AHA Media

Ivan Drury, for the
Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council board of directors:

Today’s AGM was an important mark of how far we have come in a year of working together.

We discussed (and shared a slideshow about) the last year of working together. We talked about our successes, our challenges, and where we still have to work harder. One important example was the observation that we have done all we have without any paid staff. Doing all our work with volunteers means that we have not always been able to get all our detail work (like meeting minutes) done on time, but it also means that we have had to work on improving our capacities all together and through practice.

We also discussed our vision for the coming year, which was presented through a report from the Action Committee. The two main campaigns for the coming year are:
1) The FIGHT FOR 10 SITES Campaign will demand the city buy and secure 10 sites in the DTES for social housing before the next election in November 2011. This campaign has started with a focus on winning social housing above the new library on Hastings and Heatley.
2) The RESTAURANT JUSTICE campaign, which will demand and end to economic apartheid in the fancy restaurants that have set up shop in the DTES and which regularly discriminate against low-income residents through the prices of the food on their menus, the cultural climate in their spaces, by refusing low income residents access to their bathrooms, and by chasing low income residents off their blocks with the help of police and security forces.
To implement these plans, everyone is encouraged to come to the weekly DNC Action Committee meetings, 4:30 on Wednesdays at the Carnegie 3rd Floor (for now).

In a brief presentation on our constitution and by-laws, two amendments were moved: to extend rights and respects to all members of our community regardless of their legal “citizenship” status; and to amend our “natural community” status application process to make non-resident members more accountable to the resident membership of the DNC. The constitution amendments were sent back to committee for revision and to be presented at a coming general meeting.

We also held an election for the new DNC Board of Directors. Seventy-five voting members attended, of which seventy-one people cast ballots. Dave Diewertt, organizer with the social justice group Streams of Justice, and Stacey Bishop, Strathcona resident and friend of the DNC, were elected as ballot counters.

As decided and explained in the DNC by-laws, our election was structured to be representative of our community through being organized by housing type:

The election was very close in all categories, so congratulations are in order for all those who stood for election. If you were not elected, at large positions are still to be decided, and there is a lot to be done outside of the Board!

For the SRO / HOTEL category, 8 people ran for election for a possible 5 seats. The five elected:
– Richard Cunningham
– Ron Kuhlke
– Paul Martin
– Dave Hamm
– Fraser Stuart

For the SOCIAL HOUSING category, 10 people ran for a possible 5 seats. The fifth position was exactly tied by two candidates, so six will sit for the social housing category, taking one of the “at-large” positions. The six elected:
– Nathan Allen
– Ping Chan
– Earl Crow
– Harold Lavender
– Ann Livingston
– Wendy Pedersen

For the MARKET HOUSING category, 3 people ran for a possible 3 seats. A motion was passed to accept the following three candidates as elected representatives:
– Vanessa Lowe
– Tami Starlight
– Ivan Drury

For the HOMELESSNESS category, 3 people ran for a possible 4 seats. A motion was passed to accept the following three candidates as elected representatives:
– Dave Murray
– Nicole Fidler
– Eileen Pidgeon

The first meeting of the new board will be this Monday, 6pm, on the 3rd floor of the Carnegie. First on the agenda of the new board will be to discuss who to suggest to fill in the free HOMELESS seat, and who to suggest for the remaining 3 at-large seats that exist to help make the board more representative.

Congratulations to all DNC members who were present for such a productive and celebratory first Annual General Meeting, to those who won seats on the new board… a year of hard work awaits!

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