote Whitty and the Board a letter requesting that they respect Roberts Rules for conducting elections. This is the second time Davis has had to pay for a lawyer as a last-ditch attempt to get the Board and Whitty, who is on the City of Vancouver payroll, to respect the rights of the Carnegie membership.

Carnegie Staff Couldn't Get it Together to Keep Learning Center Computers Available on Saturdays During the Summer

Ethel Whitty has once again thumbed her nose at funders. She will lock the Carnegie Learning Center every Saturday until September.

The Learning Center is sufficiently funded to remain open throughout the summer, including Saturdays. But it will be closed on Saturdays because Carnegie staff couldn't get it together to arrange for a volunteer to sit at the reception desk -- even though Carnegie has multiple staff paid to recruit and train volunteers. The Learning Center provides much in demand computer access to Downtown Eastsiders. When it is not open, it tends to make the third floor computer room busier and the waiting times longer.

Carnegie is responsible for operating the Learning Center year round on Saturdays, and six days a week throughout the summer. The Learning Center is operated jointly with Capilano College on weekdays during the fall and winter. Whitty, Carnegie Director, just didn't get it together to ensure it stayed open on Saturdays this summer.

Carnegie Election Kills Free Speech

Photo by Wilf Reimer. Carnegie members line up outside the theatre where the election was held.

Just one person running in last night’s election for Board of Directors at the Carnegie Centre had taken a stand against totalitarian tactics being used against Centre members. Tactics like launching a witch hunt for bloggers. Or banning homeless man, William Simpson, from Carnegie Board meetings just two weeks after he was elected to the Board of Directors, accusing him of operating a website which linked to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog. These tactics weren’t acceptable to Rachel Davis. Last night they got rid of her.

By they I mean the Carnegie establishment, people like Jean Swanson who claims to advocate for the homeless in her paid work with the Carnegie Action Project. And Paul Taylor who edits the Carnegie newsletter and used it to libel the homeless man, claiming he had gotten himself elected through fraud.

One Carnegie member sitting in the meeting said, “Jean Swanson told me to show up; she said I’m going to be nominated. She has a plan but I don’t know what it is.”

She did have a plan. There is little doubt of that.

Unlike most Annual General meetings at Carnegie, this one was packed. Stacked would be a better word. One long term Carnegie member said, “Half the people there, I either didn’t recognize or I hadn’t seen for a long, long time.” A number of candidates nominated said they had a history of work with End Legislated Poverty, the almost defunct organization Jean Swanson founded and operated for years.

Presumably Swanson used the e-mail list she has access to as an employee at Carnegie to contact comrades to remind them not only to show up at the election but of who to vote for. She did that during the last by-election to get her protégé Rolph Auer, formerly a writer for the End Legislated Poverty newspaper, elected. Auer did not disappoint. Like Swanson, he did nothing to get the homeless Board member reinstated. Swanson nominated Auer again last night.

Did I mention that Paul Taylor elected his most loyal comrade, Lisa David? He didn’t mention to voters that she was his wife.

In a handout at the election, banned Board member Simpson was listed as “absent without notice.” That brought to mind the weekly dinners Stalin held where people who were present last week suddenly weren’t present this week, and were never present there or anywhere else again.

"Unity" was the theme pushed at last night’s Annual General meeting; the word was splashed across the cover of a handout. Their idea of unity is to disappear dissidents. They had done it with William Simpson and they would now do it with Rachel Davis. Davis had been on the radio talking about the importance of allowing a duly elected Carnegie Board member in the door. Last night they would push her out the door.

Davis would have been easily elected if it had been up to regular users of the Centre, rather than the swarm of unfamiliar faces. One member, Audrey L., (above photo) pinned handwritten signs, "A Vote for Rachel is a Vote for Transparency". Jim A. said he too had come out to vote for Rachel Davis. But while there, he said, he would also vote for Colleen Carroll because he likes the conspiracy theory documentaries she shows at Carnegie. (Carroll even concocted a conspiracy theory about Davis; asking her at a committee meeting, "Do you work for the Fraser Institute?")

Twenty-three people were nominated and 20 people ran for the Board. Fifteen were elected:

James Pau
Adrienne McCullum
Stephen Lytton
Lisa David
Greg Hathaway
Norma Jean Baptiste
Margaret Prevost
Gena Thompson
Harold Asham
Colleen Carroll
Mathew Mathew
Sandra Pronteau
Joe Leblanc
Paul Campbell

"It was a coup d'etat for Jean Swanson," one member said over coffee after the election.

On free speech, there is nobody left to speak up.

