sudo-discuss December 2023

sudo-discuss@sudoroom.org

29 participants
37 discussions

Urgent: Omni Commons Community Meeting – Action Required by 12/21/23

by Z Silver Zahn

Dear Omni Commons Community, I hope this message finds you well. In our recent delegate meeting, a crucial decision was made that requires your immediate attention. The upcoming delegate meeting on 12/21/23, scheduled from 7 pm to 9 pm, will be opened to our larger community, welcoming members from various collectives and Omni projects. This session is dedicated to discussing different proposal options and determining our collective path forward. As a critical reminder, our private lender has notified us that the outstanding $876k must be repaid by the end of December 2023. Failure to meet this balloon payment deadline will initiate a foreclosure process, with a subsequent 90-day period before the property is sold to housing developers. Originally, our strategy aimed to generate revenue from events and fundraising over consecutive months, enabling us to pursue a million-dollar loan from self-help, with a 30-year return agreement. However, faced with a boycott affecting our cash flow and struggling Omni operations, we must now explore alternative options to prevent the property from entering the speculative market. One significant proposal on the table is the People's Program, where they would assume operational responsibility as new owners, undertaking the debt payment and already securing donors. Their commitment includes ensuring the continuity of current projects and tenants at Omni. Additionally, Sudo Room proposes the creation of an LLC to allocate funds from individual community loans, with community members contributing $50k each to the LLC, aimed at settling the Mulberry Trust debt. Discussions have also emerged about approaching a land trust to potentially become the landlord of Omni Commons. We urge all community members to contribute their ideas and proposals to an open Google doc, allowing us to collectively evaluate the pros and cons of each option. In the absence of action, Omni Commons faces the risk of sale post-foreclosure, necessitating a discussion on equity reallocation. To facilitate an organized and productive discussion on 12/21, we will be contracting a facilitator. Your input is vital, and we encourage everyone to share thoughts on how we want to vote on this critical matter. Please contribute your ideas to the Google doc before 12/21, ensuring we have a comprehensive list to consider. Together, we can navigate this challenge and determine the best course of action for the future of Omni Commons. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wDzotx3D07brWXLkylRlSb9r_alI8fqaBFUDxki…

2 years, 2 months

tarp got taken down?

by Paige P

why was tarp taken down? Do we want to put it back up?

2 years, 2 months

Hey who’s here this week

by Romy Ilano

I’m out of town for Christmas - who’s here this week? I’m at the space at the very least on Monday and Tuesday - More and more people are asking about having a meetup at the Omni commons - they’re often at company offices but would be willing to focus on open spruce as the women who code east bay day when we did the stable diffusion isntlalfest Sent from my iPhone

2 years, 2 months

Should we set up a discord server - it’s hard to get a response on email

by Romy Ilano

I know the Omni commons has a slack … Sent from my iPhone

2 years, 2 months

Pi.BerkeleyLUG: Meeting starts in 20 minutes at Sudoroom

by Peter Mui

Sorry for the short notice, Pi.BerkeleyLUG starts in 20 minutes at Sudoroom. Please come out support Tom in this great initiative for Omni. -Peter tom r lopes <tomrlopes(a)gmail.com>: Dec 16 11:59AM -0800 Sorry for the late notice. Tomorrow at SudoRoom 11am to 2pm. Press the buzzer for access (white button in black case) or call or text me at 5109842455. My probably agenda will be to work on the pole of Chromebooks. Bypassing the enterprise enrollment and installing Linux. Not sure what distro to use as these are limited machines. 4gb ram but only 16gb storage. I've tried Lubuntu but it fills storage real quick. Others have tried more minimal distros (AntiX?) and they have trouble with hardware drivers. Aaron, maybe you can take a look. Free Chromebook for you. As always you are welcome to work on your own projects. Thomas

