Mayor Robertson who interfered in a requested criminal investigation into evidence of his own links to violence, now promises perpetrators of Stanley Cup violence will be held accountable

After Wednesday night's Stanley Cup game riot, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said the perpetrators of violence will be held accountable.  Interesting, when he was facing investigation for his own links to violence against a female critic at Carnegie Centre, there is evidence that he got busy witness-tampering and paying off police chief Jim Chu.   Following is a reprint of an April article about Mayor Robertson's record. 

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Mayor Robertson Accused of Pay Off to Police Chief Jim Chu who was supposed to be Criminally Investigating him

This is something you might expect in the Chicago political establishment. Mayor Gregor Robertson is accused of giving a payoff to Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu, while Chu was continuing to evade a request for a criminal investigation into evidence of criminal activity on the part of Robertson. At the very least, Robertson 'rewarded' Chu with a five year contract extension worth over one and a half million dollars for a job well done during the period in which he was stalling on investigating Robertson.

In May 2010 a request was made to VPD Chief Chu to arrange for an external police force to investigate evidence that Robertson, City manager Penny Ballem, and two security guards at Carnegie Centre were involved in the manufacture of a fraudulent security report and a pre-meditated plan to bar a Carnegie member under fraudulent pretenses, a barring which involved assault and extensive public humiliation. One of the guards involved, who the victim had never seen before but who had clearly been incited to target her, implicated Robertson and Ballem in comments he made at the time.

For some time, evidence has been reported on this blog of efforts by City staff to "bar" people from Carnegie who have complained of abuse, particularly those who have made their experiences public by talking to bloggers. We have reported that these barrings often involve public humiliation as well. When we reported this targeting of individuals who take their stories to the media, we could not have anticipated that evidence would eventually surface that Vision Vancouver has a "media hit list" along with a plan to ridicule people creating negative impressions of Vision in the media. Former 24 Hours columnist Alex Tsakumis broke the story. Mike Magee in the Mayor's office has denied the existence of any such hit list.

Despite the request being made in May that Chu arrange for an external police force to investigate Robertson -- Chu can't investigate because of conflict of interest due to Robertson's role as Chair of the Police Board -- Ballem, and two Carnegie security guards, the investigation has not yet been carried out. There is no doubt that Robertson knew that the investigation had been requested. Immediately after the request was made in May, Robertson reportedly held a secret meeting at Carnegie with witnesses and offenders. He interfered in a pending police investigation into himself.

By September, Chief Chu was continuing to stall in arranging for an investigation into his boss, Robertson. It was in the midst of this stalling that Robertson gave Chu a five year extension to his contract, at over $300,000. Now, seven months later, the case against Robertson and Ballem has still not been investigated. Are you surprised?

It is easy for Chu to treat Downtown Eastside women as though violence against them doesn't matter, because he knows they can't afford lawyers. Now a lawyer has offered to meet pro bono with the victim in this case to discuss how to proceed. He will review the evidence in the case, including a photo of the bruise the victim received. But that won't occur until the beginning of July when the lawyer returns to Vancouver from China.

Watching Chief Chu "on the take", benefiting from monetary and other rewards from a man into whom he is supposed to be arranging a criminal investigation, has led to distrust on the part of the victim. Even if Chief Chu was to suddenly meet his professional obligation to arrange for the investigation, she will be having no further contact with the VPD about this case without a lawyer present. Since not much happens over the summer, estimates are that there will be no progress on this case until September or October. A press conference will be held by the lawyer to update the public when a decision is made about how to proceed. (No further information will be released until that time.)

This case highlights the hypocrisy of Robertson and Chu on the issue of violence against Downtown Eastside women. Chu held a public meeting earlier this year at Carnegie to talk -- in front of media cameras of course -- about how committed he is to ensuring that violence against Downtown Eastside women is seriously investigated. To get into that meeting in the Carnegie theater, Chu had to walk by security guards at Carnegie that he was supposed to be investigating.

