Man Banned from City Services Without Evidence

One would think that while the 'Fraud Foursome' -- Mayor Gregor Robertson, Penny Ballem, Ethel Whitty, and Skip Everall -- face a criminal complaint for knowingly allowing the City “Security” database to be chronically used to make fraudulent entries about Downtown Eastside residents, they could resist recidivism. But last week another Downtown Eastsider became the target of security fraud.

"J" was barred from all City services at Carnegie Centre last Friday, including the Vancouver Public Library and Capilano College Learning Centre housed in the building. "J" who unloads trucks on call and depends on Carnegie for food services as he lives in a room where the mice eat his food and even chewed the pocket out of his coat, was sitting with his pal "L" on the outdoor patio of Carnegie having a smoke and a coffee. "It was a cold morning", he told one of our contributors.

John, a Carnegie security guard with a British accent marched onto the balcony and asked J if he had a mickey of alcohol on him. "What makes you think that?", J asked. John didn't give him an answer. As usual, the security guard appeared to be relying on hearsay evidence: somebody thought they saw something and ran to security. This policy of informing on one another is encouraged by City security staff as part of the make-work for CUPE culture at Carnegie.

Witnesses will confirm that John made no attempt to actually determine whether J had a mickey. He didn't ask him if he would mind if he checked his bag. He didn't lean over and sniff his coffee to see if it was spiked. J's breath did not smell of alcohol, according to a witness. Instead of attempting to obtain evidence, John leaped to the next step: sentencing. He banned J from City services at Carnegie Centre. J was not allowed to so much as enter the front door of the building. He told J he could return in one day.

J returned the next day and was stopped by receptionist Dan Feeny, and told that he was not allowed in the building, that he remained barred. That would indicate that a formal security report had been typed into the City Security database where it will remain for a minimum of two years but probably much longer (one woman discovered a false report filed ten years ago being used against her recently); Feeney is one of the receptionists who types the reports into the Security database. Feeney told J that it was against "policy" to allow him to re-enter the building without the approval of head of security Skip Everall.

But Everall was not available to meet with him. Everall is only on premises four days a week and is often difficult to locate.

These barrings are upsetting to people in the neighborhood. A witness dropped by J's room unannounced yesterday, saying, "Are you barred from Carnegie?!" and complaining that Everall was abusing power. "He used to be an orderly at Riverview," the witness told J. The witness said he wished the previous security boss, John Ferguson had remained at Carnegie (If you ask me, Ferguson was not much better. But the rumour that he resigned because he didn’t get along with Ethel Whitty, would suggest he was better.)

J remained barred until yesterday, almost a week. He returned to Carnegie looking for Everall, and was at the front desk when Everall came down the stairs. Everall was preoccupied with something, a meeting he had just been to, and he told J his sentence was up. J was once again allowed to access City services that he had been paying for. Everall was dressed in black when he made this ruling. “Thank you, your honor”, J said. Another security guard overheard him and laughed.

A review of the numbers: Six days without City services. Two years with a report in the City database that he posed a “security” risk at Carnegie. Three employees contributing labour time to this case. Zero evidence.

Ashley Machiskinic had a Beer in Regent Pub before Flying Out 5th Floor Window to her Death

When Ashley Machiskinic went flying out the 5th floor window of a room at the Regent Hotel to die in the alley below, a guy who frequents Carnegie Centre was sitting in the Regent Pub having a beer. He is a regular at that pub. Another guy in the Pub said to the Regular, "You know that girl who was just sitting at the bar having a beer? She went upstairs and jumped out the window."

The Regular was nonplussed. She had been sitting near him but he hadn't talked to her.

The Regular didn't wait for Machiskinic's death to become a media event before he came forward with his story. He was talking about this the day after Machiskinic died on Sept. 15.

