McCauley board dumped
Dozens turn up for community league election
You know something is up when there’s standing room-only at your community league’s annual general meeting and there’s a security guard at the door.
“I’m kind of anxious,” one woman waiting in a line to enter the meeting told the guard. “It’s kind of unusual to have a security guard at a community league meeting. I’m a little scared.”
The McCauley annual general meeting, which drew six people in each of the last two years, attracted a whopping 160 residents Sunday morning, and it wasn’t because any of them wanted to fill the league’s soccer director vacancy.
By the time the meeting ended with the election of a new board, the only former member left was Meredith Porter, and that’s only because she automatically stays on as past-president.
Three of the previous board members decided not to run again and the four who did were all defeated.
Why? It all depends on who you talk to.
Phil O’Hara, one of new board members, said the old board was not inclusive, not collaborative, not transparent and not accountable.
Georgina Fiddler, the old board’s secretary, who did not run again, said it’s because the community is split between residents who live north of 107th Avenue, and those who live in the south, in the heart of the inner city and all its issues.
Resident Tony Pino, who along with his brother Peter grew up in Little Italy and now owns and manages rental properties in the downtown area, said it’s because “a lot of people felt the old board wasn’t the voice of the people, and the new board wants to be the voice of the people.
“The new board has said they don’t necessarily disagree with what a lot of the old board’s positions were. I think what they disagreed with is how the old board got there.”
Pino, who butted heads with the board over proposed housing developments, admitted to actively soliciting community league memberships from his tenants and encouraging them to come out and vote.
“I told them what the issues were from my perspective, and I told them which way I was going to be voting.
He said he was, “very pleased” with the election results.
“The old board ... put themselves in a lot of tough positions and I think it was time for some new blood, new ideas, and I think we’ve accomplished that today,” Pino said.
Todd Janes, another voter, said, “the residents of McCauley have spoken loud and clear that they wanted change and they got it.”
Past-president Porter said “maybe this is the best thing that’s ever happened to the neighbourhood. I’m personally looking forward to a break after three long years and I’m personally looking forward to not dealing with whiners.”
But if the criticism of her board was that it was onesided, “I would say this board is even more one-sided,” she said.
“We (the board) always said the blowback would come, that people who are in agencies and who represented outside interests would come for us and they did. “It was a lynch mob.” All of the names of the newly elected board members appeared on a green paper handout that many people in the meeting room at the Commonwealth Recreation Centre used when marking their ballots during the voting.
The handout indicated it came from a group of McCauley neighbours who had come together several months ago to take the community league in a new direction. It urged voting league members to “support us in seeking a new direction.”
With the old board voted out, the Edmonton and District Labour Council also got what it wanted.
Bruce Fafard, council president, had sent an email to the heads of its affiliated union locals urging members who live in McCauley to take part in Sunday’s vote.
The council, which has held an annual Labour Day barbecue for the unemployed in Giovanni Caboto Park on 95th Street since 1989, was upset that because of the community league complaining that the event had become noisy, overcrowded — drawing 4,500 people to a neighbourhood park where up to 50 people can stage an event without a city permit — and led to days of drunken parties, city officials had decided this September, the 25th annual barbecue, would be the last in the park and the council would have to find a new location.
Fafard’s email said the council had heard from local residents who are “disappointed in the direction of the current executive and are seeking to replace them with a more open minded, less confrontational executive.”