"Volunteers for Comrade Lavrentiy Paulovitch Beria" Re-election Campaign headquarters

submitted by dag,

For immediate release:

I want to vote in the up-coming Carnegie board of directors election. I want to vote for Lavrentiy Beria. He's from Georgia, originally. Please let me explain why I want to vote for him as member of the board of directors, and once I have, I'm sure you'll want to vote for him to. You'll even want to vote for his wife!

Lavrentiy (Paul) Beria, was a povertarian politician and chief of the security and secret police apparatus at the big-time Community Centre. Hooray! Beria worked in the security service of C.C. in Azerbaijan, a sub-section of Surrey. He was a police agent in that country too. How cool.

Beria joined the Cheka - the original secret police force of the povertarians. An NDP (New Dhimmi Povertarian) revolt took place in the Democratic Republic of Georgia and the Povertarian Army subsequently invaded. The Cheka was heavily involved in the conflict, which resulted in the defeat of the poor and the formation of the Georgian Community Centre. Beria was deputy head of the Georgian branch of Cheka's successor, the OGPU.He's got a great resume.

He led a killing campaign against Georgian nationalists. He sure showed them. After the uprising he had another 10,000 people executed. Are you starting to see why I think he's just right of the Carnegie Centre board of directors? I think that a man with his skills should also be the writer and editor of the Carnegie newsletter. He's done some fine work already. For this display of "Povertarian ruthlessness" Beria was appointed head of the "secret-political division" of the Downtown Eastside OGPU and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner Food Stamp. He gets lots of free food stamps and subsidized public housing too.

Beria became head of the Georgian OGPU and was introduced to fellow Georgian, Ethanol, becoming an ally in Ethanol's rise to power within the Community Centre party and the NDP regime. Some historians, however, claim that he was more henchman than ally, working to further his own cause by wooing Ethanol in order to gain access to the inner circles of the NDP regime. Ethanol's no dummy. She kept him in the back room where he cranked out death warrants. Ha. His time is coming. He began to attack fellow members of the Georgian Community Centre, particularly Comrade Simpski; Beria ordered the killing of both of Simpski's brothers - Homeric and Bartelby - who held important positions in the Cheka and the Community Centre party respectively. Eventually, Simpski was charged with violating Article 58 for alleged counter-revolutionary activities and suspicion of blogging and was executed by the orders of the NKVD troika. Even after moving on from Georgia, Beria continued to effectively control the Community Centre party until it was purged in July. He really knows how to fight for the rights of the poor. He kills them. Yeah, I hear you saying, "Dag, this guy is a seriously insane psychopath who wants power so he can kill people." Well, fcuk dude, chill. I mean, why be so judgmental?

Beria was one of Ethanol's most trusted subordinates. He cemented his place in Ethanol's entourage with a lengthy newsletter titled, "On the History of the Povertarian Organisations in Downtown Eastside" (later published as a book), which rewrote the history of Downtown Eastside politics, emphasizing Ethanol's role in it. When Ethanol's purge of the Community Centre party and previous board of directors began, after the banning and assassination of Rachel Daviski, Beria ran the purges in Downtown Eastside, using the opportunity to settle many old scores in the politically turbulent Downtown Eastside. In June, he said in a speech, "Let our enemies know that anyone who attempts to raise a hand against the will of our people, against the will of the party of Daviesovitch and Ethanol, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed". He is also credited with the slogan, "When you stop murdering people by the millions, they start to get notions."

In August, Ethanol brought Beria to Vancouver as deputy head of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the ministry which oversaw the state security and police forces of the Community Centre. Under anonymous povertarian hacks, the NKVD embarked on the Great Purge - the large scale oppression and persecution of millions of people throughout the downtown Eastside who were perceived to be "enemies of the people". By the up-coming election, however, the oppression had become so extensive that it was damaging the infrastructure, economy and even the armed forces of the nanny state, prompting Ethanol to wind the purge down. In September, Beria was appointed head of the Main Administration of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD, and in November he succeeded a crazy shit-monkey as NKVD head (Pezhov himself was executed). The NKVD itself was then purged, with half its personnel replaced by Beria loyalists, many of them from the Caucus.

Although Beria's name is closely identified with the Great Purge due to his activities while deputy head of the NKVD, his leadership of the organisation marked an easing of the repression. Over 100,000 people were released from the labour camps and it was officially admitted that there had been some injustice and "excesses" during the purges, which were blamed on Pezhov. Nevertheless this liberalisation was only relative: bannings, arrests and executions continued and, as board elections approached, the pace of the purges again accelerated. During this period Beria supervised the deportations of people from Poland and the Baltic states following the occupation of those regions by povertarian forces.

In March Beria became a candidate member of the Community Centre party's Politburo. Although he did not become a full member until later, he was already one of the senior leaders of the nanny state. Beria was made a Commissar General of State Security, the highest quasi-military rank within the Community Centre police system of that time. And that is just one reason why I want to vote for him.

