Here's the background. Voice, doing due diligence in research on community issues, discovered the 12th St Neighborhood Society had been dissolved by the Province on Feb. 22, 2008. You might ask, why is that an issue? The answer lies in the fact that the Society had received, in 2004, 100 grand of taxpayer's money from the City.
We also knew, from ex-members of the Society, that the groups observance and adherence to provincial regs was haphazard at best. Meetings were a sham - no agendas, verbal financial reports, makeshift AGMs.
Some tree-fort gangs operate with more formal procedure than this group.
To be fair, and also to be clear, there are some well intentioned community members who take part in meetings and activities put forward by the group.
Eventually, the pattern is though, that they don't hang around for too long, often citing the opinion that the activities and involvement of the group don't pass the smell test.
Our research showed that the group hasn't reported , as required, to the Provincial Gov't. Victoria's list of directors is badly out of date and no financial records were provided. Despite being given instructions by the Director of Finance of the City to report their financial affairs, the group still didn't do so.
A few weeks ago, Voice issued a press release (available at this site) bringing all of the facts out into the open.
We are still waiting for the Record to report on the issue. When we inquired with the Record as to where this issue was, they gave a lame excuse that they "were working on it."
This community is still waiting on answers to the question, " Where is the $100?"
We now have a further questions.
- Why hasn't the Record reported on this issue?
- Where is their commitment to objective reporting?
- Why hasn't the Record called Voice to see what further information is available?
- C.C.
Posts
2 comments:
Were you guys actually expecting the Record to write about that? They have selected candidates and a selected slate they support.
Look at the connections inside the paper. Look at their reporting. Evey issue there are pictures of the same selected politicians.
Were you guys really expecting fair reporting? Dream on!
I presume C.C. is Casey Cook?
Dear Casey:
I'm sure that Voice believes in full transparency and accuracy in all matters, not just city council, so in that vein I am sending you the full email conversation that I had with Blair Armitage re: the 12th Street Society story. The excerpt used in your blog posting is taken out of context and misrepresents the situation.
The full unedited email follows:
From: Blair Armitage barmitage@shaw.ca
Date: Tue, 06 May 2008 16:42:23 -0700
To: "'Tracy, Pat (LMP)'" PTracy@royalcityrecord.com
Subject: RE: 12th Street Society
Pat,
You are correct. We did send a release out to both papers but it has been our experience that the NewsLeader concentrates on features and does little reporting. So we are not surprised that they did not pick up the story.
Blair.
From: Tracy, Pat (LMP) [mailto:PTracy@royalcityrecord.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 10:54 AM
To: Blair Armitage
Subject: Re: 12th Street Society
Hi Blair:
We do think it’s interesting. But Theresa was working on the story and had to take a week off. I expect she will complete the story when she returns next week.
Didn’t you send out a press release on this to both us and the NewsLeader? Have they done anything on it? I haven’t been checking their pages.
Cheers
Pat
On 5/6/08 10:50 AM, "Blair Armitage" barmitage@shaw.ca wrote:
Hello Pat,
I am somewhat surprised not to have seen anything in the Royal City Record about our breaking story on the 12th street neighbourhood society. In the course of our investigation into the society we discovered that it was dissolved and removed from the registry of societies in February, 2008. This in itself is somewhat limited in terms of newsworthiness but in that the city issued them a $100,000.00 grant and then after two years of no accountability the city directs the society to bring forward audited or professionally reviewed financial statements by September 30th 2007 should I would think tweak the interest of the paper.
At last nights council meeting we learn that the City has authorized a new “grant” of $3,500.00 to the dissolved society for professional fees related to a new audit of the society.
As you are aware we wrote to the City on April 21, 2008 bringing to their attention the dissolution of the society. We learned that as a result of our April 21 letter the City’s Director of Finance, Gary Holowatiuk, wrote to the 12th Street Neighbourhood Society demanding that they return all remaining monies to the City.
What has me completely puzzled is that the Society receives a $100,000.00 grant. They fail to complete and file proper financial reports. They fail to maintain their status as a legitimate society in BC. The Chair of the Society is repeatedly warned by their Secretary that the Society is not in compliance with the societies act. Their status is dissolved. They fail to live up to the demands of New Westminster City Council and its finance department and now they receive a new $3,500.00 grant to bring their financial affairs in order. When does the Royal City Record consider a story newsworthy?
Just curious
Blair Armitage
Following that email conversation, the NewsLeader did do a story. As regular newspaper readers in the community know, both papers often cover different stories and often try not to duplicate coverage. The local media is fortunate in New Westminster to currently have an abundance of material to work on.
As you know, I greatly appreciate community activists who take a keen interest in how the media works. It is, of course, one of the reasons that The Record's letters to the editor section is as lively as it is large.
I'm looking forward to what promises to be an interesting and engaging election season.
Sincerely,
Pat Tracy
Editor
The Record
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