From the Richmond Review 02 June 07

Coast Guard auxiliary gets boot from Scotch Pond

quote:

The Coast Guard Auxiliary in Steveston will soon need to find a new home.

Sources tell The Richmond Review that the Scotch Pond Heritage Cooperative is ending its five-year relationship with the auxiliary, which has its volunteer-based search-and-rescue vessel moored in Scotch Pond.

A notice of eviction was recently handed to the auxiliary.

The following certainly makes it seem like there is more to the story.

quote:

Calls to the co-operative ... were not returned by press time Friday.

quote:

Sources say the auxiliary, which includes a 25-strong team of volunteers, reached out to the City of Richmond, asking for it to step in.

But city officials refused, sources say.

It could be just about anything...

Many municipalities now want a "hold harmless agreement" from organizations that use city property for meetings or other public events. The CG Auxiliary is no exception, unfortunately. Since Flotilla Commanders are not authorized to sign such standard "hold harmless agreements", many end up finding a new home for holding meetings, PE classes, etc. Would this be part of that Story?

It could be. The Aux involved in the story is in Canada - apparently they have some of the same issues we do.

quote:

Since Flotilla Commanders are not authorized to sign such standard "hold harmless agreements"

Although 'not authorized' many FCs sign those - since trying to comply with the Aux procedure of sending it to the DSO-LP who is then supposed to respond for the flotilla is pretty pointless in most cases - the flotilla never hears from the DSO-LP (or anyone else).

Now imagine if the flotilla was using a building owned by a private corporation that the higher level Aux couldn't touch -

The latest in the continuing saga of the CCGux Unit...

Society mum on search and rescue eviction

By Martin van den Hemel
Staff Reporter

Jun 07 2007


With moorage in Steveston at a premium, and the Coast Guard Auxiliary Unit 10 now looking for a new home, the future of volunteer search-and-rescue services in the fishing village is clouded in uncertainty.

Formerly known as Unit 7, the Steveston unit—recently merged with its North Richmond counterpart, Unit 6, to form Unit 10—has been handed an eviction notice from the Scotch Pond Heritage Co-operative.

Auxiliary members and executive met Tuesday night to discuss the unit’s future, but the issue hasn’t been resolved.

Sources tell The Richmond Review that finding a new home for the Steveston unit’s Zodiac vessel will be difficult in south Richmond, where demand is high and supply is low.

Docking the vessel in North Richmond, near that unit’s rescue vessel, is far from ideal and would cause delays in responding to emergency calls in the Steveston area. Depending on the weather conditions and the route chosen, travel time by boat between the two spots can take between 45 minutes and an hour, not to mention the time it takes to get to the troubled vessel.

Both John Kapp, an executive with the Scotch Pond co-op, and president Joe Bauer did not return The Review’s calls for comment at press time Wednesday.

But Bauer did write a letter to the editor (see Letters, Page 13), in which he said the matter won’t be discussed in public.

“This situation is an internal one between the Scotch Pond Heritage Co-operative and its fishermen members and their guests, the Coast Guard Auxiliary, Unit 7...and will be handled internally. To do otherwise would backlash and splash badly unto the good work of the women and men of the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary right across our great nation.”

Peter Thomas, unit leader for Unit 10, told The Review he has yet to be told why the auxiliary is being evicted. He said he has not received any complaints, but has asked the Coast Guard’s human resource’s department to look into the matter.

Canadian Coast Guard officials said they would not comment.

Some sources claim the eviction resulted from concerns about alleged partying in the auxiliary’s boat house, but Randy Strandt, vice-president of the Coast Guard Auxiliary—Pacific Region, said no such complaints have been forwarded to his office.

There is a code of conduct for auxiliary members, he said.

“That would come to the provincial body if someone was to contact us or advise us of that. To my knowledge, we haven’t been informed of anything like that.”

Would a Coast Guard unit be required to disclose these allegations to the provincial body?

“They would be expected to...and I’ve heard nothing of that sort.”

Source

And here's the latest (as the beat goes on)...

Coast Guard auxiliary eviction to be investigated

By Martin van den Hemel
Staff Reporter

Jun 16 2007


The president of the Pacific region of the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary said Thursday an investigation will be launched into the reasons behind the decision to evict the auxiliary’s Steveston-based unit.

Bruce Falkins said he’s spoken to Joe Bauer, head of the Scotch Pond Heritage Co-operative—which is the landlord of the docks at the western edge of Garry Point Park—and they’re planning to meet to discuss allowing the unit and its boat house to remain moored at Scotch Pond.

