Fraud, theft and unauthorized dumplings alleged in battle over East Van community centre society

Two warring factions claiming to be the lawful board of directors of the Kensington Community Centre Association (KCCA) in East Vancouver will be in B.C. Supreme Court chambers for an application hearing Thursday amid duelling lawsuits alleging theft, fraud, secret elections, membership stacking and unauthorized dumpling giveaways.

The details are contained in a volume of court documents relating to a notice of civil claim filed Sept. 13, 2021, by Jesse Johl and a version of the KCCA that is in dispute.

Johl contends he was elected president of the non-profit at the 2019 annual general meeting and is asking the court to name him and 10 others (the Johl group) as the "duly elected board." 

The claim also seeks damages of $250,000 from each of eight named defendants — $2 million total — "for fraudulent conduct," while alleging the rival group stole $90,000 from KCCA coffers. 

Documents filed by the defendants call the claim "reckless" and "an embarrassing pleading which appears to have been designed to intimidate a group of individuals."

A counterclaim says Bradley Tamplin is the rightful president of KCCA following the 2019 AGM, where he and six others (the Tamplin group) became directors by acclamation.

Tamplin's group says all others seeking election that day, including Johl, who was the sitting KCCA president and chaired the 2019 AGM, had earlier been declared ineligible for not meeting nomination criteria set out in KCCA bylaws. 

$700K in frozen funds

About $700,000 in KCCA funds have been frozen because of the duelling lawsuits, according to documents. The KCCA used to run recreation programs jointly with the Vancouver Park Board at the Kensington Community Centre, which has a pool, gym, fields, fitness and seniors centre. But in 2020, the park board terminated the joint operating agreement and took over all operations because of the dispute.

Sworn affidavits from two Vancouver Park and Recreation managers say there was an unusually high number of attendees at the KCCA 2019 AGM.

According to an affidavit from Michael Herrin, the Vancouver community recreation supervisor, Johl started taking names of nominees from the floor after the Tamplin group was acclaimed, ignoring people in the room who were raising objections.

Herrin goes on to say that when a show-of-hands vote was called on the ad hoc nominees, he observed the majority of the room following the lead of Milan Kljajic, one of the members of the Johl group. 

"Kljajic raised his hand, then appeared to notice he had made a mistake. A sea of hands followed his lead — rising and then falling a moment later when Kljajic put his hand back down," said Herrin.

An affidavit from a former member of the Kensington Little Mountain (KLM) soccer club said he and his wife were provided KCCA memberships that they did not pay for so they could vote for the Johl group at the AGM. Christopher Crowne said the memberships came from then-KLM general manager Ray Goldenchild, who also runs a private soccer academy.

Free dumplings in the parking lot

Another affidavit from Carolyn Silva, a longtime KCCA office manager, said that on two occasions in early 2021, Johl and members of his group held a free dumpling giveaway in the Kensington Community Centre parking lot, attracting a large group of Chinese seniors. Silva said park board staff told Johl to disperse because the events were unauthorized and breaching COVID-19 protocols.

The Tamplin group says members of Johl's group tried unsuccessfully on two occasions at two different branches of Vancity to change signing authority on KCCA bank accounts. They say Johl then went to a B.C. Societies office to change the directors' names to the individuals from his group before returning to Vancity for a third time with "false minutes" that persuaded the bank to give them signing authority.

Johl's group claims it was Tamplin who filed a "false document" with British Columbia Registries. He says they reached out to the competing group to hold a "new free and fair election" on Dec. 20, 2020, but said Tamplin's group held a "secret election" on Dec. 19, 2020.

The Oct. 13 hearing is scheduled to last one day.