Meeting Notes 2024-01-03

Jan 3, 2024 at 7PM

Attendees

• eric: looking forward to so uch fun stuff in the coming year, friends family and closeness and oportunity to grow, host fun events, potlucks and stuff, really ready for 2024
• carl he/him: in 2024 i'm looking forward to starting something new, a new venture that will hopefully be a success and hopefully not run me over. Something that will be positive, for me as well.
• paige - they/them: hopeful that omni is going to come out of this and come out better. Building connections last year, feel like its been good to get to know people more, interesting projects ahead
• peter he/him: i'm doing a bunch of short term 2024 planning with a longer horizon of a decade. "Most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade" -bill gates (web says Tony Robbins) ? Meditation, i'm constantly trying to rewire my neural pathways
• jake any: hope to find the path that allows me to do what i believe in but also not to entirely get under the tank treads if the tank is going to go over me anyways.my goal i dont know how to do yet
• yar she/her: i expect 2024 wont be better than 2023 but we'll try anyway. I want to encourage people to go to the Omni meetings this weekend: Friday 6-9 is for everybody focused on consensus building and figuring out what the community wants; Saturday 1-6 will be more of a focused work meeting for people willing to commit energy
• andy gross any/he: looking forward to seeing the eclipse in April in ohio, near Fam

Agenda

givebutter reminder

• paige - we need money to pay for immediate expenses (like right now there's a bill for skylight work done), separate from the mortgage thing. so anything helps, please share this link around and donate what you can
• Link to donate https://givebutter.com/gHpD3e/omnicommons

