Hi Judith,

Here's an effort to summarize from my perspective:

There was a boycott of Omni Commons by a group called CLP (community liberation programs) made in October. CLP used to be a member collective of Omni Commons but was removed because they blocked Omni from getting new tenants and got into a lot of personal conflicts with Omni members. 

Their boycott letter is here. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rlRh5Hk8lhqCdTeXj65tt8dRuofCESKBbd6RtoL4PMM/edit?usp=drivesdk

CLP is a pretty small group with not much following, but their boycott letter made a big impact  because 1. CLP members were part of the events working group, and had email access to all event renters and sent the boycott letter, urging them to cancel contracts. This has had a significant impact on events revenue and is hurting Omni overall. It is also a continuing problem as we are still getting cancellations over this. 2. People's Programs, a much larger group we are in discussion with now, retweeted the boycott letter, which gave it a larger audience.

Omni Common's event working group put out the following as a public response:

"Omni Commons has taken some time to reflect on the recent boycott created by a former member collective. We acknowledge the presence of both misleading information and valid concerns within the campaign. We want to address these issues transparently and share our commitment to continuous improvement. We want to first say we are an anti-zionist space and have always been. Secondly, we need to deepen our work on anti-racism & decolonization. Our events working group prioritizes community events that center QTBIPOC folks need for space. After the shelter in place mandate was lifted, we prioritized Black and Indigenous led events. We always made sure events were accessible to community organizers by offering affordable or free rates. Our event stewards prioritizes safety & inclusivity over profit. This is why the physical space of Omni Commons has been a safe experience in recent years. The physical space has always been served and run by the community. Volunteers who support & receive resources from the Omni. It’s important to underline the raising issue being rooted at the bi-monthly online delegate meeting. Our non hierarchical decision making process can be inaccessible and bureaucratic, leaving marginalized folks behind. Omni is working towards accountability & transformative justice to shift leadership. To make it so Black & Indigenous folks can feel empowered to take up leadership and participate in collective decisions. While there is misinformation and harm conducted by the boycott campaign, we are focused on where we can improve and share our truth. The events working group will continue to offer its space for the community while Omni works on repairing internal infrastructure. We invite folks interested in participating in this process to reach out! We're happy to answer any questions or concerns"

People's Programs (mentioned prior) is interested in owning some portion of the building, in exchange for paying off our remaining amount due to the mulberry trust (our initial lender). Some people are firmly against any further discussion with People's Programs given their connection to CLP, some interpersonal conflicts, and two of their political stances, while others who have had or have been making personal connections with Peoples Program's  trust working alongside them is the best route forward for keeping the building in community hands, and for it to become more welcoming than before to oakland's black community.

In this whole process, there has been a lot of name-calling, fearmongering, doxxing, etc... so the facilitator of the last meeting urged us to do some sort of session like this asap to help us move along and work better together.

Paige

On Wed, Jan 3, 2024, 2:27 PM Judith Gips via sudo-discuss <sudo-discuss@sudoroom.org> wrote:

I don't know if I can attend the meeting.

I would like some clarification about the term "status of boycott" as used in this context... who is boycotting and what, and/or who, is being boycotted?

On Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 1:00 PM Z Silver Zahn via ebfnb <ebfnb@lists.omnicommons.org> wrote:

Reminder this upcoming Friday all members of collectives are invited to a facilitated accountability meeting. January 5th, Friday 6pm to 9pm at Omni Commons.

YOU’RE INVITED : We are hosting a huge meeting again for all members and collectives to talk about what is not working and how we can move forward with making our decision of how we will move forward with our upcoming foreclosure. We can also move forward talking about our status of boycott and talking about the harm we have caused and received at Omni Commons.

Omni has invited you to join a video meeting on Google Meet. Join the meeting: https://meet.google.com/des-hkce-hof Dial in (audio only): ‪(US) +1 567-334-1148‬ PIN: ‪934 912 442#‬ Other numbers: https://tel.meet/des-hkce-hof?pin=5240178658114

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