115 West 183rd Street

90-day eviction notice served

Notice to tenant V. Freimanis asking him to move out within 2 days — from the wrong building.

LV100NY letter of intent to purchase

LV100NY submitted a formal letter of intent to purchase the DV building at 115 West 183rd Street. DV board members Kancāns and Zvārgulis, along with audit committee member Teteris, engaged in preliminary discussions.

After multiple exchanges and LV100NY's fundraising efforts, LV100NY's financier suggested that a land installment contract would be the best option. Kancāns responded that he would "be eaten alive" and that DV members would not agree.

LV100NY invited Kancāns and Teteris to a conference call with the financier. LV100NY raised funds for a downpayment and presented proof of assets. The offer was rejected.

"House must be sold" email to members

A mass communication to DV members stated the building must be sold. Voting was conducted through proxy mandates.

General Meeting — sale voted via proxy mandates

Board restructured — Kancāns assumes the position

I. Kalniņš resigns as DVNY chairman — not announced to membership.

Kancāns assumes leadership. V. Rainey and A. Cirīte become board members. A. Vallens — who removed the accounting records in 2021 — placed on audit commission.

📄 Resignation letter — Imants Kalniņš

⚠ No board protocol located.

Six memberships frozen without court of honor

On June 4, 2023, the board voted unanimously to freeze the membership status of six individuals for one year. The freeze letters cite: alleged assistance with tax avoidance (Valdmanis), the LV100NY loan and conflict of interest (Valdmanis, Freimane), and whistleblower letters sent to Latvian organizations and government institutions (Freimane).

The validity of the freeze was challenged in writing on September 8, 2023, questioning which bylaw article authorizes such a measure and whether the board has the authority to impose it without a court of honor.

📄 Freeze notice — Līga Freimane
📄 Freeze notice — Ingrīda Valdmanis
📄 Response challenging the freeze — September 8, 2023

General Meeting adjourned

The general meeting was interrupted and adjourned after the bylaws were found to contain procedural deficiencies. The board was not re-elected. Several members objected to the board's disregard of bylaws and standard procedure during the meeting. Those objecting included the same members who had written and signed letters to Latvian organizations, Latvian government institutions, and individual representatives — raising concerns about the board's direction, the push to sell the building, and the failure to follow the organization's own governing documents. These members were vocally opposed to the sale and had openly criticized the board's departure from established procedures.

The existing board remained in place. A committee for bylaw revision was announced. Those who had opposed the board’s direction were not permitted to participate and subsequently had their memberships frozen: Valdis Čirksts, Līga Freimane, Gilberts Kusiņš, Anita Rudā-Semerikova, Nellija Pagraba, and Ingrīda Valdmanis.

~65 new membership applications rejected

Approximately 65 people submitted membership applications. The board rejected them, citing that applicants did not reside in New York. However, the 2015 board meeting adopted a resolution on the record that with modern technology, frequent travel, and electronic payments, physical residence in New York was not required for active participation. A similar resolution was proposed during the delegate meeting for the DV United States organization for the same reasons — the local population is aging, while means of communication, commuting, and payment systems are advancing.

The new board later announced that tri-state area residency was acceptable — the board members themselves do not live in New York state, much less New York City. There has never been a formal resolution or precedent establishing tri-state area as a membership requirement prior to this. There are currently members who do not live within the tri-state area.

Meeting on building sale — just 9 months after takeover

On January 29, 2023 — just 9 months after the April 24, 2022 takeover — a board working group tasked with exploring the future of the DV organization made a recommendation to sell the building.

Kancāns invited all members to an informal discussion on February 26. A Zoom link was provided for those unable to attend in person — the same online access the previous board had offered but which the new board had since let lapse.

Not even a year had passed since the takeover.

A video recording of the February 26 discussion exists. The transcript was later submitted to the DV Zemes Valde by Nellija Pagraba — whose membership was frozen shortly after. It documents the working group’s composition and the reasoning presented:

Board Meeting — New control operationalized

Decisions: hire CPA, hire lawyer for SRO status. K. Kancāns collected all accounting records from the building the next day. Those records have never been returned to the corporate headquarters — they remain unaccounted for to this day.

Four days after taking control, the new board's first substantive act — after membership approvals and accountant hiring — was to investigate how to legally position the building. The push to sell followed within months.

April 24, 2022 · General Meeting — Full Transcript Excerpts

Context: 40+ membership applications received in the preceding 3 weeks. Non-members attempt to serve as vote counters.

HPD registration expires

The fines are for building violations, not for the lapse of registration. The notice was served at a time when no valid registration existed. The burden rests on the landlord to establish compliance at the time of service.