status of the building and plans going forward

• yar - purpose of friday's meetings. two serious choices ahead: 1. sell part of building to PP to run as community center 2nd. is to sit around and get sold off
• andy - confused about selling part. need to furnish something close to 1m?
• yar - we are owners, they are lender
• andy - if part of building sold to them, would we be able to pay off the lender with that
• yar - yes
• andy - is there a deadline?
• yar - 85 days after notice of foreclosure. which that notice could come any day now
• andy - if we didnt do that, we would be foreclosed on... what would that look like?
• jake - foreclosure auction. fair market price. the owner has a right to not be deprived of ___, so it goes to auction. we are entitled to rest of money
• peter - we are entitled to profit after legal fees, and lawyers blow that up. we should be looking into any way we can satisfy the debt before the window (85 days). anybody can hand mulberry trust that check in that time...
• andy - thanks that helps clarify
• yar - plus 27k owned to SaferDIY
• peter - also property tax, could be additional $300,000
• yar - we have a payment plan with tax, so no
• carl - request for facilitator and stack
• carl - i wanted to add, amend what yar said. we have a second chance before foreclosure, we can sell the building ourselves potentially deciding who we want to sell it to if multiple bidders. so not necessarily would go to housing developer. could sell it to another group wanting to keep it a community space. also option to create an LLC to bring in loans
• peter - why didnt you mention the LLC option, yar?
• yar - thought jake had said it wouldnt work but ok with that option if it would work
• yar - friday meeting more open, for consensus building. saturday more about brass tacks and working to try and figure out how to iron what the community wants. i.e. hashing what to d with pp, or
• paige - philip bell is also planning to do a proposal on thursday
• peter - is that true you've given up on syndication idea
• jake - i go back and forth. had some enthusiasm it would work with PP. right now personally i dont think sudo room can exist under the authoritarian and vilifying... because of that and because CLP has not let up in their efforts to destroy omni. even if LLC works or we get a break from mulberry, not clear we could operate. also it is clear if we dont give PP what they want it will expand on what CLP is doing
• yar - not true
• jake - im not saying PP said they would do this but other people in omni have said that will happen
• jake - there was a check back in from lawyer, with a single question we have to resolve before proceeding. This would need to be something that would have to happen outside of omni, in that the negotiations would be with lawyers that are not jesse, and the designing of the LLC would be separate from omni governance, and not paid by them. so we would need to pool together funds outside of omni to create that sort of structure. then once its made, it would gather some pledges and be able to make an offer to omni. maybe within the 85 days. and maybe that should be mentioned to mulberry
• andy - sounds like it is not a highly acted on option but not foreclosed upon option
• jake - i would say high probability that it will move forward but personally very concerned about other proposals being considered
• paige - just a note, we did recently send a letter to mulberry about the options we are working on, including shared ownership with another org, the LLC idea, and cast/land trusts
• yar - the LLC optionm, is not binary yes or no, its how many pledges have you gotten so far and what does that add up to. If you thought the idea was possible i would...
• jake - no doubt we can get 900k, but still fucked because wont be able to pay our mortgage. dont have confidence in those who have been running the omni
• paige - i think it could buy us time and we can still consider options on the table. i.e. can have the LLC loan and still negotiate with other organizations who want partial ownership, on a less urgent deadline. or have more time to work options with land trusts
• yar - i think it would be great if we could replace mulberry with an llc. omni has so much potential. the community doesnt want omni to go away, it wants it to fix its problems. we are able to work on that if we have some certantiy about the future. if we had that, the community would show up and invest - trying to make omni safer space for black folks. i also think the PP proposal is great, and i think it would be a great thing to share with the building with them., but with LLC idea would give us time to better build trust. i realize some people are feeling coerced
• jake - very coerced
• carl - i think we should try and get pledges asap. media campaign, blog post, things to solicit pledges before developing the LLC. see if we have potential investors.
• andy - would you be able to format that as a proposal? sounds like interest in room, could bring that up on saturday as something that has a plurality of support in SR
• peter - i thought eric was the point person for people who are interested in pledging? Patrik from CCL has also been doing work here
• peter - theres somebody at CCL who proposed starting up a business plan. if you are making a proposal to get lenders, this would be reasonable.
• carl - yes i brought that up about business plan in slack
• andy - carl proposed that SR would like to express intent to find investors to form an LLC and decisively to buy off the debt from mulberry
• carl - good if we got initial pledges before collecting anything
• yar - im curious about what the timeline for this is? in the meantime, we are going to still keep talking to PP
• jake - timeline for LLC? reads from lawyer email. lawyer has set something up like this before, legal took a couple months to set up
• andy - so if it could take a couple months, carls proposal is to attempt to determine quickly if we could amass a number of pledges
• carl - if we dont have the pledges, dont waste money on LLC. pledges would let us know if it is viable
• andy - this is a reminder, if you have ability to pledge, please message some specific person. should this be private? (yes) who should we message? How about finance?
• eric - im happy to be the contact. ive already received some pledges
• peter - do you have a ballpark at the moment
• eric - from people so far, it is $130k, and now being put in contact with older members of CCL able to donate much higher sums
• yar - you are talking about people willing to pay that within package...
• andy - bring that up on saturday, see if people are willing to dive into that with some gusto.
• peter - we should think about having pledges total to more than 870k presuming that some people will back out. and always good to have more for building.
• yar - i dont know what to say. i like the idea of LLC because it will buy us time. i also still think the PP proposal is a good idea
• andy - can we amend proposal to say $130k is possibly available? instead of whispering, $130k makes me more likely to see this not as empty talk.
• eric - go for it
• yar - does anyone else have pledges? jake you said you feel confident? do you have more lined up?
• jake - there are people i am thinking of that eric knows but some he doesnt. once structure comes to place... people who have money dont want to talk about it, but once they can see something it will be easier
• andy - goal of decoupling the two - asking if the money is there, separate from setting up the LLC. helps us develop a flow chart. I appreciate carls proposal, i think it is a good one
• peter - theres been indication of donor fatigue. but thats based off a conversation with david k. not sure how deep that is
• andy - sentiment is in the proposal, do not think any changes needed. proposal, those able to make donation or make a pledge of a loan should make themselves know to eric, along with developing a business plan of how that would be applied
• yar - we are very open to hiring an executive director. ask donors - would you be willing to fund that position?

