Rigged Complaints Process at Carnegie: Woman has been Waiting almost Two Years for City staffer Dan Tetrault to Respond to Abuse Incident

There is evidence that the process for the many Carnegie members who have complaints about staff abuse is rigged.  Complaints about staff abuse or other forms of misconduct are regularly sent to CUPE member Dan Tetrault.  That's where the rigging is: complaints against CUPE members are sent to a CUPE member to be addressed.

It has now been almost two years, and there has been no response to a formal complaint that went to Tetrault after being lodged with Security Co-ordinator Skip Everall about Brent, a cashier who approached a woman in an aggressive manner and swore at her.  She was entering the cafeteria at the time and he apparently was trying to close earlier than scheduled -- she wonders if he was sneaking out early for the long weekend -- and didn't want customers getting in the way.  She was uncomfortable returning to the cafeteria due to Brent's conduct.

Everall scolded the victim for daring to speak to a security guard about Brent's behaviour -- even though members are instructed at Carnegie to report any incident to security.  (Members are discouraged from handling such situations themselves. Signs of empowerment on the part of any low income person are considered punishable by barring from all City services at the Centre.) 

After scolding the woman for daring to believe she had a right to speak to a security guard, Everall told her that complaints about staff are to be sent to Dan Tetrault.  He would not allow the guard to write an Incident Report and slammed the Incident Report binder closed.  Everall instructed her to submit the complaint in writing. She did so immediately and handed it directly to Everall.  He said Tetrault, would respond to it.  The complaint was balanced, in that the complainant pointed out that Brent had previously been polite to her.   (Others at Carnegie noticed Brent had become nasty at times; they figured his probationary period was up.) 

The complaint was buried. 

It will be two years in July since the woman who was cussed at was told to put the complaint in writing. If the situation had been the other way around, if a woman in the Centre had cussed at a male staff person, the woman would have been instantly barred for an extended period from City of Vancouver services inside Carnegie. She would have had an Incident Report instantly written about her and entered into the City of Vancouver "Security" database where it would remain for at least two years.    

David McLellan, General Manager of Community Services, who oversees Whitty and Tetrault, is ultimately responsible for ensuring that a response is given to complainants about staff. McLellan would be aware that when a written complaint is lodged, a letter acknowledging receipt is to be immediately sent to the individual.  No letter was sent in this case, although there was a witness who saw her hand the written complaint to Everall.

The sham of sending individuals with complaints against Carnegie staff to Tetrault has continued for roughly 20 years.  Many Carnegie members are not aware of the conflict of interest position occupied by Tetrault.  They assume he's management when they take a complaint to him.  They haven't seen the photo of him on the internet standing on a CUPE picket line with a placard when Carnegie staff were on strike.

Tetrault's abuse of his City powers became public when he barred the husband of a co-worker with whom he had entered a sexual relationship, denying the husband/taxpayer access to all City services at Carnegie.  That barring was lifted when bloggers made it public.

But what lingers are questions about why Tetrault has been allowed to continue to abuse his City powers while in a conflict of interest position.  It is not uncommon for people who have lodged complaints with Tetrault against his fellow CUPE members to find themselves the target of barrings a few months down the road.  Barrings are regularly rubber-stamped by Tetrault.

Tetrault should be stepping aside when he is in a conflict of interest position.  He would no doubt claim that Director Ethel Whitty is ultimately responsible for the barrings and just delegates responsibility to him.  Don't believe a word of it.  Barrings are regularly instigated and implemented under Tetrault's supervision, without Whitty even being on the premises.

Whitty has positioned Tetrault as the go-to guy for complaints against staff -- "talk to Dan Tetrault," members are told -- even though his conflict of interest position virtually guarantees that he will take no serious action.    In most cases, complainants, both men and women, report that Tetrault did absolutely nothing.  I know of no case where a member felt they got a satisfactory result.  There is enormous resentment against Tetrault by members who have been brushed off over the years.

