Impeachment 12 February 2010

IMPEACMENT 6:00 pm 251 Solheim Place, 9th floor, 251 Union Street, Vancouver, B.C.
(Union is beteen Gore and Main next to Georgia viaduct Hastings side) 12 February 2010 Friday If you are a resident of the DTES, please attend.

Directors of DERA/DERAH: Sister Elizabeth Kelliher, Susan Neeves, Julie Rogers, Pat McSherry, Chris Slater, Jill Chelliar, Elvis Houle, Peter Golletz, Alex Burnip, Audrey Laferriere

For those of you who are questioning why I am even bothering with DERA is because of the proposed new Society Act. The new proposed Act ensures that Boards can continue to be dysfunctional and be composed of those with past and present histories of addiction, criminal conviction, mental illness and psycopathic behavior and these are the people funders listen to. And the funders are you the taxpayers. No one is outthere lobbying for a radical analysis of the proposed new Society Act. The BCLI that wrote a draft of the law have recommended that Societies be put on par with corporations which is stupid. A society's bottom line is not profit.

I was summoned to a hastily called extraordinary meeting of DERA yesteday evening and was advised that I was going to be impeached on February 12 2010. I told the Board that the process was illegal and I wanted to see the written process and was told that they did not have to show it to me. I cannot believe the viciousness of each of the directors that were at the meeting. It was as if I was a Salem witch and I have to be burned at the stake for daring to expose the Board as dysfunctional.

I find it incredulous. The only thing they complained was that I had talked to the funders which I did when I asked for information because Kim and the Board would not give me access to any financial information and I wanted the funders to give me the information they had so I could try to piece together whatever is going on at DERA. What did the Board expect me to do. Legally as a director I have to know what is going on and I must do everything possible to secure information from whatever means possible. However I was never given any formal documentation so I do not know what my crime is.

The best I can tell the Board is going to illegally impeach me and I will have to go to court to have it overturned. And they know that I do not have the money to do this. Years ago the Board impeached a woman and when she went to the next directors meeting saying that the impeachment was illegal the bullies of DERA physically forced her out of the meeting. After that she said to hell with DERA and walked.

At my inquisition yesterday I was asked why did I want to remain a director of DERA as obviously the Board does not want me on it. I told them it had nothing to do with the Board as the Board did not elect me. I was elected by the members and I am responsible to the members.

I have never accused anyone of fraud. What I have done is accuse DERA of corruption. Corruption means not doing things properly.

So if you live in the DTES go to DERA get a membership or renew your membership and attend the impeachment 12 February 2010 and vote against the impeachment. If you have some problem with getting a membership let me know.

Remember nothing is going to change at DERA unless the membership gets involved. The Law Foundation and BC Housing is not going to get involved with the day-to-day operations of DERA. Their function is only to give monies and hopefully the money is spent the way it should. Neither of them do forsenic auditing; they only do cursory overviews and depend on DERA's longtime auditor who was part of DERA years ago when DERA had problems, she just deals directly with Kim and her real job is to make sure that DERA looks good as she neglects to mention things in the financial statements which I think are relevant, then the funders talk to the E/D and Sister Elizabeth, Kim Kerr says everything is fine and it is left at that. I was told that the funders won't do anything until after the fact and when it is too late. So the taxpayer pays for gross mismanagement and needless suffering of employees and the 500 tenants DERA oversees in its social housing towers which social rentals towers would cost $60 million to replace.

Copy of email sent to Sister Elizabeth yesterday.

I was again reading the constitution. It is so fucked up there is no clear distinction of what an ordinary resolution and a special resolution is. In any event, the Board cannot instigate an impeachment. It has to be done by the members by a written requisition. Then and only then can you call a meeting to consider an impeachment. So the meeting you are calling on Thursday January 28 2010 is illegal.

In any event, whatever you are trying to do will not stand up in court as I have to have a list of all the members because for me not to have a membership list puts me at a disadvantage which means you will fail when I contest this in court. Since the Board and the E/D has refused me the membership list you are dead in the water.

Like I said before just give me all the information I need to satisfy myself that DERA/DERAH is being best managed and I will be the first to apologize for thinking DERA/DERAH and everyone associated with them are corrupt. Corruption does not have to be inferred as illegal; it also infers moral corruption.