other discussion updates

• peter - 3 things, PP, building foreclosure, syndication. I have also been looking into working with CAST SF https://cast-sf.org/. artists and cultural workers in bay area. the other thing ive done is contacted people who know our city councilmembers, our member dan kalb. its new years so some delay
• andy - anything we can do to assist?
• peter - if someone has better social capital than me yes, im going in cold. also contacting a performing arts group. so many theater groups around. in general what im trying to do is buy us more time. i think we need to communicate with mulberry trust even absent of a response from them. maybe even start it with "thank you for not foreclosing this week." I think on a regular basis starting immediately, we should ask jesse to send a letter, not dry and clinical, but listing what we are doing.
• peter - who authorizes payments to jesse?
• jake - jesse bills us when he reads the emails. not a good idea for everyone to just start emailing him all the time. what do you want to talk about with the lender?
• andy - peter was saying we should be sending letters through lawyers on a routine basis to communicate what we are doing.
• peter - not necessisarily weekly, but we can indicate in letter something like "we will send our next update on this date.."
• carl - i agree with you peter. i think we should try all things, including what you are suggesting.

Proposal: list building on market as a backup

• Carl - another proposal I have: if we do not get enough pledges, and dont go with PP proposal. then ultimately foreclosure option. i think it would be preferable to have a choice in who we sell the building to. therefore i think we should consider putting building up for sale, on commercial real estate sites. dont have to sell it yet, but if its on the market, we can solicit bids, we may have some option on deciding who to sell it to. could pick a buyer who wants to keep it as a community space and not tear it down as housing
• paige: i feel like there are so many more pressing tasks than that but i won't oppose others doing that
• peter: carl are you saying we should immediately find a realtor to start shopping the building for us?
• carl - yea i guess so. might take some time before bids come in on it. if we shop it out now maybe we will get bids. we can decide not to sell it.
• andy - suggested amendment. peters question i think was about mechanism. but i think this is a proposal in sudo, not option at omni table. do we think listing the building is a sound strategy? ultimately its up to omni to decide that, but we are just proposing to endorse it as a strategy from sudo room. may end up we dont have resources to do it, but carl is just suggesting the idea
• carl - yea if the building goes up for auction in 3 months, wont be able to decide who to sell it to. correct me if im wrong.
• paige - also wouldn't that trigger tax stuff with reassessing the building?
• peter - really dont know about this... if you want to hire a professional real estate person that would entail all sorts of costs, and would welcome a lot of unwanted interest
• andy - does it require a realtor? like could we just make a zillow?
• jake - it would cause so many emails and flyers in mail. bunch of people trying to take advantage of the building. and they would send a lot of letters to the mulberry trust and that would not be cool
• andy - we do not necessarily need to assert we know how it works
• peter - ok, but i think its a terrible idea
• jake - i think its premature, and will cause a lot of public uproar
• peter - people knocking on the door
• jake - inviting capitalists inside our home, not a good idea
• andy - though i share carl's sentiments, it makes sense to delay this
• paige - a better route to do same thing, is you can try making personal connections now with people you think might be interested in buying later. then those can be proposed later down the line if it really gets that dire
• andy - personally dont think the proposal is a good idea, are you willing carl to wait 1 month?
• carl - yea just wanted to get thoughts on it. if rest of sudo room wants to wait then happy to move on

land trusts

• paige - i heard david k talked to some and they havent yet been reached out to by omni. dropped the ball here. something we should be doing.
• andy - asking for advice for people in sudo room, how can we chunk out these tasks? without taking on unreasonable amount of workload?
• andy - peter might be good for this task
• peter - yes but i have plateful
• paige - yea im just trying to solicit help here. Like who has some personal connections who could help here?
• paige and andy will link up to talk more about this