On March 5 Beria sent the note (no. 794/B) to Ethanol which stated that welfare recipient prisoners of class war, kept at camps and prisons in western Vancouver are declared enemies of Comminity Centre and advised members of the Community Centre Politburo to execute them (see Katyn massacre).

In February he became Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars or Poverty Advocacy, and in June, following a visit from the local M.P. to the "Community", he became a member of the State Defence Committee (GKO). During the strike II he took on major domestic responsibilities, using the millions of people imprisoned in NKVD labour camps for wartime production on picket lines. He took control of production of sandwiches for strikers and (with Malevelance, a guy on the dole) aircraft and aircraft engines, submarines, muffins, and coffee. This was the beginning of Beria's alliance with Malevalence, which later became of central importance.

As the Salvation Army were driven from the Downtown Eastside, Beria was in charge of dealing with the various ethnic minorities accused of collaboration with the invaders, including the Chaida, the Ingush, the Crimean Tatars and the Volga Botemens. All these were banned from the Community Centre to Soviet Central Park Bench Under the Stars. What a Hero of the People is comrade Lavrenty Paulovitch.

In December, Beria's NKVD was assigned to supervise the Community Centre atomic bomb project. In this capacity he ran the successful NDP espionage campaign against the atomic weapons cut-backs programme of the liberal party, which enabled the Community Centre to obtain the public grant money required to build and test a bomb in the Seniors' Lounge. However his most important contribution was to provide the necessary volunteer workforce for this project, which was extremely labour-intensive. The Gulag food stamp system provided tens of thousands of people for work in uranium mines and cafeteria and the construction and operation of uranium processing plants, as well as the construction of test facilities such as those at Semipalatableinski and on the Nowaya Zemlya Cashcorner archipelago. The NKVD also ensured the necessary security and secrecy of the project by banning people who sneezed or farted in the reading room.

In July, as Comunity Centre police ranks were converted to a military uniform system, Beria's rank was converted to that of Marshal of the Community Centre. Although he had never held a military command, Beria, through his organisation of wartime strike production, made a significant contribution to the Community Centre's victory during the strike.

With Ethanol nearing losing her sinecure, the poststrike years were dominated by a concealed struggle for the succession among her lieutenants. At the end of the strike the most likely successor seemed to be Karl Mackovski, party leader in the pub during the strike, then in charge of all cultural matters. Even during the strike Beria and Mackovski had been rivals, but after that Beria formed an alliance with Mackovski to block Simpski's return.

In January Beria left the post of the head of the NKVD, while retaining general control over newsletter security matters from his post of Deputy Ppovertrian, under Ethanol. The new head, Somersaltski, was not Beria's protégé. In addition, by the Summer of 07, Beria's loyalist **** was replaced by **** as head of the MGB. **** and **** then moved expeditiously to replace the security apparatus leadership with new people outside of Beria's inner circle, such that very soon Deputy Minister of MVD **** represented the only remnant of it outside with foreign intelligence, on which Beria never really had a a grip. In the following months, **** started carrying out important operations without consulting Beria, often working in tandem with Mackovski, and sometimes on Ethanol's direct orders. Some observers argue that these operations were aimed---initially tangentially, but with time more directly---at Beria.

One of the first such moves was the Anti-Zionist Fascist Committee affair that commenced in October and eventually led to the murder of **** and the arrest of many other members of the public. The reason this campaign had negatively reflected on Beria was that not only did he champion creation of the committee, but his own entourage included a substantial number of fascists.

Mackovski was banned suddenly in August, and Beria and Malevaloventkov then moved to consolidate their power with a purge of Mackovski's associates known as the "Carnegie Affair". More than 2,000 people banned and executed.

Ethanol's growing mistrust of Beria echoed in the Milgrimian Affair in which many of Beria's protégés were purged, resulting in the decline of Beria's power in the Lower Eastside.

Ethanol was fired on March 5, four days after collapsing during the night following a dinner with Beria when they read a blog piece on the internet. The political memoirs of Molotovcktle, published in the Newsletter, claim that Beria boasted that he had poisoned Ethanol. The story about the writing of the piece on Ethanol by Beria was elaborated on by Dag, who's not going to confess to it in print.

After Ethnol' firing, Beria was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister Newletter hack and, given Malevolenkov's lack of real leadership qualities, was in a position to become the power behind the throne and ultimately leader himself.

Beria was at the forefront of liberalization after Ethanol's firing. Beria publicly denounced Ethanol as a "fraud," investigated and solved the banning of Simpski and effectuated an amnesty that unbanned over a million non-political prisoners from forced labour camps in the park. In April he signed a decree banning the use of torture in the Seniors' lounge prisons.