Chu would no doubt say he didn't take a pay off from Robertson, that he was due for a contract extension. But Robertson had an obligation to at least recuse himself from the decision. And Chu should have at least asked him to. An extension requires a performance review. How did Robertson manage to conclude that the Chief is doing a fine job when he knows the Chief is sitting on evidence of criminal activity against him.

Also at fault here are Police Board members. Why did Glenn Wong tell the media that he agreed with Robertson and other Police Board members that Chu was doing a fine job and deserved an extension of his contract. Did it ever occur to Wong, who told the media that Chu often calls him at home to talk, to ask Chu to avoid taking any form of reward from a government official he was supposed to be investigating. If Wong claims he didn't know about the investigation requested into Robertson, then he didn't do due diligence before approving Chu's contract extension, as the requested criminal investigation was a matter of public record.

Allan Garr, a columnist with the Courier newspaper, said in a column earlier this year that the Vancouver Police Board tends not to provide effective oversight of Chief Chu and his officers. Garr said the Police Board are more "lapdogs" than watchdogs.

The Naked City

We told you so. Lies are in David McLellan's comfort zone. We warned you in January when McLellan, the City's General Manager of Community Services, was appointed by City Hall as media spokesperson on the departure of Deputy Chief License Inspector, Carlene Robbins. Robbins' exited City Hall shortly after a fire at a flophouse in East Van killed three men.

I can still see in my mind's eye, the clip of McLellan telling the media that Robbins' departure was not related to the flophouse fire. McLellan said he had been in a meeting with Robbins and she had suddenly up and left, turning in her building security pass before leaving the building.

Now Robbins has filed suit in BC Supreme court suggesting that McLellan knew more than he was admitting. Robbins claimed that after the flophouse fire at City Hall, she was removed from the job she had held for 12 years, that she was effectively fired and lost her $105,000 salary. That story was broken last night by CKNW, so it is old news.

What is also old news, at least to Downtown Eastsiders, is the environment Robbins described the City as being motivated to create for someone they viewed as a political liability. Robbins' claimed in her suit that under Mayor Robertson's regime, an environment of "hostility, embarrassment, and humiliation" was created for her.

Downtown Eastsiders have been using those exact words for years to describe the way they are treated when the City decides they are a political liability. A targeted individual is subjected on a regular basis to overt hostility, embarrassment, and humiliation, until they leave and don't come back. It's not only the big things that can drive a person out the door, like being verbally or physically abused in a highly public manner, chased around the building, libeled in secretive "security" reports; it's the small things too. Like if a targeted individual goes to the front reception desk where membership cards are sold and renewed annually, the receptionist, Kim, may huff and puff to express her exasperation at having to answer a mere question (for twenty something dollars an hour). The targeted individual then has a choice: absorb the abuse or risk having security called to write them up in the City's security database. Enough of these episodes and most people leave and don't come back. (A guy from Iran used to play chess at Carnegie and he told us that he was once in a cue at a government office in Iran and had an argument with another person in the cue. When it was his turn at the wicket, the government worker asked him his name and he realized that it would not be healthy to give his name as a security report would probably be written about the argument.)

One security guard, Ty, when angrily barring a woman who says she had never seen him before in her life, made comments revealing that he was being incited by Penny Ballem and Mayor Robertson to get dissidents out of the building.

T. Kwan is a Carnegie member who recently encountered an environment of hostility, embarrassment, and humiliation, after complaining to his MLA Jenny Kwan about unfair treatment by City management at Carnegie. Kwan, who is still dealing with the effects of a nervous breakdown he suffered at 9 years old when his mother died, told his MLA that he had been barred from City services at Carnegie for months on the basis, as told to him by security boss Skip Everall, that he had "a big mouth". When his MLA arranged for Carnegie management to allow him back into the building, he got the impression that Everall was gunning for him. Everall found an excuse to bar him a second time. Kwan has decided never to return.

There are eight million stories in the naked City. Robbins' is just one of them.

Chaos at the Cobalt

When I saw pastor Barry Morris on the front page of the Province newspaper yesterday, I recognized him. Years back he was a pastor at First United on the Downtown Eastside, until he knocked up one of the church women.

