The Kitsilano Community Centre held its annual general meeting this past Thursday evening, April 18th, a gathering of the members of the community which can only be described as high farce.
A group of longtime Kitsilano residents, concerned about the tenor of negotiations between the City and the community centre associations respecting a renewed joint operating agreement, had come together in recent weeks with the objective of placing their names on the ballot for one of the 21 Board of Director positions to be decided at the Kits CC AGM.
This group of concerned Kitsilano residents had chosen to identify themselves as the Independent slate, which is to say independent of Vision Vancouver, the municipal party that slate members believe is intent on imposing an onerous, and potentially destructive, joint operating agreement on Vancouver’s volunteer run, non-profit community centres.
As members of the Independent slate arrived at the Kitsilano Community Centre Thursday afternoon the scene was set almost immediately for a troublesome night of democratic engagement and electoral politics.
Soon after his arrival, Lewis Pierce, who led the Independent slate, and who has lived in Kitsilano his entire life, found himself approached first by the senior Recreation supervisor at the Kits Community Centre, Doug Taylor, who informed him that he would have to leave the premises if he wished to distribute information on the AGM. Taylor’s approach was followed by the intervention of the chair of the Kits Community Centre Seniors Committee, who instructed Mr. Pierce and another member of his slate that “you should leave the building, you don’t belong here, we don’t want you, we don’t want your ‘coup’, there’s the door, get out!” Pierce exited the building, distributing literature he had in his possession off premises.
Thus the stage was set for the Kitsilano Community Centre AGM, and what soon became clear was a campaign of fear that was being waged against the otherwise well-intentioned members of the Independent slate.
As meeting time approached, members of the Independent slate, and their supporters, heard reports that …
- Staff had been told that ‘independent slate’ members were intent on converting the Kitsilano community centre into a fully volunteer-operated facility, which meant the firing of all union staff.
- Seniors present at the AGM reported that the Kits Community Centre President, Robert Haines, had told them in the days leading up to the AGM that a group of ‘radicals’ were going to conduct a ‘coup’, and were intent on shuttering all seniors programmes in favour of their ‘radical endeavours’, Mr. Haines instructing the seniors to get all their friends out to vote if they wanted to preserve seniors programming.
- Vision Vancouver supporters present, of which there appeared to be many, had circulated reports that the Independent slate consisted of the “same crew” of COPE Independents who had triumphed at the recent April 7th COPE AGM, with nefarious intentions to convert the Kitsilano Community Centre into a ‘beachhead’ for their radical politics.
That none of the untoward allegations about the 15 individuals running as members of the Independent slate was true was of little concern for the majority of those in attendance at the Kits Community Centre annual general meeting. They knew what they knew, and that’s all there was to it.
By the time the meeting started, shortly after 7pm, most of those present were in a state of high dudgeon, with allegations of “coup” and “malcontents” hurled at the members of the Independent slate. Thursday evening would prove to be as concerning an example of untoward democratic engagement as may have been witnessed in Vancouver in recent years, and certainly at the community centre level.
As voting got underway, Independent slate members and their supporters publically expressed a number of concerns respecting the process for the election of officers and members-at-large: 1. Doug Taylor, a senior Kits Community Centre staff, would be conducting the election. 2. Staff would be counting the ballots, unsupervised, as no scrutineers would be allowed in the ballot counting room. 3. There were two entrances to the room where the AGM was taking place, with little or no concern for whether those present in the meeting room were Kitsilano Community Centre members, as ballots were distributed to every person present. 4. Staff were seen by many who were present to be casting ballots, a direct conflict of interest.
This was a meeting out of control, anti-democratic and belligerent, with two goals in mind: resist the hordes of ‘radicals’ intent on upsetting the club-
like atmosphere of the Kitsilano Community Centre Board of Directors, while ensuring that a Board of Directors acquiescent to the Vision Vancouver initiated re-negotiation of the joint operating agreement remained in place.
Perhaps most concerning, given that the Independent slate members all resided in Kitsilano, was the fact that seven Presidents, or recent past Presidents, of Vancouver community centre associations from other neighbourhoods in Vancouver, had taken out memberships (in recent days) with the Kitsilano Community Centre, a few of whom — including David Sexton, past President and current member of the Renfrew CCA BoD (whose wife, Hazel Hollingdale, sits as the association’s President), and Alan Baycroft, President of the West End CCA — had come forward to put their names in contention for a member-at-large position on the Kitsilano Community Centre Board of Directors, in an unprecedented interference in the directorial affairs of a community centre association not their own.
When giving their speeches to the meeting, neither Sexton nor Baycroft referenced their Executive positions elsewhere. When their ‘conflict of interest’ came to light, during the voting process, shouts arose from the room that Baycroft and Sexton must withdraw from the contest. Neither did, with Sexton securing the final member-at-large position on the Board.
One of the strange aspects of the KitsCC AGM was that, contrary to the information that those opposing the Independent slate had been given, it was the members of the Independent slate who had been lifelong, or longtime, residents of Kitsilano, or who long had made frequent use of the KitsCC facilities, while the forces for stasis were by-and-large comprised of a group of people who had taken out KitsCC memberships simply to oppose the so-called radical malcontents’ coup, and were not residents of Kitsilano or regular users of the KitsCC facility. There was a pervasive sense of delirium infesting almost every aspect of Thursday evening’s KitsCC AGM.
If the Park Board / City of Vancouver does not dismiss the Kitsilano Community Centre Board of Directors come July 1st (the day after the dead date set by the City for coming to an agreement on a joint operating procedure for the Park Board and the CCAs), what measures will be taken by the newly-elected KitsCC Board of Directors to ensure that the irregularities that defined the 2013 KitsCC AGM will not occur next year?
Robert Haines, once and forever President of the KitsCC attempted to move a motion to adopt a Special Resolution at Thursday’s KitsCC AGM that candidates wishing to run for the KitsCC BoD in 2014 must submit their names to the Board, and the position for which they intend to run, 30 days in advance of the 2014 AGM. The Special Resolution was referred to the Board for approval, and will in all likelihood be in effect for next year.
What measures will the KitsCC BoD take to ensure Kitsilano residents are given sufficient notice of 2014’s upcoming annual general meeting, in order that KitsCC members / residents will be given sufficient time to consider their prospective candidacy for a position on the 2014 KitsCC BoD?
At present, Mr. Pierce tells VanRamblings that he is weighing his options respecting a challenge to the ultra vires conduct of the Kitsilano Community Centre Board of Directors, including a referral to the provincial government’s Corporate Registry office, respecting possible breaches of the Society Act and the Kitsilano Community Centre Constitution and Bylaws.
Thursday, April 18, 2013’s Kitsilano Community Centre AGM ended shortly after 10pm, with much rancor in the air, and bitter feelings about foul process expressed by supporters of the Independent slate, and others.
None of the 15 Independent slate members were elected to the Board.