🔗 HPD violations — 115 W 183rd St
🔗 DOB/ECB violations & fines
🔗 nycviolationsearch.com — aggregated violations

Violations screenshot:

Surge of membership applications with pre-assigned proxies

More than 40 membership applications arrived. Some with pre-assigned proxy votes to persons who were not yet members.

This meeting was the first after COVID lockdowns. The then-board invited members in person or online — the organization had an operational website, active Mailchimp, and remote participation.

Board declines to host President Levits — Čirksts signs

Čirksts called the emergency meeting in his capacity as event organizer. The unanimous board vote was for the letter draft only — final contents and decision to send were to be resolved by email vote.

▶ Bonus video — Can You Trust the Trust?

Despite the unanimous vote, Čirksts later faced consequences alone. Some others who voted the same were kept and promoted.

At the April 24, 2022 general meeting, Kancāns cited the Levits letter as the driving reason for the mobilization against the existing board. He read the letter aloud and characterized it as an unacceptable stain on the organization's history.

Valda Rainey — who was the most vocal supporter of the 2021 letter, who used the word "genocide" during the board debate, who helped shape the letter's content, and who voted for it — was not elected to the board at that meeting. However, she was not reproached or scolded in any way either. She was later appointed to the board when Kalniņš resigned in July 2023, recommended by him upon leaving.

Ansis Vallens — Audit commission & the missing records

Despite this documented history — the removal of records, refusal to return them, and three unanswered requests — Vallens was placed on the audit commission in the July 2023 board restructuring. By then he was actively advocating for the building's sale.

🔗 Audit commission request for documents (PDF)

Whistleblowers alert diaspora — board denies, then freezes

In early 2023, after the board's working group recommended selling the building at the January 29 board meeting, several members sent letters to Latvian organizations, Latvian government institutions, media outlets, and individual representatives raising concerns about the push to sell the DV house.

When confronted, board members denied any intent to sell. In a May 13, 2023 meeting, Kancāns stated: “There wasn't even a thought about selling the house.” This contradicted the January 29 working group recommendation and the February 15 email he himself had sent to all members.

In response to the whistleblower letters, the board demanded a written apology. The apology letter — dated May 2023 and signed by the five whistleblowers — stated the sale “had not been decided” and that the whistleblowers had “acted without investigating the facts.” The same letter acknowledges the whistleblowers’ motivation was “to prevent the sale of the house.”

The whistleblower letters themselves document a different account: the January 29 working group recommendation to sell, the February 15 email from Kancāns announcing it, and the concern that financial interests were driving the process.

📄 Board-demanded apology letter
📄 Whistleblower letter #2 to diaspora organizations

On June 4, 2023, the board voted unanimously to freeze the memberships of those who had sent the letters. The freeze notice to Freimane explicitly cited her whistleblower letters as a basis for the suspension.

📄 Freeze notice — Freimane
📄 Freeze notice — Valdmanis

Our Starting Years — How the Building Became a Home

The building at 115 West 183rd Street is far older — by 1899 it was already operating as a boarding house, meaning it was constructed some time before that. (Source: Building records document.)

Čirksts was not yet even a member, never mind a board member. He joined in 2013 and was voted vice chair after Marģeris Pinnis's passing.

The small hall hosted monthly board meetings. Every December the Christmas market took over all halls and the dining area. Regular cultural performances and commemorations took place. The building had not been renovated since 1974 — it was worn and Čirksts found himself spending more and more time on volunteer work.

A fragment in time — Freimane and Čirksts working in the kitchen; Freimane washing up.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, community activities stopped. The building fell quiet.

Building appraised — $1.74M as-is

Domus Appraisals (Ronald McInerney Jr.) appraised 115 West 183rd Street for Daugavas Vanagi Latvian Welfare Association Inc. Effective date June 26, 2024.

As-is market value: $1,740,000. The building is an 8,500 sq ft, three-story brick SRO built 1920 (circa), Block 3225, Lot 40, Bronx. Assessed value $245,250.

The appraisal was commissioned for internal valuation purposes.

2025 member meeting — 18 attend in person. Shifting blame (again).

Only 18 members attended the 2025 annual meeting in person, representing 60 mandates. Ilze Kancāne reported 107 members as of May 10, 2025.

One of the meeting's resolutions expressed dissatisfaction with the previous board, stating that when it handed over duties to the new board in 2021 it "failed to hand over all necessary information on the management of the building (including access to social media, Facebook, accounting documents, email passwords and other essential data), thereby deliberately obstructing the work of the NDV."