Here's what you can expect when you take a complaint to Tetrault: He will greet you in a somewhat friendly voice tone as if he were greeting a family member -- staff push the "Carnegie family" angle to discourage poor people from seeing class and power differences favouring the povertarian class.  He will allow you to tell him what you experienced.  When his demeanor is described to me, it never fails to bring to mind the term, "feminized male": consistently speaking in a mild one of voice, shuffling his feet a bit, looking at the floor (non-threatening male), smiling a bit because of course he's in the company of "family".  He will come across as inoffensive. But you are likely to be highly offended when you discover that he has done dick about your complaint.  And it is likely that you will discover that, as thousands of members before you have discovered. And you may also find staff behaviour toward you becoming hostile, once they realize that you are a complaining 'black sheep'.  And if you keep returning to Tetrault's office to find out why nothing is being done, you may find that he has sailed away on his yacht to places where he can't be reached by "family" members.

This rigged complaints process where staff have one of their own deflecting complaints against them, has contributed to an environment at Carnegie which has parallels to the degeneration over the decades of Woodlands.  Although the clientele are not at all similar, the abuses that continue unchecked are in some ways similar -- physical and verbal abuse and even systematic sexual exploitation.  Tetrault is not solely to blame though. Whitty admitted at a Board meeting that she would defend her staff no matter what, and she has to date covered for them even when there was evidence of sexual exploitation and verbal and physical abuse.  

The fact that a woman has been waiting almost two years for a complaint against Brent to be processed, is not about his cussing. It is about a rigged complaints process.  When the suppression of the complaint against Brent reaches the two year mark in July, it has been suggested that Councillor Susan Anton be asked to ensure that David McLellan answer for this delay.  McLellan should also explain why complaints of staff abuse or misconduct are directed to Tetrault who belongs to the same union and stands on the picket line with staff.

Carnegie Staff Thumb Noses at Jenny Kwan

What Jenny Kwan did, Carnegie management has undone.

Last November, Jenny Kwan, MLA for Vancouver East, got a call from a Carnegie member, also named Kwan, who had been unjustly barred from the Carnegie for four months. Jenny said she would help him. He believes she had one of her staff call Carnegie, as his barring was lifted and he wasn't required to go through the usual meeting with Security Coordinator Skip Everall. When Kwan attempted to talk to him, Everall said, "I don't want to talk to you."

Anyone who has ever reported Carnegie corruption to the outside world knows that Carnegie staff retaliate. Kwan said he noticed a young security guard glaring at him (he didn't know that the guard is reportedly the son of Everall.) Then Everall got the opening he needed. "I was feeling good it was New Year's day," says Kwan, who explains that he was joking with some old Chinese guys who sit in the Carnegie lobby and made a sex joke. He made the joke in Chinese and they were laughing, and then he translated it into English. Everall instantly gave orders to security guard Ted Chaing to bar Kwan for a month.

Chaing issued the barring. But Kwan has no hard feelings toward Chaing. "He had to do it; that's his boss; he would have been fired." The exact reason Kwan was given for the barring was that Everall considered him "loud" and "corrupt". Carnegie is an adult centre; you don't see kids around there much, so who is going to be corrupted by Kwan?

Kwan's plan to begin going to the Carnegie Learning Centre this month to improve his English literacy, a plan that he had already run by Learning Centre teacher Lucy Alderson, has now been nixed by Everall. One less student in a learning centre that is already clinically dead.

The barring of Kwan would have been rubber-stamped by Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty and Assistant Director Dan Tetrault. All barrings are rubber-stamped by them.

Funny, Everall, Whitty, and Tetrault didn't see the need for such an extreme response last year when a 50 year old male staffer was having sex with a teenage female client.

Confidentiality Laws Ignored under Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty

It was a test. When a barring at Carnegie occurred in April 2010, a decision was made by the victim not to tell anybody. The goal was to expose the level of disregard for privacy law under Ethel Whitty.

Word spread fast. Within days, all staff in the cafeteria knew and soon the customer base got wind of it.

Five months have gone by. This weekend, the victim of the barring reportedly heard residents of her apartment building, one of whom works at Carnegie, talking about it.

An estimated 200 Carnegie members a year are victims of this reckless disregard for British Columbia's tough privacy laws.