Morris has been in the news this week, along with City Councillor Susan Anton [NPA], calling for an independent inquiry into the death of three men in an East Vancouver flophouse. They say the City had known about the unsafe conditions in that house for some time but wasn't enforcing bylaws. Councillor Andrea Reimer [Vision] has responded by pointing out that the fire is believed to have started from a faulty electrical cord, so it wasn't directly related to the condition of the house. [Update Jan. 15/11: A report by a City inspector prior to the fire has now been released, a report in which concerns were raised about the reliance on electrical cords in the house.]

All flexible cords or extension cords that are being used as a substitute for fixed wiring in the building shall be removed and outlets installed where required.

Based on what we hear from tenants at the Cobalt Hotel, I agree with Morris and Anton that there seems to be lax enforcement of bylaws.

The Cobalt, which has been a slum for years, has been allowed to further deteriorate in recent months. Tenants have often found themselves with no running water in their rooms, no heat (the radiators not working), no hot water for showers, the toilets plugged. One tenant said, "I had to take a cold shower."

The toilets being plugged is the tenants' doing. But the other problems are not. Management does make an effort though. "They try," said one tenant, "They're always working on it." Maybe the City should work out a plan with them and do follow up.

The provincial government sends a wad of money to the Cobalt every month, as many of the tenants are welfare clients. The rents are $425 or $450 if I remember correctly. Can't some of this money go toward serious repairs?

The Cobalt did spray for bed bugs. The City gave a contract to Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users to spray. Tenants wondered about the wisdom of the City hiring people with drug problems to go into people's rooms when they weren't there.

Sometimes, the chaos at the Cobalt is almost funny. A painter was working in the hallway and at the end of his shift, he set a five gallon can of paint in a corner along with his equipment, well out of everybody's way. Somebody picked up the five gallon can and poured it all the way down the carpeted hallway. The next day, the painter was painting the pipes, surrounded by this huge mess of paint.

Out of the Fire, Onto the Front Page

In the above DTES Enquirer photo, a Vancouver fireman helps a woman stand upright yesterday as she speaks to an ambulance attendant.  She had just been brought down the smoky fire escape of the Washington Hotel, housing for the addicted or troubled, as firemen doused a serious fire.  Firemen must have found her in the building because she was brought down at least half an hour after the fire started; that was after the flames visible in one of the hotel windows had been doused by firemen.  The woman got into the ambulance.

This morning she was on the front page of the Province.  

The Province ran a dramatic photo, obviously taken with a zoom lens, of her looking scared as a fireman helped her down the fire escape.  (You can see her crouched on the right side of the photo.)

She was also the focus of the lead photograph on both the Sun and the Province websites.

Hi mom.

Major Fire in Washington Hotel Fills Streets with Spectators on Downtown Eastside

Yesterday a Downtown Eastsider was eating lunch at the Carnegie Center at Main & Hastings when it became obvious there was an emergency nearby.  "I heard siren after siren after siren." The Downtown Eastsider rushed outside and saw fire fighters at the Washington Hotel next to the Balmoral Hotel near Main & Hastings. The air was filled with smoke.  

People poured out of Carnegie Center and the nearby hotels and povertarian organizations and lined the sidewalks near Main & Hastings, to watch the fire fighters.  A crowd also stood on Cordova St. watching the fire from the rear of the Washington.  Flames and smoke were visible in a room with a window facing Cordova St. 

The Downtown Eastsider took a few photos and emailed them to us.  

 

The photo above was taken on Hastings St.  The Washington Hotel is the one with the ladder leaning against it. 

Update:  It has since been revealed that the Washington Hotel fire left 100 people homeless. City Emergency Social Services arrived to help Washington tenants find emergency shelter.

Firemen Took an Hour to Arrive at Incendio Fire a Block Away from Fire Station

DTES Enquirer Photo: Incendio restaurant below rooming house. Alexander St. is on the right.


