Ruth Meta- being crotchety again…
It seems that I’m not the only person who thinks that Ivan Drury and his crowd are a problem for Vancouver. Just have a look at what Ruth Meta wrote to City Manager Penny Ballem!
Penny Ballem
City Manager
City of Vancouver
June 12, 2012
REGARDING: The behaviour of Ivan Drury, Wendy Pederson and DNC
I write to you today to express my deep concerns about the behaviour of Ivan Drury, Wendy Pederson and the DNC and the CCAP program which runs out of the city run Carnegie Centre.
I am NOT a resident of that neighbourhood but have been in the past. As a matter of fact, I initiated the first new business on Hastings between Gore and Cambie 12 years ago …the Laundromat presently known as Blue Shell, then known as Clothes Encounters under the Vancouver Agreement and the Revitalization Program of the Downtown Eastside.
As a taxpayer in the city of Vancouver, I want to know why a taxpayer-funded building such as the Carnegie allows the illegal, invasive, coercive and downright aggressive behaviour of the above mentioned organization to continue to function in a city run building. Most of us in the City are not terribly happy with many of the decisions about “development” coming out of the city of Vancouver’s council. I live at Nanaimo and Kingsway, facing a humungous concrete wall of development with ABSOLUTELY NO community amenities attached to it. So does Mount Pleasant, so does Strathcona, so does the West End. You don’t see us all charging down to City Council and having temper tantrums, or harassing private developers in their homes as Ivan Drury did last night with a horde of residents from DTES do you? My area of Nanaimo and Kingsway has absolutely NO amenities at all … no day care, no seniors’ centre, no community centre, no libraries … no … nothing! The DTES has 3 community centres in 5 city blocks, at least 2 libraries, day cares, seniors centres, organic gardens ad nauseum, yet they STILL behave like spoiled brat children when they don’t get their way. I want to know why!
While I don’t think the city actually pays Wendy Pederson or Ivan Drury, the CCAP program and DNC function out of the Carnegie. There isn’t a community centre in the entire city which would allow this type of behaviour from programs it runs and controls, why does the Carnegie, why does the city allow this? Are you intimating that all of us across the city should run down to city council and disrupt the meetings and occupy developer’s private homes in order to influence decisions at City Council? If that’s the case, then I will start to organize city wide taxpayer revolts at Council so we can ALL have temper tantrums and behave illegally so we can get our way. Certainly, contacting councilors aren’t getting anyone anywhere … Andrea Reimer is too busy to meet with us.
So, Ms. Ballem, I’d surely like to know what we are going to do about this behavior and an explanation as to why it is tolerated and supported by the City. If I don’t know within one week from this communication, I guess I will have to start organizing taxpayers from all over the city to ask the same questions.
I would like an opportunity to speak with you personally about this issue … my phone # is 778-xxx-xxxx, my email is xxxxxxx@shaw.ca. Please contact me as soon as possible about this issue ‘cause I sure as heck aren’t going to put up with it much longer.
Thank you
Ruth meta
Taxpayer
City of Vancouver
Kingsway and Nanaimo
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