Every time I think about what David and Jill got away with for so many years -- stealing money from the poor by not paying their fair rent angers me -- especially when I know people out there who are totally disabled are paying 80% of their income to rent on a $1,000 disability and both these young people have paid a pittance and they still owe back rent. Are they being billed for their deception or is the Board just never going to discuss it and it will be forgotten. This extra rental money should be used for additional housing not for buying a SUV.

I will never forget the betrayal of both Jill and Dave who professed that they were the Anti-Proverty Committee. Are they going to be held accountable for their dishonesty and to think that Jill is a director of DERA/DERAH and they still are not declaring their real incomes. Both of them should be in jail. Earning $100,000 in one year (Jill was earning $35.00 per hour and Dave was working at $18.00 per hour) and paying $300 a month rent living in a three bedroom subsidized DERAH apartment is "criminal" and the Board is allowing them to continue their dishonesty because this isn't their job it is the job of the E/D. The E/D does not enforce the 1/3 gross rental policy to establish a monthly rent. And to top it off Jill/Dave are currently behind in their rent payments. When both Jill and Dave were in combination earn ing say $100,000 one-third of the rent being "fair rent" would have been $2,761 per month. The point is Jill is a director of DERA and has been for some years. Apparently, it seems directors get special consideration for keeping Kim in power. Kim knows how to twist the BC Housing rules and then he get the Board to sanction whatever he wants done with some illogical justification if word gets out but mostly word never gets out.

Another email sent to all the directors of DERA yesterday

Please be advised that I have reread the Society Act and there is no such thing as an extraordinary meeting. So where did this creation come from. If you attempt this process of impeachment again I will appeal it.

For your information a non-profit can't just write new bylaws and say they are legal as the bylaws are not checked over by the Society Act to determine whether or not they are written correctly. This is called deregulation which means it is up to the public/members/directors to sue DERA if the bylaws are not according to what the Society Act expects. Rather than wasting time why doesn't the Board go to a lawyer as what the Board is actually doing is very unproductive and will be very expensive. Legal costs will eventually come out of DERA's monies.

Rather than impeaching me, why don't you just give me the information I need to determine if DERA/DERAH are being managed in a correct manager. I know that DERAH is in breach of contractual obligations with BC Housing. There are questions of fiscal mismanagement like overpaying for work done. The fact that DERAH has lost its charitable status with Revenue Canada and the Board is not one bit concerned blows my mind. Blaming employees for bad management decisions of the E/D is totally unconscionable. And above all the way the Board has treated employees and tenants is inexcusable. Each Board member should be ashamed of their corruptive behaviour to date. I do not like the concept of the poor stealing from the poor which is what each one of you are guilty of allowing.

I have no respect for anyone of you. I thought there was some hope with Pat but then after she miswrote the minutes for December I changed my mind. And where is the invoice for $6,000 which Kim said he was going to pay as it was his personal debt and now he wants DERA to pay for. He sure has it good, he just says I need $6,000 for court costs without any explanation or invoice and the Board just rubberstamps it. Who is the $6,000 to be paid to?

Who is to blame for DERA/DERAH?

I have been ill these past two weeks and trying to caluculate what I can do to make DERA/DERAH do what it is suppose to do under the Society Act. It has gone beyond DERA's internal politics to its external causes. The external causes is that the DTES non-profit community has run from any responsibility it has for DERA hiding behind the inadequaties of the Society Act and the legal corruption which is pervasive in the DTES. Today I emailed Liz Evans and Mark Townsend (copy to the Vancouver Foundation) asking them to renew their memberships in DERA/DERAH. Both Liz and Mark are politicial creatures and it will be interesting to know how what they are going to do. Everyone that lives in the DTES is responsible for the governance for DERA/DERAH and for it to be transparent and living up to its contractural obligations to BC Housing and other funders which DERA has not been doing. And if any of you know Jim Green's email address, please forward it to me. He is also eligible to be a member of DERA/DERAH. Both Libby Davis and Jenny Kwan has used DERA as their stepping stone to their political careers. Years ago Jenny was asked to attend Board meetings of DERA and if she did there might have been a chance that DERA won't have deteriorated into the state it is in now. She refused because she is too busy being President Bush running from one photo op to another and never saying anything arriving late and leaving early. And I believe her husband is an executive at the Portland Hotel Society and it goes on and on ... What is happening at DERA is not only my problem it is also the problem of all the non-profits in the DTES who should be using moral suasion to make sure each of them are doing the right thing and not hiding behind lawyers and accountants.