Peoples programs messaging

• paige - The discussion surrounding them has progressed from how i've noticed people retelling events. request that we stop doing this, talk about counterproposal instead of dwelling on initial meetings
• peter - would like to remind that financial ownership and governance do not necessarily have to be tied together as a percentage. for example, buy into building could be based on some term of equity. but not correlated one to one with operations
• andy - that recognition of management, not a fifedom or kingdom. can still set terms for how it is managed. also a segue into my proposal

delegate

• jemma - should raise we need another delegate
• andy - is eric welcome to do that on ongoing basis?
• paige - not in meeting anymore. also no proposals out yet, so might not be that important if we don't have a delegate. i always attend to take notes so can act as one if needed.
• andy - in absense of one, i would suggest you then paige.
• eric - I'm still here in the notes. I still think of myself as a co-delegate.

Proposal: board of responsibility and limited power

Link to proposal: https://sudoroom.org/lists/hyperkitty/list/sudo-discuss@sudoroom.org/thread/ZRSXJVZ34IQP73JBMOYP47XA65ASC7OO/

• andy - proposal we elect a board with limited authority, but that centralizes planning in a way to make us more organized.
• peter - so starting from first principles, what are the problems you are trying to address?
• andy - from my own experience, problem ive have had is ive seen core functions do not have consistent execution. things are neglected or done in a sporadic effort. examples 1. maintenance of this space 2. coordination of members, helping them join 3. promoting, marketing among ourselves and community 4. and having a regularity and ___ to meetings. my idea is to have a board of a few people who have been specifically given a simple badge, a title becaues they have the broadest appeal of being able to help people exercise their already existing agency that we all have. not so different than now, just now we have people that they can turn to, and act as the central facilitator
• jemma - talking about a board for sudo room, correct?
• andy - yes
• carl - this past year i was on the board of a 501c3 nonprofit. traditional, president, treasurer, and secretary. used robert rules of order. and i think some of it is okay but also have had bad experiences with traditional set up. particularly, same people in every meeting. problems can occur i believe when its the same person over and over. kind of appreciate rotating nature of sudo room. facilitator and note taker can be determined at time of the meeting. also like not having a predetermined agenda. on one hand i also agree with you, i think we should have official committess. those commitees could be one or multiple people. i would also like to know some detail about what you are proposing
• andy - i dont want to suggest a major change to our operating structure. this proposal leaves room for others to determine how executed. but personally, in the past, before i was here, there was board of limited responsibility. it was a badge or title, didnt afford any authority to assert. the election of person just meant: majority said this person did something well, i.e. runs meetings well. person wouldnt have specific power, it would just help us identify who everyone has the most trust in, and give those people encouragement do do things with that trust
• robert rules, discussion about it being stiff
• andy - i only know about this past board from some wiki archeology.
• peter - it would be good to learn as much as we can from a previous incarnation. so we dont rerun an experiment already been run
• andy - yea we also have our own past experiences in other hackerspaces. this is 3rd hackerspace ive been in, and 2 others have been run better. i dont think we need to throw baby out with the bathwater. i also would like to point out, i dont know if this proposal was passed, there would be people to run it.
• peter - at cal sailing club, when you become a member, you are supposed to volunteer 3hrs a month. officers sign off their hrs. think about, when people come in, we dont just want their money. want the buy in. might think about asking to commit volunteer hours to the space
• andy - to draw some context. this idea passes through this meeting. if we had a structure like we are describing, committes or working groups, smaller group of people focusing on an issue. example of membership working group. not too different from what we have now, but if you wanted to exectute that policy, unclear who would be organizing it.
• carl - they're also called commitees or subcommitees
• peter - you mentioned keeping space tidy, you mentioned membership. could we just start with one committe?
• andy - im extraordinarily flexible on that.
• paige - very supportive of membership committee in that we need to be reaching out to wider audience
• andy - paradox. imagine 3 of us are membership working group. we decide on a membership drive. want to put our best foot forward to get more people. but to do that, we would want the space more spruced up for that. by that i am trying to illustrate it would be a benefit if we are able to establish all of them at same time. they all rely on each other.
• andy - this is first mention of proposal, I would like to come to a conclusion next february.