Some writers have held that Beria's liberal policies after Ethanol's firing were a tactic to maneuver himself into power. Even if he was sincere, they argue, Beria's past made it impossible for him to lead a liberalizing regime in the Community Centre. The essential task of board member reformers was to bring the secret police under party control, and Beria could not do this since the police were the basis of his own power.

Others have argued that he had represented a truly reformist agenda, and that his eventual removal from power delayed a radical political and economic reform in the Community Centre by almost forty years. Uh huh. I believe that, which is why I want to vote for Lavrentiy Paulovtich.

"Beria: Enemy of the people". TIME newsletter cover, July 20

Given his record, it is not surprising that the other Community Centre leaders were suspicious of Beria's motives in all this.

Accounts of Beria's fall vary considerably. According to the most recent accounts on June 26, during an attack on Beria, he was accused of being in the pay of Fraser Institute. Beria was taken completely by surprise. He asked, "What's going on? Why are you picking fleas in my trousers?" Others then laughed and also spoke against Beria, and **** put a motion for his instant dismissal. Malevelenkov then pressed a button on his desk as the pre-arranged signal to group of armed security officers in a nearby room. They immediately burst in and arrested Beria.

Beria was taken first to the Seniors' lounge ("gauptvakhta") and then to the bunker of the headquarters of Re-elect the Fat Lady.

Beria's henchmen were also arrested.

Pravda announced Beria's arrest only on July 10, crediting it to Malevelentkov and referring to Beria's "criminal activities against the Part volunteer fund." In December it was announced that Beria and six accomplices, "in the pay of foreign intelligence agencies," had been "conspiring for many years to seize cash in the Community Centre and restore a refridgerator."

Beria and his henchmen were tried by a special session of the seniors' lounge with no defense counsel and no right of appeal.

Beria was found guilty of:

1) treason; It was alleged, without any proof, that "up to the moment of his arrest Beria maintained and developed his secret connections with the Fraser Institute". In particular, attempts to initiate peace talks with Hitler through the offices of DERAOSH were classified as treason; it was not mentioned that Beria was fulfilling the orders of Ethanol in this respect. It was also alleged that Beria, who was involved in the organisation of the defence of the North Vancouver College Caucus, tried to let the students at the Learning Centre occupy the office without the presence of a volunteer. There were also allegations that "planning to seize power, Beria tried to obtain the support of imperialist Salvation Army at the price of violation of territorial integrity of the Community Centre and transfer of parts of Ethanol's turf to capitalist states". These allegations were due to Beria's suggestion to his assistants that in order to improve foreign relations it was reasonable to transfer union members to East Germany or Siberia.

2) terrorism; Beria's order to execute 25 political bloggers in October without trial was classified as an act of terrorism. Go figure!

3) counterrevolutionary activity during strike.

Beria and all the other defendants were sentenced to death. When the death sentence was passed, according to a later news letter account, Beria begged on his knees for mercy, but he and his subordinates were immediately executed, or so the Mainstream Media would have us believe. Obviously he still lives and is running for the board of directors at the Carnegie Centre. Duh.

However, according to other accounts including his son's Beria's social housing unit was assaulted on 26 June by military units and Beria himself was killed on the spot. A member of the court which tried Beria subsequently allegedly told Beria's son that he had never seen Beria alive. And that just proves the point that Comrade Paulovitch is a fucking zombie who cannot die. Just the man we need on the board of directors. We'll never have to worry about having to replace him.

No Community Centre police chief ever again held the kind of power Beria had wielded. Now is the time to restore him and correct such a cosmic injustice. Elect Paulovitch, I say!

Beria was the organizer of repression against his own people, and therefore could be considered a victim of the system.

Charges of sexual assault and sexual harassment and sexual sadism against Beria were first made in the speech by some ungrateful crack slut July 10, two weeks after Beria's arrest. Slutalin said that Beria had had sexual relations with numerous women and that he had contracted syphilis as a result of his sex with prostitutes. Slutalin referred to a list (supposedly kept by Beria's bodyguard) of over 25 women with whom Beria had sex, if you call that kind of thing "sex." This is a family campaign I'm running for Comrade Paulovitch here, not a porn site. Over time, however, the charges became more dramatic. **** in his blog wrote: "We were given a list of more than 100 names of women. They were dragged to Beria by his people. And he had the same trick for them all: all who got to his house for the first time, Beria would invite for a dinner and would propose to drink for the health of Ethanol. And in wine, he would mix in some sleeping pills..." Afterwards he would drop off his charge and the chauffeur would give them a bouquet of flowers. One pregnant victim, having refused his advances, was accidentally given the flowers. Upon noticing, Beria shouted, "It's not a bouquet, it's a wreath. May they rot on your grave." She was later arrested.