Carnegie staff even attempted to get the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog to print material about female Carnegie members. They wanted women who had been barred or spoken up about undemocratic practices inside Carnegie to be identified -- they sent the DTES Enquirer the names of these women -- and they wanted them publicly labelled "barnyard animals" and "nudie lesbians". City Manager Penny Ballem was aware that this was occuring. So was Councilor Raymond Louie.

Whitty vigorously enforces privacy laws when it comes to staff at Carnegie, but not the clientele. At one point Whitty attempted to pass a motion at a Board meeting to prevent the names of staff from being mentioned at committee meetings where a complaint lodged against them was being discussed. When then Board member Rachel Davis objected, Whitty asked her why staff where "fair game", to which Davis responded that she resented the implication that she was viewing staff as prey to be hunted.

Contrast Whitty's protectiveness of staff with her attitude that a Carnegie member can be told that they are barred by a dumpster diver or some other person on the street who was told by Carnegie staff or who overheard Carnegie staff talking about it. One guy learned while eating dinner at the Evelyn Saller Centre that he was barred from Carnegie. Another guy dropped in to Carnegie to buy a tea and heard Security boss Skip Everall openly conspiring with a coffee shop volunteer to bar a member. "You're barred,", the tea buyer told the member on a Saturday night outside Carnegie. A meeting was held with Whitty about that breach of confidentiality; two years have passed and Everall has not been held accountable and Whitty has yet to even respond to the complaint.

The privacy of Carnegie staff is so fiercely protected that if a member lays a complaint with a security guard about physical aggression by a staff person -- there is plenty of staff aggression; ask the skateboarder who got thrown onto the marble floor by 3 security guards for bending the rules by using a pull-cart to return his library books -- they will be scolded by Security boss Skip Everall for doing so. Everall considers reporting staff to a security guard to be a breach of staff privacy. Complaints about staff must must be directed to Assistant Manager Dan Tetrault, Everall has asserted, and if a member feels at physical risk by a staff person, they are expected to wait until Tetrault docks his yacht and returns to work on his next scheduled shift. Security guards at Carnegie offer class-selective security, just as privacy laws are applied in a class-selective manner at Carnegie.

Whitty can't have it both ways. Carnegie is classified as a social service provider rather than a community centre, possibly as a means of maximizing funding, getting grants, etc. But most people use Carnegie as a community centre, dropping in to get a bite to eat in the cafeteria, use the Music program, check out books or use computers in the library. There are no social services being provided. But there is a social service mentality encouraged by Whitty and the staff; Whitty pushed to hire a security boss from a mental hospital, which revealed how she wanted people treated. The social service agency classification though would require that Whitty and her staff be particularly vigilant in ensuring that personal information about members is handled in a manner consistent with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. She ignores the Act.

Whitty has a license to practice as a social worker. Time it was revoked.

"We're fuckin' closed!": Courtesy of a Carnegie Cafeteria Cashier

Message from Dan Tetrault of the City of Vancouver: a man can abuse a woman at Carnegie and it's not a problem.

The attitude of Carnegie management is that we won't talk about abuse, we'll keep it quiet, keep it in the "family" -- successive Carnegie managements have actually referred to Carnegie members they are regularly stripping of human rights as "family".

A couple of months ago, I asked a Carnegie member if anything had come of her complaint about verbal abuse by a Carnegie cashier. "Nothing," she said. Unless something has been done since I last talked to her, the one year anniversary of the City stalling on that complaint is just around the corner.

The incident with the cashier occurred at the beginning of a long weekend last year. The Carnegie member walked into the cafeteria, the door was open; it wasn't closing time, but she had no way of knowing that staff were closing so that they could presumably sneak out early. A relatively new cashier, Brent, marched up to her and barked, "We're fuckin' closed!"

Since abuse by staff was becoming a recurring problem, she reported the incident to a security guard and asked that he ensure it not happen again. The security guard was new on the job and he was considering writing up an Incident Report. He opened up the black binder on the front desk where Incident Reports are filed, when Head of Security Skip Everall, came along and intervened.

