Two Updates at Bottom of Post
The “Group of 7” has launched their own website that appears to be an official SFSS website.
There is no disclaimer or anything else on the site to indicate that it is not an official SFSS website.
At the very least, they are openly using the resources (their SFSS emails and offices) of the SFSS to fight against the various student movements that have sprung up demanding answers about the acts they engaged in during the summer. These groups are now (for the most part) calling for the impeachment of the “Group of 7”. You can see the new “G7” website at: www.yoursfss.org
SFSS Democracy Now has a good post pointing out the dizzying spin of the new website here.
I decided to look into this website and see who is behind it in light of the question raised on SFSS DN! about possible violations of the collective agreement between SFSS and CUPE. What I found raises even more questions.
A Whois search of this domain brings up the following information:
Registrant:
davidsmind inc.
1270 East 16th
Basement
vancouver, British Columbia V5T 2w5
Canada
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: YOURSFSS.ORG
Created on: 22-Sep-06
Expires on: 22-Sep-07
Last Updated on: 22-Sep-06
Administrative Contact:
mattatall, david davidsmind@davidsmind.com
davidsmind inc.
1270 East 16th
Basement
vancouver, British Columbia V5T 2w5
Canada
(604) 875-9958
Technical Contact:
mattatall, david davidsmind@davidsmind.com
davidsmind inc.
1270 East 16th
Basement
vancouver, British Columbia V5T 2w5
Canada
(604) 875-9958
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.SOHOSKYWAY.NET
NS2.SOHOSKYWAY.NET
I went to www.davidsmind.com. All that was there was a link to the blog of the domain owner. His blog is here: http://blog.davidsmind.com/
It has not been updated for a year. Interesting is that he only has links to 3 blogs on his blog. This leads to a reasonable assumption that the links are to friends. Included in one of those 3 links is a link to one of the key members of the “G7”; Vanessa Kelly. Vanessa Kelly blogs at her site: www.thevanessa.com. Interesting to note that she removed her blog of the last couple of years and has changed her blog to being about the current “issue” at SFSS. I did not realize that the content of her blog has changed or I would have linked to it awhile ago.
Another link between Vanessa Kelly of the “G7” and this David Mattatall of davidsmind inc is that he and his company are listed has the contact in a whois search of Ms. Kelly’s domain (www.thevanessa.org). This is the Whois information for Ms. Kelly’s site:
Registrant:
davidsmind inc.204 659 8th Ave. E
Vancouver, British Columbia V5T 1T2
Canada
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: THEVANESSA.COM
Created on: 11-Jul-05
Expires on: 11-Jul-07
Last Updated on: 08-Oct-05
Administrative Contact:
mattatall, david davidsmind@onlineaddesign.com
davidsmind inc.
4318 union street
burnaby, British Columbia V5C 2X6
Canada
(604) 294-2534
Technical Contact:
mattatall, david davidsmind@onlineaddesign.com
davidsmind inc.
4318 union street
burnaby, British Columbia V5C 2X6
Canada
(604) 294-2534
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.SOHOSKYWAY.NET
NS2.SOHOSKYWAY.NET
Registry Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
Registry Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Registry Status: clientRenewProhibited
Registry Status: clientTransferProhibited
Registry Status: clientUpdateProhibited
It seems that David also has administrative access to her site and may have recently redone it for her. This Google Cache image shows his site layout and content on her site (Sept. 8 Google Cache of blog.thevanessa.com)
This raises a question about conflict-of-interest.
It definitely raises the appearance of conflict-of-interest in that a contract my have been given to a friend of one of the Directors of the SFSS. The new SFSS Executive site definitely looks official and it is made to sound official. This raises the serious question of if student’s money (SFSS money) was spent on this website. If so, who decided to give the contract to this individual? Why this individual? What money exchanged? Is this not a violation of the collective agreement?
In an ironic twist, the “G7” site has the tag line: Bringing Responsiblity and Integrity Back to the SFSS for Students
Integrity is something that one needs to have beyond question. There are plenty of questions about this new website and the actions of this group of student politicians. It seems they are only making the SFSS look worse and irresponsibly wasting student money on this political fiasco.
Update: Sept 25 PM The relationship between Vanessa Kelly and David Mattatall is that they are engaged. This makes sense as to why he is doing the work he is. It appears that this site was not intended to be an official site of the SFSS and the confusion is unintentional. It appears that the background to the site is innocent, it is just the “fog of war” that makes it appear to be a conflict-of-interest. Once a disclaimer is up identifying this an a non-SFSS site and instead a political site, the points made in this post become null.
Update 2: Sept 25 2000hrs GMT Vanessa Kelly’s blog at http://blog.thevanessa.com disappeared this morning from her site BUT there is still a copy of it here: http://www.thevanessa.com/wordpress/.