During the meeting executive director Yaroslava Montenegro announced that the organization's budget is now over $1 million dollars... seven figures!
There were about 35 to 40 people in the room so with 20 staff (there wasn't an exact figure given, on the number of bodies either way) it's a wonder they achieved quorum... in the end there was very little discussion of who is who and what their affiliation is.
The brass said there are ten or more committees working behind the scenes... no details on that either.
There were a few points of order... the TREASURER apparently skipped the meeting but that did not raise any eyebrows. I spoke up once to note that people's heads were all turned forward when I voted (I was at the very back of the room) against some motion, be it x-y-z, whatever. I thought that was pretty weird.
The first and only mention of the word CONSTITUTION was by director Laura Anonen, and that was well into the 2nd hour, when a discussion of amendments started.
(The constitution is important here because it lists the organization's purpose etc. The main goal per the constitution is that the group **has to maintain a forum for tenants**. This (the requirement for a forum) is actually mentioned more than once.
There was dead silence in the room on this point. And the meeting ended without any prompting for new business - which would have been a good time for discerning tenants to speak up, but by this time I had had enough and I kept quiet - the talk of new hardware and "a new platform" - and the news of the budget's rise to $1.2 million dollars was a depressing shock.
Some directors used initials. I'm not highlighting this to be nasty as 100% this is a delicate situation and who wants to stick their neck out because they are doing community work? Again though, the FMTA's budget is a nice chunk of change from a fiscally ailing parent ― ergo the City of Toronto! ― that doesn't exactly have a stellar history in the I.T. procurement category, and here we go now with A.I. (which incidentally was not mentioned during the meeting).
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