The sexual assault stories about Beria included the rape of teenage girls. In an interview, there are secret minutes of a meeting that reveal a specific sexual game Beria is said to have forced upon young girls before picking one of them to be raped, which is how the alleged practice got the name "Beria's Flower Game".

Numerous stories have circulated over the years involving Beria personally beating, torturing and killing his victims. But nobody's perfect. We need this man on the board of directors. Since the 1970s, malcontents have been retelling stories of bones found in the back yard, cellars, or hidden inside the walls of Beria's former residence, currently the Tunisian Embassy. Such stories continue to re-appear in the news media. The London Daily Telegraph reported in December 2003: "The latest grisly find—a large thigh bone and some smaller leg bones—was only two years ago when a kitchen was re-tiled. In the basement, Anil, an Indian who has worked at the embassy for 17 years, showed a plastic bag of human bones he had found in the cellars." According to historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, Beria personally tortured Nestor Lakoba's family, driving his widow mad by placing a snake in her cell and beating his teenage children to death.Look, it's just a hobby. He's not a bad guy, really.

Such reports are dismissed by the people close to Beria, such as his son and a couple of winos in the alley who used to drink with him. So, knowing all this you can see why I highly recommend you vote not just once for Der leader Paulovithcski. No, dear reader, you should vote for him not at all, because he doesn't need you vote. He's entitled to his position. He's fucking special. Look at all the things he's done. Imagine how many people would be alive now if not for Comrade Paulovitch. He's just what this city needs. A comrade who destroys anti-social elements like poor people, and who does it in the name of the people. Once in a generation do we find ourselves confronted with the likes of Paulovitch Beria. How lucky you are to have such a guy. Thank him. Bless him. Get on your knees and beg him to forgive you. Grovel. Lick his sandals. Lick your bloody teeth off the floor. You are lucky to have such a god as Paulovitch!

Paulovitch for board of directors.

Vote for his wife too. Or else.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrenty_Beria

Carnegie Locks Poor Out of Services

On Saturday, Carnegie locked the poor out of the Learning Center. On Saturday evening, they locked the poor out of the computer room.

Time to replace CUPE members responsible for keeping these services open: Colleen Gorrie, Rika Uto, and Gorrie's assistant, Sindi.

One Carnegie member had an explanation for the closures. "It's the weather. It's sunny out." It's gotten to the point where you have to listen to the weather report to know if services at Carnegie are going to be open.

Time to replace Ethel Whitty and Dan Tetrault. But that won't happen. You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Poor Locked Out of Carnegie Learning Center on Saturday

On Saturday, Carnegie Center staff locked the Downtown Eastside poor out of the Learning Center. The Learning Center is supposed to be open Monday-Saturday all year long, including holiday weekends.

It was open today, Monday of the holiday weekend.

The poor were locked out of the Learning Center last Thursday as well. The reason was apparently that some of the volunteers had gone on a scheduled trip. But three Carnegie members have reported that Lucy Alderson, the Capilano College staff person who runs the Carnegie Learning Center, was present and could have kept the drop-in facility open.

The Learning Center was closed once last month as well.

These closures are an improvement though. The Learning Center used to lock the poor out more often, until the Downtown Eastside Enquirer started squealing to taxpayers.

The Learning Center is jointly run by Capilano College and Carnegie Center from Monday to Friday. Capilano College staff don't work on Saturdays so Carnegie staff are responsible for keeping it open on that day.

The door to the usually busy computer room just up the hall from the Learning Center was frequently locked in April, according to reports we got from members. (We recorded some of the times and dates of the closures.) But May has been a good month, with the computer room being steadily open.

Jimmy Pattison has a Spot for Ethel Whitty

Sunday night is the busiest night of the week in the Carnegie Computer Room, as people prepare for the new week. So what did City staff do?

Believe it or not, they turned out the lights and locked the door.

After the door had been locked for a couple of hours, a volunteer opened it as a favor to people in a jam with no internet access. But he is not a regular volunteer in the computer room.

That's the problem at Carnegie with its multi-million dollar budget: the poor have to beg and cajole somebody into providing computer services that the Center is richly funded to provide.

Staff always have an excuse for not opening the doors. The current flavor of the week is that staff person Colleen Gorrie is off sick. They're like children; they must be watched constantly. The only excuse they haven't yet used is that the dog ate their homework.

Did I mention that the Sunday evening before last, the poor were locked out of the computer room as well?

The Great Taxpayer Rip-off at Carnegie continues. It is not only CUPE members who are responsible but the City's manager at Carnegie, Ethel Whitty, and her City Hall boss Jacquie Forbes-Roberts.

