Meeting Notes 2024-01-24

1/24/2024 Meeting

Meeting announce:

Note Taker: jake

Attendees

• Alex - delegate
• Yar - she/her
• Jake - sudoroom member
• Paige - i'm paige
• Arthur - i'm here kindof
• Trevor - he/they, from chicago, new, checking things out
• E - eric

Agenda

• jamals hiring contract
• peoples programs proposal, Missey, CIM, land trusts
• LLC update

Jamal hiring contract

• Jamal would make 10% of Omni income, not including money going toward mortgage
• "The Company agrees to pay the Executive Director a stipend of 8,665 dollars per month, not to exceed 10% of the net revenues of the Company, defined as total revenues minus any purpose restricted funds and fixed operating expenses such as loan payments, taxes and fees. The parties understand that the Company may not have sufficient funds to pay the full stipend unless additional funds are raised."

peoples programs proposal, Missey, CIM, land trusts

• alex - peoples programs have made, a plan for them for getting out of debt is...but in the short term they just want membership, no space, their application is in process now. We will have to decide yes or no or abstain to their membership, probably not at tomorrows meeting but probably in a week from now. We should talk about their membership in the short term rather than down the line. I would like input so i know how to make this decision, as delegate.
• yar - i think sudoroom should say yes
• jake - i think sudoroom should say no
• alex - flesh out those points of view. Yar is a volunteer with Peoples Programs
• yar - i think the kind of stuff that they're doing is exactly in line with what we've been trying to do at omni for years, and they have the kind of energy to take it and run with it which is something that we've struggled to do. their leadership has mostly grown up in this neighborhood, in my experience they're nice people, they have a lot in common with omni, and of course some differences but i don't think that's as important as other people think
• alex - if they buy the building they'll have to stop being a member, so why have them be a member?
• yar - because it would build trust and closeness and since we're asking for labor and investment of time and energy, we should allow them to be recognized as a real stakeholder
• jake - why not invite banks and land trusts to be members?
• alex - you think it would be a gesture to show trust and
• yar - i think peoples programs should be a stakeholder in omni regardless. Buying the building would take months
• alex - my reservation is that there's a lot going on right now and adding another collective that a lot of people view as outsiders will affect people adversely
• yar - thats the problem, omni should not be embracing this insular practice of labeling peoples programs as outsiders. Several collectives have already said yes. Sketchboard and Media Lab and Liberated Lens.
• jake - shocking (thats sarcasm)
• yar - can you explain your sarcsasm
• alex - stop asking rhetorical questions
• yar - pallavi looked into PP and found out that family members had connections to people in PP and was vouching for them
• alex - my sense was that ... currently there are 3 ideas for saving the omni financially, and theres the ED idea thats intended to fundraise. the 3 ideas for funding including Peoples Programs, 1. selling PP the ballroom and certain adjacent parts of the building, to be decided. 2. (which i think is incompatible)
• yar - i disagree* - no compatible.
• alex - Philip Bell who is currently doing Omni events, he has a letter to do a loan to buy the same part of the building and use it as an events space, it would be an LLC operating an events space out of the omni and own their own space. 3. Land trust - recently there's been a lot of Whispers from land trusts, and there's going to be a meeting with the delegates.
• paige - there's also this nonprofit called Misssey that's coming to check out this coming week, interested in a partner/nonprofit
• jake - and they have the money to pay off our debt just like peoples programs claims to
• yar - i think they're not incompatible. I think PP should own the entrance hall and the ballroom should be shared, which would be compatible with a land trust, and with City In Motion (Philips thing) operating the ballroom, and with Misssey having an office
• alex - thy seem mutually excusive to me, did you ask peoples programs?
• yar - i think they're open to the idea
• alex - my feeling is that anyone who commits that amount of money would want their share of the building
• paige - land trusts don't necessarily need a space
• alex - i doubt a land trust would want to partner with other entities to run a building
• paige - CAST land trust reached our and gave COUNTERPULSE as an example, $3M initially and only retained 1% of the deed so it stays with the art
• yar - the thing David proposed was just like a replacement for mulberry
• alex - he was very vague
• paige - what does the land trust get out of it?
• alex - the most promising things about land trust are, we can probably hadn over a lot of maintenance taks to them ,they do fundraising for the building, that's great, and handle other details, i think it would be a good thing
• yar - and that's still compatible with PP owning a corner of the building
• jake - CCL is not compatible with PP for various reasons
• yar - that's only the toxic members
• jake - clarify that
• yar - i was responding to the phrasing that you used
• alex - i would like to take a vote but there are not enough people
• yar - then we should abstain (at the delegates meeting)
• jake - i disagree, you don't just abstain and allow an important decision without consulting the collective, and i resent you trying to force the issue this way
• alex - in practice we try to do everything by consensus
• yar - and then we fall back when it doesn't work
• arthur - no. wants them to apply again later
• yar - i would ask the membership why they want to block something that others want
• alex - its a reasonable thing to talk about
• yar - blocking a consensus decision is a strong statement, when other people are saying they want this and you can't have that
• jake - like when CLP blocked TANC?
• yar - ..... i feel like a straw person is being engaged with
• alex - jake is very skeptical of PP
• yar - he's anti, and he's willing to impose that view on everyone else. I'm skeptical of everybody. I joined the group to get over my skepticism and to learn more
• alex - i don't really understand the gesture part of
• yar - i never said gesture
• alex - this seems performative of me
• yar - its fair exchange, if somebody is going to be a part of the community they should be a stakeholder
• alex - that's already being discussed as the whole real estate thing
• yar - and i think this would help
• alex - help what
• yar
• alex - i know we talked about them recusing themselves from real estate deal but that's going to be very cumbersome to leave the room every time we're talking about them, for months, is there some other thing we can do short of putting them on the delegates council
• yar - part of me is hoping that with them as a member collective we can find a path forward that's better than dividig the building, i'm hoping for a better way, for example what if they introduced us to other groups
• jake - interrupts saying "Like CLP" (gets shut down) sorry that was inappropriate but i'm still REALLY upset that we're normalizing the fact that CLP is still friends with PP and PP still hasn't taken down their retweet of the doxxing of both you (yar) and me
• yar - they doxxed you, they didn't dox me
• jake - they put your full name
• yar - but that's no big deal
• jake - i can't believe this, this is absurd
• eric - lets take a vote
• jake - i am clearly blocking
• alex - we should try to see others points here. Is there something short of membership that would move things forward
• yar - i dont think they would contribute labor to a project where they have zero voice running the place, especially when there are so many concerns about racism
• alex - are they being asked to contribute labor?
• yar - showing up to this meeting is labor!
• alex -
• yar - from their perspective if we can't let them in as a member collective
• alex - they haven't even really applied for membership yet
• yar - yes they have
• alex - so you disagree with Toan?
• yar - yes
• alex - what is the process for applying for membership?

