15 Dec
2023
15 Dec
'23
3:33 p.m.
I am glad this message is making sense to folks. I was curious about
commercial real estate and just as one example, here is a cool looking
commercial building near Laney College that used to be a plumbing company
that is $728,000.
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/reb/d/oakland-825-8th-avenue/7684763216.ht…
NOT that I want us to move, I just want to encourage us to be realistic
about worst case scenarios (they're not that bad!) so we can calm down and
make the right decisions here. What if the worst case was we bought a
cheaper building and then had a million dollars to put in to an Omni
Commons Trust to maintain the building for the next 20 years or somethin?
What will make the LLC strategy any different from our
burnt out
operating body?
My understanding is the LLC is a legal entity to protect the donors who
would donate $900k to keep Omni in the current location. The LLC would be
given a guarantee that if Omni defaults on loan repayments, the LLC could
legally recover losses through the sale of the building. The LLC is not to
manage Omni Commons, which would be done by current leadership.
And I don't know if it is correct to say that Omni leadership is burnt out
beyond dealing with this financial issue. What I will say is that Omni
Commons has never missed a mortgage payment so the organization is running
smoothly enough to manage its debts.
On Fri, Dec 15, 2023 at 3:16 PM Patrik D'haeseleer <patrikd(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
The remainder from the foreclosure would go to the
Omni Commons non-profit
organization, to do with as we please.
That could include finding another $2-3M space we could buy outright and
all move in together. The commercial real estate market is still in the
dumps right now, so a couple million can go far! I'd rather have us be
debt-free under a functioning roof, than owning a giant event space to
manage...
The other option would be to dissolve the non-profit, and split its assets
among the current member collectives. Legally, money from dissolution of a
nonprofit can only go to other nonprofits, so any existing
"sponsored projects of the Omni" would need to be adopted by one of
the nonprofit member collectives (or we can help them get their own
non-profit paperwork submitted asap). Exactly how that split is done can be
negotiated in advance - presumably by amending the existing Dissolution
clause of the bylaws. If we want to include some of the former
long-standing collectives who have since left - like GWS and CSC - we could
do that too.
Patrik
On Fri, Dec 15, 2023 at 2:15 PM Z Silver Zahn via sudo-discuss <
sudo-discuss(a)sudoroom.org> wrote:
What I'm curious about is who would that 2
million go to? Omni Commons is
made up of several collectives. Collectives that have come and gone as
well. How would that money be split up? How would working groups be
included in the division? Would collectives that got banned also earn a cut
of the sale? Also in reality the 1st million payment on the building was
from an anonymous donor. The last 9 years of Omni Administration was mostly
done by volunteers in working groups. The administration didn't do so well.
What will make the LLC strategy any different from our burnt out operating
body?
Best option would be to work with a non-profit that can take on that work
we struggle with while staying in the building! We can also negotiate our
needs and desires in operations with prospecting groups. I also think
offering a space to community led Black and or Indigenous folks from
Oakland/Ohlone is work towards collective reparations. I was under the
impression Omni was operating as anti-capitalist, it feels extractive of
all the free volunteers who made Omni stay afloat for maybe some lucky
collectives to gain profit.
On Fri, Dec 15, 2023 at 12:01 PM Taylor Alexander via sudo-discuss <
sudo-discuss(a)sudoroom.org> wrote:
(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
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