This past Sunday evening, he was standing by the Salvation Army soup truck having a brocolli and turkey soup when he was asked if he had been to Carnegie on Friday for the Town hall meeting with Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu, the meeting about the lax approach of police to women flying out windows on the Downtown Eastside. He said he hadn't known about the meeting. He hadn't known about the earlier demonstration at the Police Station either. He hadn't read the media coverage, as he doesn't read the 'lamestream media'. But he repeated his story to people standing around at the soup truck, his story about the young woman sitting at the bar of the Regent Pub having a beer and another guy in the pub -- Patrick, I believe -- telling him that she had gone upstairs and jumped out the window.

The Regular was asked at the soup line what this woman at the bar had looked like. Young, pretty, native, he said. He said she was sitting at the "long table" at the bar, "where she always sat." He was sitting near her.

He wasn't aware that people in the neighbourhood were disputing the police version of her death as a suicide.

I wonder if police also wrote off as a suicide, the young woman who went out the fouth floor window of the Cobalt Hotel in the summer of 2008. (We reported on it at the time; it has not been forgotten and continues to be occasionally discussed in the neighbourhood.) She was a white woman with reddish hair in a ponytail, possibly in her thirties.

Even though police are disadvantaged by the fact that Cobalt tenants aren't talkative, they would have had access to records that pointed away from suicide. That young woman had been beaten up on the same floor of that hotel a few days before she went out the window to her death. She was lying in the hallway after the beating (which may have even involved a stabbing) and the ambulance was called and the paramedics worked on her. A police report is generally written when there is a violent incident. She made the mistake of returning to her room at the hotel, which raised eyebrows as it was clearly unsafe.

When I read news coverage of the murder of a young woman in Delta, Laura S., I noticed that the crime scene had been secured for weeks, and remains secured, guarded by a cop. I thought of the Cobalt murder where a person who was on the fourth floor during that period said they don't recall a crime scene with yellow tape, at least nothing that obstructed the ability of people on that side of the fourth floor quadrangle to come and go. A neighbour just a few doors from Machiskinic had no idea that a death had occurred until two or three days later when another tenant mentioned it. After the young woman went out the Cobalt window, police didn't think to secure the spot in the hallway near her room where she had been beaten just days earlier. They went door to door the night she died and asked, "Did you hear anything unusual?", but they didn't ask about the earlier beating. If the Cobalt had been an expensive hotel, that entire side of the fourth floor quadrangle would have been behind yellow tape with a cop guarding the crime scene.

A person in the Cobalt hotel said they didn't personally know the young woman who died but had seen her around and she seemed to be a nice person, but they believed she was "into smokin' crack and maybe even banging up [injecting]".

I read in the paper that Chief Chu loaned Vancouver police officers to the Delta police to ensure that a maximum effort was made to solve the murder of the young Delta woman.

Carnegie Managers Cashing Pay Cheques for Half a Million Dollars decide the Poor should Pay an Extra 25 Cents for Meals

It is common knowledge that Carnegie Centre managers whose wages collectively top half a million annually, received a 25% raise over 5 years. And now these managers have ordered each poor person to pay an extra 25 cents for a meal at Carnegie Centre. Ethel Whitty who was making well over $100,000 even before the latest raise, has announced to the poor that they will now have to pay $3.25 for meal, rather than $3.00.

And the decision-making powers of the half million dollar management -- Ethel Whitty, Dan Tetrault, Brenda Procten, and David McLellan -- have resulted in major shrinkage of the amount of food on the plates served to the poor. For months now Carnegie members have been asking, "Who shrunk the meals?" The meals have become noticeably smaller as the wages of the half million dollar management have become noticeably larger along with the tax bills of home owners. I recall the amazement in the voice of Dean Obreau a few months ago when he was describing how little food was on the plate he had been served at Carnegie Centre. He died a few weeks later. No word if malnutrition was a contributing factor. RIP.

The Friday night before last, I bought a dinner and I couldn't believe it: there was a scoop of carrot-spinach salad (hardly any spinach) with dressing, and a bowl of beans, almost like a soup. There was a sugary dessert too (although they put less sugar in their desserts than most cafeterias) but I asked to substitute a banana.