If you are even suspected of tattletaling to the taxpayer about locked doors by discussing the issue on the internet, Forbes-Roberts will succumb to pressure from Carnegie staff to bar you from the building. Don't believe me? Ask William Simpson who was barred "indefinitely" in a letter signed by Forbes-Roberts and hand delivered to him by Ethel Whitty and CUPE member Dan Tetrault.

Billionaire Jimmy Pattison, who has an office about ten blocks west of Carnegie, should now have spots for the likes of CUPE, Whitty, and Forbes-Roberts. He just bought "Ripley's Believe It Or Not".

Carnegie Locks Poor Out of Computer Room this Afternoon

This afternoon, the computer room at Carnegie Center was closed. Low income people arriving to use computers found the door locked and the place in darkness.

Carnegie's Director, Ethel Whitty, has an office just meters away. But she seems to do little to ensure that this taxpayer funded service remains open at all times.

CBC Radio Interviews Bill Simpson, the Banned Member of the Carnegie Board of Directors

Residents of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside were all ears this morning when CBC Radio 'Early Edition' host, Stephen Quinn, began asking questions about a denial of democracy and free speech at the Carnegie Community Center. Quinn interviewed
William "Bill" Simpson, a homeless man who was banned from the Carnegie Center in June 2007, two weeks after being elected to the Carnegie Board of Directors. The written reason given to Simpson for the banning was that he operates a website which "features links" to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog. The DTES Enquirer blog reports on frequent closure of services that Carnegie management and staff are funded to provide to the poor, as well as on the frequent banning of people without due process.

When asked why he was banned from Carnegie, Simpson said, "...I'm banned because I'm one of the voices that wants to hold management accountable and I think accountability is something they don't want to face." Simpson went on to explain that he wanted more accountability for abuse at Carnegie, including "management abuse or staff abuse." Complaining at Carnegie, he said, tends to get members nowhere.

Simpson said that a "solution" found by a blogger to the issue of accountability on the part of management and staff was to act "as a reporter on events going on at the Carnegie." He added, "I applauded the blogger's work...and I stood up for the blogger, and they didn't like that very much."

Carnegie Director, Ethel Whitty, who hand-delivered Simpson the letter banning him from the Center -- a letter signed by her boss at City Hall, Jacquie Forbes-Roberts -- was invited to be interviewed by CBC this morning but declined.

"They do have a history of coming down pretty hard on whistleblowers at the Carnegie," said Rachel Davis, a Carnegie Board member who was interviewed this morning along with Simpson.

Davis said the banning of Simpson was an "entirely politically motivated act." It had nothing to do with protecting the membership, she said, who ended up “frightened” that they too could be banned, or "barred" to use the official Carnegie term. "This barring was entirely about protecting the psychological and political comfort of City staff; they didn’t like being held accountable for their actions and they were willing to do anything to stop it, including barring a duly elected board member."

When asked by Quinn to elaborate on the abuse that Carnegie members suffer, Davis said, "People are being barred for no more reason than they make someone feel uncomfortable." "Management", Simpson interjected.

Because Simpson had been informed in the June letter that he was banned from Carnegie while an investigation into his conduct was ongoing, Davis has attempted to determine the status of this investigation: "I've inquired about this investigation recently and been told that it's really none of my business."

Davis went on to say that many letters had been written to City officials "all the way up to the Mayor" about the banning of Simpson, with no satisfactory response.


---------------------------
Wilf, a Carnegie member, has made an audio of the interview available at:
http://www.nowpublic.com/politics/barred-carnegie-director-talks-cbc-0

Thief Steals Santa's Gift at Carnegie's Annual Boxing Day Turkey Dinner

Carnegie had it’s annual Boxing Day feast today. Free of charge, you could get a sit down turkey dinner in the theatre. Santa was there too. Everyone coming out of the dinner was carrying a gift, a GEAR sports watch. One woman had not had hers for more than 20 minutes before somebody absconded with it.

The woman had gone upstairs to the Carnegie Learning Center and was showing people her new watch. She set it down for a moment -- it was still in the box -- when she got up to show her friend a news article. Presto! The watch vanished.

A man quickly gave her the watch he had just gotten from Santa at the dinner. He said he doesn’t wear a wristwatch and had been keeping an eye out for somebody to give his to.

Even though the woman left with a watch, friends say she was shaken after being the victim of such a brazen theft.

There is a problem with theft at the Carnegie Learning Center. Recently, teacher Betsy Alkenbrach had her wallet stolen from her office. A few months earlier a technician from Vancouver Community Net was very shaken after having his laptop stolen. And Learning Center students still recall the time a few years ago when a new computer printer was purchased and had yet to be bolted down when somebody walked out the door with it.