That is not what Karlis Kancans — the board's own treasurer — wrote in his 2023 report. In it he described receiving, as his first task, "the various passwords and access to all accounts connected to DVNY — most importantly the Chase bank accounts and Merrill Lynch investment accounts," together with the building's utilities and internet, the NYC and NYS government portals, the dvnyinfo email account, and the WIX and HostForWeb passwords. He wrote that the previous treasurer "was helpful" during the transition, and that he "began receiving the building's income and mail from Inese every month."

📄 Karlis Kancans 2023 treasurer report (PDF)

2026 annual meeting announced

The DV board emailed its September 2026 newsletter announcing the annual meeting for October 17, 2026 at 2 pm, at the Yonkers Latvian Lutheran church hall, 254 Valentine Lane, Yonkers, NY 10705.

The published agenda: opening and quorum; adoption of the agenda; approval of prior meeting minutes; officer reports (chair, treasurer, audit committee); the building sale; vision for future activity; election of a new board and audit committee; other matters.

The newsletter states that a holdover proceeding was filed in NYC Housing Court concerning the apartment of Valdis Freimanis and Inese Zeimule, and that a written 90-day notice to vacate was issued to Līga Freimane and Valdis Čirksts.

📄 September 2026 newsletter (PDF)

Notice to Edgards Cakuls — membership revocation

The DV board sent a notice to member Edgards Cakuls initiating expulsion proceedings to permanently remove him from the membership rolls.

The stated basis: disrupting the 2024 and 2025 annual meetings by refusing to cease filming the proceedings after being asked repeatedly by the members, the board, and the elected presidium.

The notice grants 15 days to respond by email, after which the board votes on his membership status. Expulsion requires a two-thirds majority vote. The bylaws provide no appeals process.

Signed: John Kancans, Valda Rainey, Vineta Zalite, Andris Zvargulis, Ilze Kancans, Anita Cirite.

📄 Revocation notice (PDF)

Summer newsletter — sale offers

Membership officer Ilze Kancāne emailed the summer newsletter reporting on the sale of the building.

Reported offers: a buyer offers $1,525,000 for the building with four residents, and $1,750,000 for the building vacant; the highest offer received to date is $1,900,000, for a vacant building only. Two years prior the building was appraised at $1,750,000.

The newsletter states that four residents continue to occupy the building. Once a purchase contract is signed, the annual meeting must vote on acceptance; if accepted, the board must apply to the New York State Attorney General for permission to sell at that price.

The annual meeting was planned for October 17 or 18.

📄 Summer 2026 newsletter (PDF)

Expulsion notices — Valdis Čirksts and Līga Freimane

The DV board sent expulsion notices to members Valdis Čirksts and Līga Freimane on August 13, 2026.

The notice to Čirksts alleges obstruction of the building sale, refusal to vacate the premises, misappropriation of assets through breach of fiduciary duty and conflict of interest, and public defamation.

The notice to Freimane alleges hindering the building sale, refusal to vacate, and misappropriation of assets through breach of fiduciary duty and conflict of interest.

Each notice states a 15-day period to respond, followed by a board vote requiring a two-thirds majority, and that the bylaws provide no appeals process. The notices are signed by John Kancans, Valda Rainey, Vineta Zalite, Andris Zvargulis, Ilze Kancans, and Anita Cirite.

📄 Notice to Valdis Čirksts (PDF)
📄 Notice to Līga Freimane (PDF)
📄 Response — Information Request (PDF)

Responses to expulsion notices

Both members responded to the expulsion notices on August 27, 2026.

Valdis Čirksts's response demands records and an accounting, and states the August 13 notice provides no supporting proof for its allegations. It re-requests the information requested in prior communications of June 22, 2026 and September 8, 2023.

Līga Freimane's response acknowledges receipt of the notice and requests the specific facts, actions, dates, transactions, evidence, and bylaw provisions on which the board relies, stating the notice provides no factual detail.

📄 Response — Valdis Čirksts (PDF)
📄 Response — Līga Freimane (PDF)

Can You Trust the Trust?

One picture is worth a thousand words, as they say. Video, on the other hand, speaks for itself — it lets the documents and the people behind them speak directly, without an intermediary. Watch it, and ask yourself the question it poses: can you trust the trust?

Watch on YouTube ↗

Amber & Honey Ball

To dispel the misinformation — and sometimes flat-out lies — that the "Amber & Honey Ball" was somehow not a Daugavas Vanagi event, see for yourself.

WATCH HIGHLIGHTS ↗

WATCH FULL ↗

Alleged embezzlement announcement

No board member has taken responsibility, no one has resigned, and there has been no further mention.

The board that published this announcement has held office since April 2022. The misappropriation it reports took place within the last year.