Everall held the huge black security binder in the air -- it's attached to the front desk with a chain -- and slammed it shut by the ear of the female member. (She has become accustomed to physical aggression from Everall. Last summer, she walked by his office where he was on the phone and he got up and slammed the plate glass door closed.) Later, as she talked to Everall at his offfice, he scolded her for making a complaint to a security guard about Brent. "You shouldn't be talking to security about him!", he told her. She responded that if a man walks up to her and curses in her face, she had every right to talk to a security guard.

Everall told her that a complaint about staff must not be mentioned to a security guard, that it could only be heard by a bureaucrat, Dan Tetrault. Tetrault, the Asst. Director on the third floor, has a reputation for covering for fellow CUPE members. He after all stood on picket lines with them during the last strike. It's a situation of gross conflict of interest. I have never known one complainant who got a satisfactory result.

Further, to talk to Tetrault about a complaint, a complainant might have to wait days for him to come to work, especially if the abuse occurs on a weekend -- Carnegie is open 7 days a week -- or, in this case, at the beginning of a long weekend.

The female Carnegie member put her complaint in writing, got Everall to initial her copy, and got a verbal promise that he would pass it on to Tetrault. She was fair in the complaint, saying that this was the first time he had been rude to her. (She believes he was motivated by the fact that she had raised concerns about another staff person's conduct. It is common for CUPE members at Carnegie to mistreat people who have complained about one of their fellow CUPE members.)

Tetrault has never responded to that complaint. It disappeared into thin air. The anniversary of it's disappearance is coming up.

Tetrault's suppression of that complaint about verbal abuse by Brent, must be contrasted with his past conduct. Tetrault previously demonstrated that he supports the use of the draconian tactic of "barring" as a means of teaching a woman the lesson that raising her voice to an abusive man to tell him that she is tired of his abuse -- she talked back to Devor, the coffee seller, "Coffee Nazi", in the Seniors Lounge who yells at hundreds of people a year -- is not an acceptable response, even if he is yelling at her at the top of his lungs.

By not dealing with the abuse complaint, Tetrault sent the wrong message to Brent. Brent has been rude to her every time she has attempted to use the cafeteria since. City Manager Penny Ballem was told about Brent's conduct and the fact that it was part of a pattern of retaliation (which has more recently included assault) to deter members from raising concerns about staff. Ballem did nothing, except pass the buck to Brenda Procten who in turn did nothing.

Total bill: half a million dollars in salaries for these people.

Distrust at Carnegie Results in Request for Election Recount

Carnegie members don't trust the results of the June 5th election for Board of Directors at Carnegie Community Center. James A. announced at the meeting that he would like a recount. Many other members who came out to vote for incumbent Board member Rachel Davis, who was defeated, support a recount.

Board member Colleen Carroll assured James A. in front of the audience at the June 5th election that he was welcome to count the ballots, that the ballots would be preserved for 30 days for that purpose. Carnegie Director, Ethel Whitty, with a reputation for involvement in fraud and undemocratic practices -- her reputation can be supported with documentation -- sat at the Board table nodding her head in agreement.

Guess what happened when Carnegie member Audrey Laferriere (pictured above at the election) recently asked for a recount? Board President Matthew Matthew responded that the request for a recount would be granted only if it was accompanied by 150 signatures from Carnegie members.

Laferriere began circulating a petition for signatures and on it she wrote, "We do not need a President who is inflexible and into power tripping. Anyone should be allowed to recount votes without hindrance. He has screwed up my long weekend."

Dag, a blogger at Covenant Zone, who had attended the June 5 election to support Davis for speaking out about erosion of free speech rights under the Whitty administration, suspects Matthew Matthew arbitrarily chose 150 as the number of signatures needed. "It's as if he looked in his hat and saw the number 'one five zero.' "

Paul, a labourer who often has dinner at the Carnegie cafeteria, voted at the Board election but was not optimistic about securing a recount. When Paul learned that his pal James A. was one of several Carnegie members helping Laferriere collect 150 signatures, he signed the petition but said, “If they can only get 75 people out to vote, how are they going to get 150 people to sign.” The 75 people Paul was referring to had made up the unusually high turnout at the June 5th election. That turnout was the result of intense organizing by such members of the Carnegie establishment as Jean Swanson (who doesn’t live on the Downtown Eastside) and Paul Taylor, who got their friends and allies to swarm the meeting and vote for a slate that didn’t include Davis.