But no thief could take the turkey filling the stomachs of everyone leaving Carnegie's annual Boxing Day dinner. Four people reported that the dinner was tasty. They were pleased that it was a traditional turkey dinner, unlike in recent years when the Boxing Day dinner has been ham or roast beef. Although the dinner was free, to get a ticket you had to have a Carnegie membership card.

In addition to turkey, each plate served had on it a mix of light and dark meat, gravy, mashed potatoes, breaded dressing with raisons and celery in it, and mixed corn, peas, carrots, and little cubes of turnip. For dessert, there was cake with raisons, apricot, and nuts in it. Also coffee and apple juice.

There were two regular musicians from Carnegie playing Christmas background music on guitars at the dinner. But it wasn't actually in the background. The impression I got from people was that the music was nice but a little too loud. Music and television being played at ear damaging levels is an ongoing problem at Carnegie.

Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty joined other staff to serve plates of food at the Boxing Day dinner. There were three sittings in the Carnegie theatre of about 80-100 people each.

But at the last sitting, the 6 p.m. sitting, some people with advance tickets got turned away. Carnegie had run out of food.

Christmas Arrives And Homeless Bill Simpson Remains Barred From Carnegie

And so this is Christmas. And what have you done. . . .

Sam Sullivan, Vancouver's "do nothing" Mayor, and Vancouver City Council have just approved a huge Christmas gift to 600 City managers. These managers, many of whom already make between $100,000-$200,000, will receive an almost 25 per cent wage increase over the next five years.

But they have done nothing for Bill Simpson.

Low income people who frequent the Carnegie Center had hoped that by Christmas, the barring of William "Bill" Simpson from the City-operated Carnegie Center at Main and Hastings would have been lifted. In January 2007, the homeless man was barred from the Learning Center on the third floor of Carnegie Community Center. He was told that he was barred for daring to blog on the Downtown Eastside Enquirer.

One problem: he wasn't the blogger.

In June 2007, two weeks after Simpson was elected by low income people to the Carnegie Board of Directors, he was barred again -- this time from the entire Carnegie Center. Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty and Assistant Director Dan Tetrault -- both richly paid by the City of Vancouver -- delivered him a letter in person barring him indefinitely. Simpson asked Whitty if he could at least enter the building to attend Board meetings and she said no. The letter Simpson received was on City of Vancouver letterhead and was signed by the even more richly paid City General Manager, Jacquie Forbes-Roberts. Forbes-Roberts accused Simpson of operating a website which "features links" to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer.

Wait a minute. When a man is elected in Canada, City managers can't say, We don't like you and you can't come into the building for Board meetings. That denies representation to voters. That's not Canada. That's China. If Santa manoeuvering his clumsy sleigh can figure out where Canada ends and China begins, why can't Mayor Sullivan and his City managers.

As Mayor Sullivan and his henchwomen, Forbes-Roberts and Whitty, wind up a year of blog burning, and of preventing Simpson from setting foot in the well heated Carnegie Center over Christmas, all Downtown Eastside residents can do is go to sleep on Christmas eve with images dancing in our heads of Sullivan facing the electorate next year. Maybe we'll get the last laugh. Ho, Ho, Ho.

Related stories:
City of Vancouver Bars Elected Blogger From Board Meetings

City on "weak, weak ground" in Barring Elected Blogger

Butt-Grabber Busted

At a dance in the Carnegie theatre on Saturday night, a man helped himself to the butts of several women on the dance floor. He just started grabbing their butts.

Police came and he was handcuffed and arrested.

Nine women gave statements to police. At 2:30 a.m., some of them were still at the police station giving statements.

Mike Quits Carnegie Board

Last night at the Carnegie Center Board meeting, a decision was made to remove Grant Chancy from the Board as he has not shown up at a meeting for some time. This means that a by-election to fill Chancy's seat will have to be held.

Michael Read, Secretary, did not want the Board to remove Chancy as it would increase his stress level. Read announced that if the Board did this, he would have to resign too. And he did.

The Carnegie Board is having trouble keeping seats filled. Two weeks after a homeless man, William Simpson, was elected to the Board last June, Carnegie Executive Director Ethel Whitty delivered him a letter from the City barring him indefinitely. He was accused of operating a website which "features links" to a blog which criticizes Carnegie staff. Simpson stands on the sidewalk out front during Board meetings. The incident lead to international news coverage of Vancouver's "blog burning" City staff.

Board member Sophie Friegang wanted a review of the barring of her fellow Board member, Simpson, saying a "terrible mistake" had been made. No luck though. So she resigned too. She submitted a letter stating something to the effect that she couldn't work with a people who did not respect human rights.