Open Board Meeting today DERA

I was told that Kim is running around trying to find a lawyer to keep me from having acccess to documents of DERA. Good luck to him. I am in the right and I can't get a lawyer. So if there is a real life lawyer outthere that has no car, no wife, no kid, no dog and live in a studio rent free you may want to volunteer in this most important legistlation of this decade call me 778-329-1250. But somehow over the generations those who run non-profits have manged to create a third level of government which most of us are not aware of and all of us should run from.

I attended the "open board meeting" on Tuesday and it became a "closed incamera meeting" so that the observers/members were forced to leave. There was nothing in the meeting that warranted such exclusion. The biggest item was me: a motion was made so that I do not send any further emails to the directors. Although I sent agenda items for this meeting to the Board (see prior post) none of them appeared on the written agenda. And of course Julie was there demanding the meeting end prior to 7:30 as she had another appointment...

Just so those of you who are not familiar with incamera meetings, it doesn't mean that they are confidential, it only means that the negotiations are, and that (1) notice has to be given to the members prior to the meeting as to the reason for an incamera meeting and(2) that after the incamera meeting the conclusion has to be reported to the members.

Remember there is an open board meeting today at 6:30 at Solheim Place 251 Union Street (Georgia street viaduct between Main/Gore/Union) January 12 2010. These meeetings are becoming very interesting ... it is a reality show

Motions for the Board January 12, 2010

The motions listed below (as well as other ones) have all been sent to the Board during my ten months as a director of DERA/DERAH and they have all been ignored. For those of you who feel that I have not followed protocols that apparently are the norm on how directors get things done in a non-profit I ask who authored those unwritten protocols.

How to do my job as a director was clarified to me by Phillip Landrie, a lawyer in Hastings North (604-257-3588), who told me that societies are micro City Halls. This was further confirmed by Suzanne Anton, City Councillor, who said that the City of Vancouver was a Society.

Unfortunately, most of the 26,000 societies we now have in British Columbia have morphed to anarchies each one doing what the hell they want without much regard to the rule of law or the purpose for the society. For example, the Greater Vancouver Food Bank does not have members only directors who all have professional careers outside of their "charity" work and defer to management on every single issue. And to think we the general public give them money trusting a woman who two years ago shut down the foodbank just before Christmas in the DTES without explanation: go and eat cake, said she.

Motions:

THAT the E/D be instructed to keep regular office hours and to record by the hour what he does. This is how lawyers and accountants bill their clients so why not Kim. His voice mail is always full and maybe he is overworked and deserves a raise. We as directors should know what he is doing.

THAT DERA open all day Wednesdays as it is suppose to be serving the people in the DTES. There is no reason for DERA to be closed on Wednesday.

THAT there be weekly meetings of DERA directors. DERAH is managing/owning property that is worth at least 60 million dollars (replacement value) and the directors meet only ten times a year for one hour at a time with the directors bitching that even that is encroaching on their personal time.

THAT a moratorium be put on any evictions of tenants and firings of employees for three months for each incident so that the possible evictees and those that are facing firings have a chance to present their case to the Board: this to avoid possible costly litigation for unjust terminations;

THAT unless the Board is notified of the reasons for DXXXs firing and they better be good beyond the vague "just cause" or the better one "she knows why" she is to be reinstated immediately.

THAT the Board respond to both AXXXs and HXXXs letters to it as why they had to leave the employee of DERA. And the Board allow those members that want to read the letters be allowed to do so.

THAT the Revocation of DERAH of its charitiable status in October 2009 be discussed in detail. It is inconceivable that this happened and Board or the E/D is covering it up.

