Just talking points... 


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Laurie Cooperman Rosen <Lscoop@comcast.net>
Date: Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 1:46 PM
Subject: Lease
To: Matthew Senate <mattsenate@gmail.com>
Cc: Eddan Katz <eddan@eddan.com>, George <travology@mindspring.com>


Hi Matt-

I haven’t completed the lease—originally I was just waiting for your address so I can print it out but after spending some time there this week (George hurt his arm—you might have heard about that story), we will need to add some additional clauses to the lease before printing it out.

George being hurt is an emotional trigger.  

Often when I walk in there—and worst of all yesterday, right after George de-bugged the place—I was shocked to find huge trays of food (enough to feed probably 30 people!) just laying out there in the warm air, clearly stale.  This is totally inappropriate—and gross!  

Point to Laurie that that particular batch of food was well beyond its sell-by date. So, gross. 

More important to Laurie, the size of the food layed out that afternoon suggested a large group.

The common area was set up to be a place where people could have meetings, occasional special gatherings and possibly an additional receptionist desk for each of the businesses there.  

Was it, originally? Business meetings? Reception services? 

It is clear that while it is being used in its current manner that there will be no possibility of us being able to attract other tenants into that space to share it with you, and we can’t afford to get only what you and the public school are paying for the space without any ability to rent out more.  

She's spelling out perceived economic harm. 

Is her perception accurate? Are we limiting the kinds of tenants who will sign up? Is the newest tenant a counter example? 

Could we change our behavior in ways that would make the space more appealing to prospective tenants and still be to true to our values?

We know that people are still sleeping there—often they wake up in the middle of the night and walk out the front door, because clearly they don’t know the rules and they violate the code and we are getting called (of course, these are folks who don’t belong there and shouldn’t have codes….they should just not have been there in the first place!).  

I think the first code being violated is using the stairs door after 9:30pm. This happens with new members and guests, and I suppose this might also happen with any other tenant of the floor. 

The other code refer to the Sudo key pad outside. Imho, We've been much more restrictive on sharing codes to non sudoers. 

We don’t even know whether the people sleeping there are your members or not, but the fact that there is nobody to shut up the space at night and kick out the stragglers still in there is clearly a big problem and we are losing more and more sleep because of it.  

I don't know if it's always been like this, but we definitely have swing and graveyard shifts of Sudoers and guests. We're often open 20-24 hours a day with members actively working on projects. This may be new and/or unanticipated in the lease.  

Loss of control is a recurring theme: 

This will need to change.  We will either need to put a curfew on the use of the common area space except in the case of special events, or require that somebody in authority come once at the end of the evening and shut the place up and make sure that everybody is out of there, doors locked, and the elevator shut on the top floor so that others (including those in 2141 corridor that seem to gravitate there) won’t have access to it.  

Will this curfew and the other restrictions apply to all tenants? 

Who decides who should or should not be there? 

Even with your insurance, the liability issues are getting greater all the time based on the problem of the space being kept open and people who shouldn’t be in there hanging around throughout the night..

 Liability issues need more detail and clarity. What exposure is she imagining? Is it justified?

We are going to have to make clear in the lease, once and for all, that the common area is NOT a living room!  It is not a place to put out food unless a special event is going on. 

I'm unclear why all food is a concern vs just icky food. Offices today nearly all have snacks or meals or coffee or other food/bev to support staff. 

A point was made to George about giving 24 hour notice before spraying again, and I will try to have him adhere to that in the future, but the point is that he shouldn’t HAVE to be doing that to begin with! 

Helpful if tenants have a say on the means of pest control (like non-toxic products and more intensive cleaning). 
 

Matt, you have always been quite reasonable and easy to deal with, but you have a life and can’t be there 24 hours a day, so we’ll have to put our heads together and come up with some additional solutions to make things work for everybody up there.

 

Please let me know how you feel about this, and what steps we can take to move forward.

Thanks-

Laurie



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