The Carnegie - Just Like Other Community Centres? Or Not?

by alawisious | January 18, 2008 at 06:49 pm

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The Carnegie Centre is owned and staffed by the City of Vancouver. Ethel Whitty is the Director, and she manages the Carnegie as a community centre for the residents of the Downtown Eastside, taking direction from City Council and "non-binding advice" from the Carnegie Community Centre Association. The Association is an incorporated Society made up of Carnegie members who elect it's Board, who essentially represent the community. One doesn't have to come from the Downtown Eastside to be a member at the Carnegie, but most do.

In the operating agreement signed for the first time in 2007 between the Association and the City, the City's commitments include, "...through the Director, receive on a non-binding basis, advice from the Association...regarding all aspects of management policy affecting the Centre including...use of the Centre and the relationships between the Centre and the community." (emphasis mine) In other words, The Carnegie is owned and run by the City, whose top authority there is the Director, Ms. Whitty, and who ultimately has to answer for what goes on there.

In her recent interview on CBC radio, I was surprised that she wasn't more clear about her role and more forthcoming about how accountability is ensured at the Carnegie, given her position there. In response to a question from Mr. Quinn, the interviewer, about accountability, she only had this to say, "Well, in terms of the Centre, uhm, of course there's accountability built into the Centre, but you have to remember we are a community centre. We have a cultural educational mandate. We're not a social service centre, and like any other community centre...". She goes on to talk about the services and how well-used they are etc. until Mr. Quinn interrupts her with this comment, "no, but this is Carnegie, it's unique, it has a unique clientele". Ms. Whitty agrees, answering, "it does, it does". With nothing further coming from her about accountability, Mr. Quinn sounding somewhat frustrated, goes on to another question and the interview ends shortly thereafter.

There's an argument to be made for more accountability at the Carnegie, in spite of what Ms. Whitty said or didn't say about it in her interview. I believe that William Simpson and Rachel Davis both clearly showed this in the their own CBC interviews with Stephen Quinn the day before Ms. Whitty was interviewed. Not only that, there is a lot of talk on blogs and within and amongst the membership at the Carnegie, about other unaccounted for barrings and injustices. Ms. Whitty has also been made aware of the discontent amongst the membership through member representations at Board meetings and committee meetings. A very obvious case of the need for accountability arose with the abuse of the editorial role at the Carnegie Newsletter, where the editor was reprimanded for libelling William Simpson in one of his editorial rants. Although he was chastised by the Publications Committee for this and made to retract and apologize, it seems that he is still carrying on using the Newsletter for his own purposes, given his commentary in the latest issue.

Given that Ms. Whitty is the "number one" at the Carnegie, her response about accountability in her radio interview, left a lot to be explained for the average Carnegie member. I believe it would be very helpful to all members of the Carnegie if she took the time to explain more fully, how she as the Director on behalf of the City, is ensuring accountability in the "relationships between the facility and the community", and in particular this most recent mess concerning Mr. Simpson. It certainly seems that it is her job and her job alone to provide a good example of leadership and accountability, for the responsibilities she has accepted on behalf of the community.

However, at this time, I would just like to dispute one point Ms. Whitty seems to be making with her contention that the Carnegie is a community centre much like the others, and how she seems to be associating that distinction with her lack of any explanation about accountability at the Carnegie Centre. According to the way the City has laid out their organizational chart, it doesn't seem that they see the Carnegie in the same light as the other community centres.

Take a look at the City of Vancouver's Organizational chart available on their website. There you will see two major players in the way the structure of the city is laid out. You'll see the "Community" represented in large bold font at the top left. On the right and a little higher but in smaller font, you'll see "Mayor and City Council". The community centres of Vancouver, 25 of them, are found in two distinctly different places when you follow the chart's lines starting from the two different sides. The first line goes down from the "Community" designation and into the box labelled "Parks Board". Within the Parks Board organization chart you will find the names of 23 different community centres for each neighbourhood in the 3 main districts of Vancouver.

If you follow the other line down from Mayor and City Council, through the Office of City Manager and into a grouping of 5 different Service Groups, one of them will be Community Services. This department is run by Jacquie Forbes-Roberts, the city official who signed the barring letter to William Simpson. Within the many sections of her department, and under one entitled Community Service Operations, headed by Deputy General Manager Judy Bader, you will find the other 2 community centres, The Gathering Place, which is located Downtown and The Carnegie, naming Ms. Whitty as it's Director.

The Parks Board and the Community operate the 23 community centres under Parks Board jurisdiction through a Joint Operating Agreement which has recently undergone a review through a Task Force made up of equal membership from Community and Parks Board. The Carnegie, on the other hand is operated, as mentioned above, by the City in conjunction with "non-binding advice" from the Association, which is not really the community. It's the members of the Carnegie who make up the Association, who could come from outside the Downtown Eastside. A Board member could be from the West Side, but as long as they are an active volunteer at the Carnegie or somewhere else in the DTES, they qualify to run for the Board.

There are other distinguishing aspects of the Carnegie and it's place in the DTES, such as the DTES Revitalization Program which can be reached from a link on the Carnegie's homepage, which in turn is found on the Community Services website. This program has all manner of work being done by various partners in an effort to revitalize the DTES area. There is an outreach program in Oppenheimer Park for residents of that neighbourhood, and the “Street Program” for substance users at the corner of Main and Hastings and in Pigeon Park. There is also the Newsletter, it's relationship to City and Board unclear, although Ms. Whitty has said that she has no jurisdiction over this operation run out of the Carnegie. There is the Carnegie Community Action Project working on the homelessness problem in the area, but again it's not clear what the relationship is. Finally, there is the Learning Centre apparently run by Capilano College which is housed in the Carnegie, and whose head instructor, Lucy Alderson, according to Ms. Whitty had complete authority to make the decision to bar William Simpson from that facility, prior to the barring from the building, falsely alleging that he was a blogger critical of the Carnegie Centre.

So, the fact that the Carnegie is totally within the City part of their organization structure with no clear input line from the Community, it's obvious there is a major difference in how the City sees the Carnegie's role in the Community. Also, with all of the various community elements associated with the Carnegie and the clear message about the distinctiveness of the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood, does this not point out that, no, the Carnegie is not like the other community centres which are run by the Parks Board and Community together and not directly by the City through Ms. Whitty? On a recent visit to Ms. Whitty's office, I pointed this distinction out to her, but was surprised to find that she had nothing further to say by way of explanation on the subject.

Does not this difference in the way the City sees the Carnegie, along with the facts about the uniqueness of the neighbourhood and Carnegie clientele, point also to the need for more transparency in being accountable for actions taken against patrons by the Director on behalf of the City? Given that a lot of the neighbourhood's population are already marginalized in some way, should it not be a high priority to see that at the very least, their rights are protected and seen to be protected in their own "Living Room"? Is it not Ethel Whitty's job to ensure that?

http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/departments.htm

http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/

http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/parks/cc/index.htm

http://members.nowpublic.com/politics/barred-carnegie-director-talks-cbc

http://members.nowpublic.com/politics/ethel-whitty-says-simpson-out-because-worksafe-complaint