CUPE Still On Strike

CUPE is still on strike. The strike was supposed to have been over last month. But the poor are still being locked out of services on a semi-regular basis at Carnegie Center.

Last Thursday, a Carnegie member went to the Computer Room on the 3rd floor of Carnegie, just after 2 p.m. and found it locked and in darkness. The excuse was that there was "no volunteer" to sit in there to sign-in people and kill time by web surfing. Never mind that Director Ethel Whitty, who makes $104,000 a year, and her entourage of staff have offices just a few meters from the Computer Room.

Whitty retaliates if bloggers mention the locked doors and the word "Whitty" in the same sentence. She makes slanderous remarks at public meetings about bloggers engaged in defamation and character assassination. She never provides examples.

On Friday, a Carnegie member went to the Learning Center just after 2 p.m. and found students being evacuated by teacher Lucy Alderson. There was a volunteer receptionist there, Jack, but the highly paid Alderson said she wanted two volunteers. She didn't have them so she closed shop. Witnesses don't recall Alderson lifting a finger to find a volunteer. There are CUPE members on staff who are paid to co-ordinate volunteers, but they too let the Learning Center close. Rika Uto, a CUPE member who plays a supervisory role in relation to the Learning Center, was present that day but that didn't prevent the doors from being locked. These people are well paid and just got a 20% raise (that's what it works out to with compounding). So why aren't the jobs being done?

On Saturday after noon, the Learning Center was shut tight and in darkness again. Unlike during the week, it is the sole responsibility of CUPE members on Saturdays to keep the Learning Center open. On Saturday evening, when the Computer Room was scheduled to be open from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., people arrived to find it locked and in darkness.

These are not the only examples of doors being locked at Carnegie over the past month. The DTES Enquirer has been told that doors are being locked on a semi-regular basis.

What is Ethel Whitty, who takes her orders from City Hall, doing about the problem of CUPE members dragging their asses? She is writing PR material that covers CUPE asses . Look at what Whitty read to a crowd at a by-election and Board meeting on Thursday evening -- that would be just hours after Downtown Eastside Residents had found the Computer Room locked -- in the Carnegie Theatre:

"Staff have returned to work with enthusiasm and good will and quickly resumed providing the services they love to offer."

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Thinking of donating to United Way? Read Fraudulent Evidence Found in United Way Police Complaint on the Downtown Eastside Enquirer.

CUPE's Back: Blocks Poor From Computers at Carnegie

CUPE came back. The inside CUPE 15 workers returned to work today at Carnegie Center in Vancouver. But they are not allowing the poor to return to work. CUPE members are blocking the poor from the public access computers inside Carnegie.

There are public access computers in Carnegie in the following locations: three in the basement Seniors Lounge, eight in the third floor computer room, 6 in the third floor Learning Center, and two in the Vancouver Public Libary branch on the first floor (although those inside the library branch are primarily for looking up titles of books and other library materials.) Of course the doors of the small Carnegie branch of the Vancouver Public Library remain locked since the VPL workers voted not to accept this week's contract offer by mediator, Brian Foley -- so nobody expected to get into the library to use those computers. But what about the computers elsewhere in the building? The poor who want to use them have been told to take a hike.

The poor have been told that the reason the computers in the building are off limits to them is that they are run by the Vancouver Public Library. Indeed, the VPL logo is on the desk tops on the screens of these computers.

Only three computers are accessible to the public in the Carnegie building. They are three of the six in the 3rd floor Learning Center. That's because those three are operated by the Vancouver Community Net, not the VPL.

So what are well-paid CUPE members who have returned to work going to be doing with their time. A primary job of Colleen Gorrie is to work to keep volunteers in the areas in the building where there are computers. The volunteers keep an eye on the computers and get people to sign-in before using them. So what is she doing now? Twiddling her thumbs?

Maybe she could use her free time to answer questions about the WCB/WorkSafe claim she made. She claimed that a blog about Carnegie was making her feel "unsafe". A man who doesn't even blog, Bill Simpson, got scapegoated and barred from the Carnegie Center as a result of this claim. (Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty revealed this reason after the barring, although the official written reason given to Simpson in a letter on City letterhead was that he "links" to the blog in question.) Now that Gorrie and some other CUPE members, like Assistant Director Dan Tetrault who delivered the barring letter to Simpson along with Whitty, will have time on their hands, it would be a perfect time to launch an investigation into the legitimacy of this WCB claim. As Carnegie Board member Grant Chancey, a pro-union guy, pointed out, there was nothing threatening whatsoever on the blog in question. "And I've looked and I've looked and I've looked." When it comes to this claim, the opinion of several bloggers is that WCB, CUPE, and a few individuals in the City legal department have some splainin' to do.