Incendiary Incendio. A former tenant in the rooming house at 90 Alexander St. above the Incendio restaurant, has questions about the fire on Jan. 6 at 5 a.m. that left all tenants evicted. It took the fire department “about an hour to arrive” – even though there is a fire station just a block away at Main & Powell.

Tenants had evacuated, knowing that this was a real fire. Although it was not unusual for the fire alarm to go off in the building, says a tenant, "This time the sprinkler system went off." One tenant recalls waiting and waiting outside for the firemen. "I was thinking, 'They'll be hear in a minute or two'; then I'd think, "Another minute or two, then they'll be here."

Fire damage in the kitchen of Incendio. Photo from UrbanDiner.ca

It has been pointed out that in an emergency situation, people waiting for help can have a different sense of time; they can feel that things are taking longer than they really are. But even if we take that into account, the reaction time here seems uncharacteristically slow for the Vancouver Fire Department. Any Downtown Eastsider can tell you that if a junkie overdoses on the street or somebody is having a heart attack, the VFD fire trucks often beat police or ambulances to the scene.

Even when firemen did arrive, it seemed to the tenant that they “loafed around”. Firemen tried to force open a door and then they gave up; then they walked over to a fire truck and did something there. There seemed to be “no leadership”, says the tenant. “Nobody was giving orders.” The resident described how frustrating it was to watch these firemen. “It was like, “Put out the fire! It’s over there! We all know where it is!”

Tenants believe it was a little too convenient for the offshore owner that the rooming house burned unchecked for some time before firemen dealt with it. "That's a valuable building", said a former tenant, as if that explained everything. The tenant noted that some of the suites in that building have a “million dollar view” of the harbor. The landlord would have been unable under the law to evict the current lower income tenants and 'go condo' in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. A one bedroom suite with a spectacular view was housing a couple and renting for a mere $850 per month, according to tenants.

Photo: Rooming house over Incendio restaurant at Powell & Columbia St.

Several tenants would like to move back into the rooming house. They've been told that it will be six months before renovations are finished, but they doubt they will ever be allowed to move back in. The fire was allowed to burn long enough that the landlord may be in a position to circumvent laws that curb the practice of evicting lower income tenants, doing renovations -- workmen were there yesterday doing renovations -- and then jacking up the rents. “If there is structural damage and the floors are burned,” says a former tenant, “they can say, “It’s not safe, you have to move out.” Indeed, all tenants were told to move, even though only the suites immediately above the restaurant stove, where the fire is believed to have started, were damaged.
Photo from UrbanDiner.ca

A former tenant is under the impression that after the fire started in the Incendio stove, "it went up the pipes and burned out the suites overhead". But the tenant is convinced that if firemen had arrived promptly, fire damage would have been minimal, and a mass eviction would have been unnecessary.

"Do you think maybe they weren't called right away?", I asked, suddenly catching on to what the tenant had been insinuating. The tenant would say only that there were questions. "I'm trying to let it go", said the tenant, who was a little stressed during our conversation, less than a week after being evicted and scrambling to move into a seedy hotel room on Hastings.

This isn’t the first time, firemen have had to deal with a fire in the Incendio stove. I recall walking a friend home about a year ago and finding the air in that area a bit smoky; there were particles in the air. The next day, my friend told me that the wood stove at Incendio, the one used for cooking pizza, had caught fire. The fireman were able to get the fire contained more quickly that time.

The tenant says of the latest fire. “There are ways to make a fire happen eventually; you can avoid maintaining the stove.”

"But Incendio doesn’t own that building," I said, thinking that they would have nothing to gain from the eviction of tenants. "No, they lease", said the tenant. "They'll get fire insurance. That business wasn't doing very well."

There is no solid evidence of wrongdoing against anybody. Not against the operators of Incendio, not against the offshore owner, not against the fire department who may or may not have been called promptly. It's just that evicted tenants can start thinking along the same lines as fire insurance investigators: “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

Firemen Return on Saturday to Site of Thursday Night's Fire at Homeless Man's "Home"

On Saturday night, four fire trucks returned to the site of Thursday night's fire at a homeless man's home. As I arrived, the last fire truck was leaving.