“He and I have come to the understanding that we’ll come to some form of resolution on their issue. It’s very much just a tenant-lessee problem where they don’t feel their tenants are doing a very good job of looking after their property and my understanding is that we’re going to sort that out.”

Bauer told The Richmond Review the matter is an internal one and won’t comment further.

Sources tell The Richmond Review that the eviction decision may involve alcohol consumption amongst a small number of auxiliary members. However, there have been no formal complaints.

Falkins said there is an auxiliary policy dealing with “members and coxswains” and alcohol and drug use.

Those members who are “actively on call shall abstain from the use of alcohol or drugs that would in any way impair them from duty,” the policy states.

Auxiliary members take turns wearing pagers, a week at a time, and respond around the clock to boating emergencies requiring a search-and-rescue response.

“Bear in mind there are 12 pagers out there, and there’s only four people required to go out on a boat, so you may see a person with a pager on his belt having a beer. Just because he’s got a pager on his belt doesn’t mean he’s on call. If somebody’s looking at that, and saying well they’re in the bar with pagers on, that’s somehow representative of the fact they go out on calls, having had a drink, that’s the furthest thing from the truth.”

Falkins said it’s his organization’s duty to investigate allegations because “we want the finest name in the industry...If there’s someone doing something wrong, well the only way we can move on it is to actually get the allegation in writing and we investigate these things when they come forward.”

Falkins said he’ll order an investigation into the allegations published in The Richmond Review.

The findings of the investigation will be made public, he said.

Melissa Gervais, past president of the Strait of Georgia Marine Rescue Society, which fundraises for the Richmond-based Coast Guard auxiliary units, said there is a code of conduct for auxiliary members.

In her six years as president, she said there were never any concerns raised about the conduct of members of the auxiliary.

“Absolutely none.”

Asked if the code of conduct has provisions related to alcohol consumption, Gervais said: “It’s like driving a car...You just can’t drink alcohol and operate a vessel.”

Gervais said auxiliary members “cannot have had any alcohol” if they’re going on a vessel.

“That’s just the rule.”

An update to the continuing saga:

Coast Guard Auxiliary got boot for bad behaviour extracts.

quote:

Four years of bad behaviour ultimately led to the eviction of the Steveston-based Coast Guard Auxiliary unit from its moorage spot at Scotch Pond.

“It was just the disrespect of the fisherman that were paying their way,” said Joe Bauer, head of the Scotch Pond Heritage Cooperative, the organization that acts as the landlord for the docks at the western edge of Garry Point Park.

quote:

Bauer was reluctant to get into specifics about the conduct of the volunteer unit’s members until the current investigation is completed by the provincial body that oversees B.C.’s Coast Guard Auxiliary units.

The behaviour was repeatedly pointed out, Bauer said, to senior members of the Steveston-based Unit No. 7, which has since merged with the North Richmond unit No. 6 to form Unit No. 10.

When the society opted to evict the unit, Bauer said it wasn’t appreciated when the unit’s new brass tried to circumvent the society’s decision by appealing to the City of Richmond.

In a nutshell, there were members of the unit who figured they were above the rules and the law, and did whatever they wanted, Bauer said.

Then from the Aux side, we first see denial:

quote:

Peter Thomas, unit leader of the Coast Guard Auxiliary in Steveston, said he doesn’t know why the Scotch Pond society evicted the unit.

And then an admission as to what amounts to a cover-up by not investigating some of the allegations (that certainly is trans-border):

quote:

“Nothing has ever come to me in writing or in any kind of formal form. The investigation is not looking at (allegations of poor conduct toward the fishermen). The investigation is looking at the allegations of the abuse of alcohol and drugs and all that stuff, and for the record, I don’t think they’re going to find anything.”

You all realize I hope, that the Canadian Auxiliary is based upon a very different concept and structure than the USCG Auxiliary.

We've met their senior leaders at many a D13 conference in the Pacififc Northwest and I've had the opportunity to speak at length with their now past, then current National Commodore several times. They seemed to be a very squared away and dedicated group.

My point is that if this story has merit,I don't think you can draw many analogies to our Auxiliary structure and leadership.

I did envy their fund raising capability though. They can write for do receive large grants from the Canadian government as well as large endowments and donations from corporate and private citizens. As a result they have a lot of Auxiliary owned resources.