2 years, 2 months

Omni Assets, or "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater"

by Taylor Alexander

(sending to sudo because I don't think I am on other lists, please forward as needed) Just had a conversation about the current situation. It sounds like People's Programs essentially want to completely take over legal and administrative control of Omni Commons. I would be against this as it seems it would spell the end of Omni Commons. I also want to put up front that Omni's Lawyer has made clear we have more than 90 days to resolve this as foreclosure cannot take less than 90 days. But what I wanted to talk about was the assets of the Omni Commons organization, specifically the building. Using very rough numbers, Omni Commons owes $900k on a property worth roughly $3m (I am told). It seems to me that would mean that Omni Commons has $2 million in assets by way of the property. Even if the bank foreclosed on the property, the value of those assets does not disappear! If the bank foreclosed on the property and sold it, one would expect that after they take their $900k and some fees, they would have to pay the balance back to Omni Commons. This would leave the organization with no building BUT with $2 million dollars in cash. That seems to me the worst case scenario we should accept! Worst case Omni vacates the property and then looks for where to spend its $2 million for a new property. So we have a few scenarios ahead. One option is to find a new single large lender to give us a 5 year bridge loan to continue in this property, or to do the same with an LLC and multiple smaller community lenders (low risk bridge loans from a number of supportive community members). Or we could let People's Programs spend $900k to acquire a $3 million property, essentially giving away Omni's $2 million in assets?? That seems like a terrible idea. We absolutely should not give away $2m to any organization for any reason, and any support we receive must be contingent on Omni Commons maintaining legal and administrative control of our assets. It seems the best path forward is to form an LLC and seek low risk bridge loans from community members, with the backstop option of taking our $2 million somewhere else and setting up a new location. -Taylor Alexander aka Sequoia

2 years, 2 months

proposal: lawyer help to create LLC structure for lending

by Paige P

Sudo Room has been discussing the possibility of securing the $876k by pursuing multiple lenders, rather than just one. The idea proposed is below, but the proposal for the delegates is to ask our lawyer to help us write up some sort of structure like this, to present to potential lenders. LLC idea We create an LLC who's charter says it exists solely to buy this building with the money of its lenders, and collect interest on that loan. We try and get enough people to buy in, before Omni's foreclosure begins. Right now, Jake says they knows of 5 people interested in putting up 5 digits amounts, so in the $50k range. Proposed would be to have a minimum $10k requirement to join LLC, with option for individuals to join together and pool money to get a share. If all goes well and Omni pays off the full loan + interest, those who are part of the LLC will have received back the money they put towards paying off the mortgage, along with interest (and then the LLC would dissolve?). But if the borrower (Omni) fails to pay, then the LLC forecloses on the property, and the LLC can then choose to liquidate the property to pay back members or do something else with the building. If some but not all LLC members decide to do something else other than liquidating, they have ability to buy out other members. One concern is our lawyer would say that it would be inappropriate for them to create an org that would then lend to Omni (should have more separation). Another idea proposed to get around this was to issue bonds instead, since this would not require a separate entity, and we could work with our current lawyer on setting that up. Another concern is potential sabotage of the system, by getting overwhelmed with lenders wanting and working to get Omni to foreclose, in order to get control of the building. To work around that we might require anonymous lenders to be vetted by known trusted lenders. There is more discussion on this idea in sudo room's meeting notes: https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Meeting_Notes_2023-12-13 Paige

2 years, 2 months

People's Programs Proposal

by Paige P

2 years, 2 months

What’s the status on the Omni

by Romy Ilano

I just got back from Argentina and. Is there a quick summary of what’s going on? I cannot make it this Tuesday because I have to go to a Noisebridge meetup to ask for collaboration with another engineering group. Is there a Wednesday meeting after 7:45pm

2 years, 2 months

considering forming an LLC to collate individual investors to lend to Omni

by Jake

The idea to form an LLC which could represent a coalition of individual sub-lenders to bail out Omni Commons has been suggested by several people. This would make it possible for people to lend an amount less than the total $876K that we need (but not less than $10,000 lets say) to be a co-lender to provide a new mortgage for Omni Commons to keep the building. The LLC would be formed to represent the lenders in a way that they would be paid back (with interest) according to the portion of the loan they put in, and in case the Omni failed to pay its mortgage, the LLC would liquidate the building to pay back the lenders. Or the members of the LLC could agree on an alternate plan, and buy out anyone who didn't agree to the alternate plan. If anyone is interested in helping CREATE this legal structure please let me know. In the meantime though I still think our best bet to keep the Omni is to find a single lender willing to give us a bridge loan right now. -jake

2 years, 2 months

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sudo-discuss December 2023