The Carnegie establishment, including Director Ethel Whitty, had wanted to get rid of Rachel Davis since she appeared on Co-op Radio and later CBC Radio to question the legitimacy of Whitty delivering homeless man, William Simpson, a letter barring him indefinitely from the Carnegie Center where Board meetings are held. The letter was delivered two weeks after Simpson was elected to the Board and it's content was called "contrary to the rule of law" by lawyer Gregory Bruce. Whitty later appeared on CBC Radio and lied about the reason for Simpson’s barring, presenting this man as a "WorkSafe" risk. Her claim completely contradicted the official reason given to Simpson in the letter, that he operated a website that "features links" to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog which criticizes Carnegie.

The votes that Carnegie members would like recounted were originally counted by Board secretary Rolph Auer. Rolph is an unfamiliar face to most regular Carnegie members and was elected during a by-election last year after Board member Sophia Freigang resigned due to what she called “human rights” abuses on the part of the Board and City staff. Freigang had pressed for a review of the barring of Simpson and was critical of efforts by Whitty and her cohorts to curb “free speech” by barring a man for being connected to a blog. Jean Swanson (did I mention she doesn’t live on the Downtown Eastside?) had been instrumental in getting Auer elected, using the email list from the Carnegie Action Project to ’remind’ people to come out and vote for him. One of Auer's early tasks as a Carnegie Board member was to show up at a Community Relations meeting and oppose Davis' attempts to curb the use of the Carnegie newsletter for personal attacks. And when the man sitting next to him, Paul Taylor, told Davis to "Shut up!", Auer didn't even flinch.

Even if Carnegie members are granted a recount, they are not convinced they can ever trust the result. James A. said, as a few other members having coffee with him nodded their heads in agreement, that it would be easy for somebody to use a pencil to tick off a few extra boxes on ballots. This possibility exists because many people at the meeting had ticked off far fewer boxes than the 15 they were allowed, as they simply weren’t familiar with many of the candidates. One woman at the table said, "I only voted for Rosetta (aka Rachel Davis) and maybe one other person."

Laferriere wrote towards the end of the petition, "Time is of the essence as the signatures have to be done within three days."

This issue will be raised at the next Board meeting at Carnegie on Thursday evening at 5 p.m.

Contact information for Audrey Laferriere:
audreylaferriere@yahoo.ca
778-329-1250

Ethel Whitty Strips Woman of Civil Liberties at Carnegie and Takes Off for a 'Canada Day' Vacation Week

It is not the first time, Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty has grabbed the latest installment of her $104,000 pay cheque and taken off out the door, leaving Carnegie members stranded without key services. She did it during the coldest day of the winter in 2006. And she is doing it during this hot weekend.

It is the Canada Day weekend. Whitty disappeared a day earlier than most people -- her receptionist Lil initially thought she was out at a meeting on Friday but eventually figured out she had taken an early long weekend. And an extended long weekend too, as she won't be back for over a week.

The person who was asking Lil for Whitty's whereabouts was a senior who had been barred by Whitty and her Security Co-ordinator, Skip Everall, from the Seniors Center. Her crime? She had dared to talk back to a notorious abuser, Devor, in the Seniors Center where she regularly drops in to use the computer. Literally hundreds of men and women at Carnegie have lodged complaints, formally or informally, (one by punching him in the nose) about Devor, who sells coffee in the basement and rides rough shot over members. But complaints seem to make no difference to Ethel Whitty.

Whitty and Everall gave the abuser a special treat this time. They allowed Devor to be the one to announce the punishment for the woman who dared stand up to him. That punishment was that she would be barred from the Seniors Center for a minimum of four days. And that she would have to meet with Skip the following Wednesday to see if she would be allowed back in. There is no appeal process at Carnegie; a targeted individual must serve their sentence before they can appeal or, in many cases, even learn what exactly they have been accused of. The woman brought this lack of due process to the attention of Ethel Whitty who reportedly responded by shrugging her shoulders. (Appealing at Carnegie essentially means that your sentence won't be extended even further if you act sufficiently deferential to Skip and make this metrosexual feel like a man's man for a moment.) Everall and Whitty avoided notifying security guards that the woman was barred from the Seniors Center so that they could in turn notify the woman when she walked into the building; she repeatedly walked in and out of the building and was never told.