The place was deserted. When I grabbed a tray and stood by the steam trays deciding what to order, I was the only one there, where there would have been a line-up in the past. I sat in the dining area, eating and looking around. There was nobody to talk to; many of the people I've known over the years have been barred, never to return. It felt like Stalin's dining table, where historians report it was not uncommon for somebody who had been a regular to suddenly get extinguished under suspicion of not being a party-liner, never to return.

An extra 25 cents per meal is a lot to ask from people who have $150 a month to live on after their rent is paid (some have as little as $50 after their rent is paid; others have several hundred if they are on a disabled welfare rate.) There has been no 25% raise for welfare recipients or for the working poor.

Here's an example of Whitty's management wizardry, why she is, to borrow a phrase recently used by Penny Ballem, "paid the big bucks". Earlier this year, before deciding that the cafeteria couldn't function without the poor forking over an extra 25 cents per meal, Whitty hired two new cafeteria cashiers at union wages. Those jobs were previously performed by volunteers (getting work experience.) The new cashiers, Teo and Brent, are arguably less personable than the volunteers were. Teo has been named in a criminal complaint about activities at Carnegie.

I knew Whitty must be in a financial squeeze when a few months ago I saw the wheels of her propaganda machine turning. A two page colour spread appeared in the Province newspaper promoting the Carnegie cafeteria as the best thing for the poor. (There had previously been a big spread in the Vancouver Sun when the Carnegie street workers/police informants were facing cuts.) It was such puff piece that "Advertisement" should have been printed in small type at the top of the page. The reporter quoted cafeteria co-ordinator Catriona Moore saying there should be more cafeterias of this type in the City. A colour photo of Moore in the kitchen accompanied the story.

Whitty was also interviewed for the piece and couldn't conceal her attitude that Downtown Eastsiders are lepers: "They come, we accept them, we feed them." Here's the truth: "They come, we abuse them, and we are feeding them less and less."

The cafeteria is one of the few services at Carnegie, a Centre with a budget of over $3 million. (The Learning Centre is run separately by Capilano College, and the Carnegie Library is run by the Vancouver Public Library.) Most of the $3 million goes to Whitty and her paypals. How many highly paid City staff does it take to turn on a television in the basement day after day after day? None actually; they've delegated that job to a volunteer.

Time to trim the fat and put the food back on the plates.

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.

Mayor Robertson has begun to "question how worthwhile democracy is"

The Province newspaper began today's editorial by calling Mayor Gregor Robertson, Gregor "Robinson". But after that stumble, they quoted Robertson admitting on his trip to China that he finds democracy frustrating:

"You can be critical of lots of regimes around the world and you can question how worthwhile democracy is in a lot of countries right now which frankly are ignoring the biggest crisis in the history of our species with climate."

Robertson commended the Chinese government for taking "dramatic action" on the environment", unlike "Western governments right now, democratically elected, because they're afraid."

This is not the first time Robertson has revealed that the messiness of democracy does not appeal to him. Earlier this year, we heard him dismiss citizens turning out to a City Council meeting to provide input as "hacks". And we are still waiting for him to lift the barring of democratically-elected Board member William Simpson from Carnegie Centre. Simpson has served a three year sentence. What does the Mayor feel would be an adequate sentence for daring to get elected? And we're still waiting for the Mayor to fire Ethel Whitty for abusing civil liberties and then covering her tracks with misinformation.

Mayor Robertson is afraid.

An Ellen Sighting

I spotted City Counselor Ellen Woodsworth looking snazzy this afternoon in her black and white knit jacket and black pants, with her galpal, as I darted into Carnegie.

Crossed my mind that Woodsworth may have taken time out from her schedule to work on the damage control strategy being used by Ethel Whitty and Skip Everall as they continue their undemocratic barring policy at Carnegie. It's a strategy that no doubt needs to be tweaked now that they've been exposed as far away as China for allegedly manufacturing evidence to justify banning political critics from City services at Carnegie.

It's a fraud scandal that has been weighing like an iron rice bowl on Mayor Robertson's head as he tries to pass himself off in China as an upstanding business broker.