• https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Join

• paige - the most concrete thing is CAST which Peter can tell us more, they're focused on Arts which is not exactly what we do
• alex - sounds like a good match for the ballroom
• jake - the sudoroom synthesizer is pure arts
• paige - for people who claim that a land trust is gentrification
• yar - their priority is to preserve control of land by black folks from oakland, and there's no land trust that can say that
• paige - is EBPREC not that way?
• yar - they're not a land trust they're noteven a nonprofit. OakCLT is more progressive but they're not really black folks from oakland. From their perspective its more money moving farther from their community, decisions made by people not from their community, where the building is. I think it's valid for them (PP) to have that criticism and we should let PP steward the building
• alex - they have no experience doing that
• yar - neither do we. They have hundreds of people. Their warehouse is beautifully maintained
• alex - its rented
• yar - they're chomping at the bit. They would love a situation where they would have more control
• alex - can i just show up there?
• yar - they would prefer you go through the orientation before you show up there
• alex - it might be a good first step to go on a field trip? I'm just spitballing
• yar - i can see that happening
• arthur - can i get assurance that me to no vote on peoples trust is been heard. I need to go do domestic stuff now.
• alex and yar complain about the remote telescreen interaction
• jake - arthur lives an hour away
• yar - if i lived an hour away i would feel less invested in sudoroom too
• jake - arthurs family is in oakland and he will move here when he can
• arthur - No means I vote "no". Not abstain. It's just Wednesdays are hard. I'm an Oaklander. I'm from that neighborhood. This is my home. Good night all.
• jake and yar argue
• jake - you are still saying that CLP didn't dox you while they still have your full name out there in their callout
• yar - my full name is public informtion, it's on my twitter, etc...
• paige - gives Peter reportback, for example he knew about Philip Bell's proposal. A meeting between Peter and Ken and a friend. Ken is the CEO of CAST
• alex - anything else we need to discuss? Although I don't think we have a quorum.
• yar - there's a proposal for me to be secretary. It certainly shouldn't be Jacqi. Does anybody object to me being secretary?
• paige - i think it would be helpful
• alex - description of the position?
• yar - make the meetings more organizaed, which i'm dreading. Patrik nominated me, media lab seconded, but it wasn't written down. I said I needed to be nominated in email. Jacqi said months ago that she didn't want it. We have to list someone.
• alex - i do feel like we need to learn more
• Eric - Yar, who besides yourself would you nominate? It sounds like you don't want to do it
• yar - i agree that it makes sense for me to do it
• paige - it needs to be someone who comes to delegates meetings, and the delegates are already busy
• yar - anybody but jake and eric. Trevor walked away. anyone object?
• jake - I object, I will look for other options

LLC update

• jake - I have been informed that there's a lender with a large enough sum that I can say with confidence that the LLC is fully funded. I checked in with Jesse about it and here's what he said:

(1) Hire a securities lawyer to set up the structure. If you like I can reach out to the lawyer I used last time and see if he is available and how much it would cost. (2) He'll set up an LLC, which just takes 1-2 days. (3) The lenders will send their money to the LLC's bank account. (4) Omni and the LLC will sign a promissory note secured by a deed of trust in exchange for the LLC paying off the Mulberry loan.

• jake - i will show up at the delegates meeting to present this but it won't mean anything until there's a piece of paper in front of the delegates to sign, at which point we will be ready to pay off the mulberry trust.

END OF MEETING