According to her friends, it's as though Whitty and Everall "set her up" to unwittingly walk into the Seniors Center and be kicked out again by Devor. She was "lucky" though, as Devor didn't see her and instead loudly announced to a close friend of hers that she was barred. This was a shocking breach of confidentiality legislation by City staff; Devor is a volunteer who is not on the City payroll and receives food vouchers. And it is a breach of confidentiality legislation that Whitty is showing signs of intending to cover up. She avoided speaking to the key witness who could confirm this breach of confidentiality.

The woman who was barred did meet with Everall after she had served her sentence. She demonstrated for Everall, as she had earlier done for security guard Richard, how Devor had repeatedly shoved his arms and hands within inches of her body to force her out the door of the Seniors Center. (Her boyfriend has repeatedly emphasized to us that Security guard Richard had no part in the illicit barring but simply gave her protection as she later walked into the basement of the Carnegie where the Seniors Center is located.)

Everall was not the right man to complain to about physical aggression though, as he had allowed his security guard, Ted Chaing, to act a little rough too. Chaing had shoved the glass door of Everall's office in her face as she walked into the office after being led to believe that Everall intended to meet with her about her barring (about the sentence she had arleady served). Everall had decided that he wanted her to wait outside for a moment before he met with her, but it had apparently not occurred to either of these security men to tell her that verbally.

Everall acknowledged to this woman that he recognized that she was at risk from Devor. He said he wanted to "caution" her that it wouldn't be in her best interests to go down to the basement (where the Seniors Center as well as other facilities such as washrooms and a weight lifting room are located) while Devor was there. But neither he or Whitty, whom the woman also told of Devor's behaviour, have done anything to ensure safety in the building.

It has now been 14 days that this woman has been denied access to the Vancouver Public Library computers in the Seniors Center. She told Whitty, according to her boyfriend, that she needed access to computers in the Seniors Center because the computer room on the third floor was crawling with bed bugs. (A complaint will be lodged about Whitty to the Health Dept. next week by several people fed up with the bugs she has left behind when she took off on vacation. Some say they're scabbies, some say fleas, some say bed bugs.) But the woman was so desperate for a computer one evening recently that she decided to check out the third floor computer room to see if there were any available.

When she looked in the window of the computer room which she found locked, she was yelled at and chased off the floor by a "nutty Nicaraguan". A male witness coming up the stairs saw this and asked, "What's going on?". The woman said, "I'm getting out of here. I don't want to talk to him." She knew Everall would bar her if she talked back. This Nicaraguan, who has a bullet hole in one eye, previously crossed the floor of the computer room and lunged at her with his hands going for her neck because he claimed she was too slow in closing down the windows on her computer when her time was up. (Usually computer users are given a five minute warning but she says he didn't give her one.) Both male and female members of Carnegie have complained about the craziness of this Nicaraguan. Learning Center staff won't allow him to volunteer there any longer. But he has been given the green light by Everall and Whitty -- after getting disappeared for a couple of weeks -- to return to take shifts in the 3rd floor computer room.

This woman, who needs computer access, has been left stranded by Whitty who allows her barring to go on and on and on and on. Whitty had stated two weeks ago that she would be speaking to a key witness (who favored the woman's version of events) but coveniently never got around to it. The witness said Whitty chatted to him about his music but never questioned him about anything related to the woman. The woman had asked Whitty to suspend Everall for misconduct (and from what her boyfriend said yesterday, she has no intention of dropping that request).

So now Ms. Whitty is on vacation, enjoying a few lazy days in the sun. Lazy days for which she is well rehearsed.

Whitty's victim -- victim is the right word here -- is stranded without computer because Whitty and Everall have stripped her (and other Carnegie members) of civil liberties that are one of the many things about Canada to be celebrated on Canada Day.