THAT applications for memberships and directorships be actively solicited. DERA/DERAH do not have closed memberships or closed boards as this is not common knowledge for what reason I do not know;

THAT the Board advertise that all Board meetings are open to members and interested parties especially those interested in becoming future directors;

THAT the draft motion to pay legal costs be revisited in the light that a management employee previously told the Board two years ago that he was going to pay for the subject litigation;

THAT Kim's title be changed to "general manager" rather than executive director as the moniker executive director suggests that Kim is an elected director which he is not;

THAT a notice be sent to all tenants of the DERAH buildings reminding them to declare each month all the income of the occupants in his/her/their unit even if the occupants are not on the tenancy agreement so that fair rent is paid and to remind the tenant that any default falls on the tenant i.e. if the tenant plans to have a roommate for the next five years (or any other period past, present or future) then the tenant is responsible to pay 1/3 of the occupant's gross income as additional rent. DERA has not been enforcing this rental term as it thinks it is okay for some tenants and directors and staff who live in the buildings to pay less than ten percent of their incomes per unit. I have a friend who pays 80% of her disability income in old for profit building to rent as she isn't lucky enough to live in social housing. Her disposible income is $200 and a comparable person living in social housing would have $700 in disposable income. Disposable income is monies leftover after paying rent.

THAT a police report be ordered relating to the flooding incident on December 28 2009to help verify the circumstances surrounding the flooding and in particular to confirm that DERAH staff told the police that Dave had a violent mental history and as a result Dave was sent to the "funny farm" for assessment. I was told that one's medical condition was confidential so how was it that Tellier staff knew of it (Kim was there)and used such information to convince the police to take Dave away. After observation Dave was released to face Sabina, the Tellier housing manager, saying that he was not allowed back into his suite and that the his lock was changed. And if I do not understand what is going on then staff should explain what I do not understand. The only thing I am certain of is there had been a continuous malfunction of a fire alarm in Dave's suite and DERAH refused to fix it resulting in the sprinkler system eventually being tripped. It was not a malicious act.

THAT the auditor or the on-staff bookkeeper attend all Board meetings so that directors can ask questions of them like who was paid $5,000 to do a $500 web page when the executive director initially said the new web site would be done by a volunteer;

THAT a land search be done in the Land Titles Registry to clarify who in fact owns the DERAH buildings. If DERAH doesn't own the buildings why is it that it is listed on the tax assessment at City Hall and when I inquired from BC Housing to clarify who owned the buildings it refused to answer my email but then why should BC Housing reply to any questions. Why should BCH help me do my job;

THAT the directors who refuse to read my emails relating to Board business be asked to resign. Alex and Julie both have told me that they do not read my emails. And to think that Julie is a director of PIVOT, a legal entity who believes in the rule of law.

If there is anything in this blog that is either slanderous, libelous or untrue please contact me otherwise it stands as true.




Bulletin No. SYS-09-045 December 29, 2009

TRANSIT SHELTER PROGRAM

Transit Police and Coast Mountain Bus will team up to help the homeless and others who need access to shelter in extreme cold weather.

The target audience is the homeless and those most in need of shelter during the extreme cold weather.

Transit Police Constables who identify someone who needs shelter and transport to it will be able to request a bus/shuttle driver from Coast Mountain, who will provide free passage for the person to the nearest shelter location.

Transit Police will transport any persons that could potentially be disruptive on CMBC service.

It is our hope that this project will be a model of partnership for our agencies in assisting our most at risk citizens.

We very much appreciate your assistance with this project and look forward to making it a success for Coast Mountain Bus, the Transit Police and those in need.



Stan Sierpina
Vice President
Customer Service

Flood at Tellier December 28 2009

If anyone knows how I can get a hold of Dave, the tenant where the flood started, could you please get in touch with me. I have been hearing many things which are contradictory to commonsense about what happened and I must talk to Dave to clarify his side of the events. DERAH evicting Dave without notice and not even talking to Dave over the alledged malicious act only shows that DERAH abused its power by virtue of it being a landlord. There is a directors meeting on January 12 2010 and I am hoping to make a motion to the Board that no one gets evicted or fired until that person has had the occasion to approach the Board in person to present his/her version of the events. Although I have advised the Board of what I know of the event none of them includng staff have contacted me re the welfare of Dave. DERA is suppose to be protecting the rights of the underpriviledged and yet DERA arbitrarily makes major decisions about people's lives without even knowing the true facts. The lock to Dave's apartment was changed and Sabrina DERA's Housing Manager told Dave that he could not re-enter his apartment and for him to go to a shelter if he had no where else to go. All the shelters are full. And to think that I am a member of the Board of Directors. I am angry and ashamed. Audrey @ 778-329-1250; audreylaferriere@yahoo.ca; Audrey Laferriere c/o 75 - 12 East Hastings, Vancouver, BC V6A 1S2.