Event:2014/07/17 Weekly Delegates Meeting

July 17 Delegates Meeting

In attendance

• Helen (FNB), Joe(FNB), Hannah, Laura, Niki, Sarah, Olive, Steve, Chris, David B, David K, Kevin, Margaret, Joel, Bill, Kathleen, Ahnon, Charu, Arnas, Francisco, Margaretha, Scott, Steven, Emji, Jenny (virtually from the next room!)

• Delegates:
• Joe (FNB), Emji (TIL), Arnas (SUDO), Ahnon (CCL), Steven (BAPS), Steven (La Commune), Olive (OMNIdance), Margaretha (Backspace)

AGENDA FOR JULY 17

Neighborhood input

• Margaret: margaretmft a t gmail dot com - Lived here since 1979. Happy to see omni in place as opposed to gentrification
  • Example: used to be a drugstore > natural foods store > now upscale butcher
  • 40th St corridor: crime issues
  • 100 ppl for safety (cell phones being ripped off) meeting @ mac & cheese place
  • 100 ppl pay $25/ea for 6 mo for private security; 140 ppl responded, now they are here but not super visible?
  • Farmer's market @ Claremont DMV on Sundays - Omni have table there?
  • Karen Hester - local activist - name? - hester.net - 3xx 45th st. - get in touch with - co-housing tour of the east bay
  • BID - connect with?
  • What does neighborhood think about OOC? Nothing noticed that she knows about
  • b/t 41st and 42nd Opal - also Don McClay (ran for stuff)

Status of 1023:

• Status: not being worked on right now - Jesse is on vacation til 7/23
• Bigger than just filing 1023 for 501(c)3 status

• Pay Jesse?
  • bills: $816.0 & ~$4000
  • Can we vote
    • Niki: if we take it back to collectives for deliberation, important to be prepared to vote next meeting
    • Laura: It needs to be paid regardless of whether or not collectives consense
    • Margaretha: normaly require a week for deliberation
    • David: Will we have to consense on every bill?
    • Sarah: Maybe we need a separate committee responsible for budget and providing financial reports
    • Ahnon (delegate from CCL) blocks proposal - needs consent from their board, had not seen bill.
    • David B.: Lets arrive a definite decision next meeting for this bill and all Jesse bills.
    • Margaretha: These types of proposals could be brought forward a few days in advance of the weekly meetings

Posting of Privileged Data

• DK: Sudo has done most of the management of the wiki, this can be presented as a task to that group. We should have a vote as to whether or not it's okay to have private information on the wiki
  • Proposal: We agree to give ourselves permission to put information on the wiki that requires a login to view / more privileged log-in: No one opposed: PASSES

General Question

• Hannah: Curious if people have knowledge as to hosting children in the space
  • DK: We are going to have children in the space, but needs to happen in phases due to insurance and permits. We will have increased requirements for safety (ie: fire exits) if we have children in the space.

Safe spaces

• Emji: There's been a lot of communication happening in the poetry community in which several individuals were called out as rapists. We are meeting to try to figure out how to create safer spaces w/in the poetry community. TIL would like to honor that. The call-out has not made a public statement yet. We have a Safe Space policy in place but some collectives may have different needs for safe spaces.
• Helen: Clarification - does the decision involve banning people?
• Joe: I don't know anything about the situations that occurred but I was just involved in something that was long and drawn out and seemed unjust. Can we define rape?
• Emji: If a community has made those decisions I feel we need to respect each others decisions
• Kathleen: Are you suggesting whether or not individual collectives can make decisions on banning individuals w/in the larger Omni Collective. How can groups make decisions w/or w/out knowledge, law enforcement, etc. I'm trying to understand how it gets worked out collectively if the decision is being made unilaterally.
• Emji: This is an attempt for us to figure out how we can respect each other's need for safe space.
• Arnas: We shouldn't go into much detail, we should have a general process for how the Omni respects bans on members by individual collectives.
• Sarah: One thing that I've noticed about our dynamic currently that I think is not serving us well is a tendency to focus on logistical details. This situation is another reminder that problem like these are going to continue to come up. We need to be intentional and make this a priority. We need to empower smaller groups of people to work out these details.
• David B: To augment what Emji said, a demand is going to be made by a group to honor their request to ban certain individuals from our space. We have a provisional safe spaces policy and a provisional conflict resolution policy.
• Chris: Question: Are these demands coming from w/in the Omni as well as w/in the poetry community?
• Emji: There is no clearly defined decision yet as to what will be requested.
• Chris: Want to make a distinction between the poetry community and the Omni
• Emji: More things that seem relevant to decisions that need to be made: What do we do if these requests are made? How do we stand in solidarity w/ each other's safe space needs? How do we put trust in each other's collective decision making around shared space? What would our appeal / resolution processes be? The Omni Collective in general was started w/a limited scope: to manage the building not the autonomy of individual collectives.
• Joe: Ideologically I feel that an injury to one should be an injury to all and sorting out what happens in individual collectives and how that gets passed on to the larger collectives. The Omni should have an accountability process in place. This would be a good opportunity to address something that has torn a lot of communities apart.
• David: This other group may not have a process. I'm glad that people are getting together to talk about this and bring out this issue as a real problem and not have it be undiscussed but if any other group or person is asking us to ban someone and we don't have access to the same information that they do, we set a dangerous precedent.
• Bill: Clarifying question: Is this group formally asking us to ban people?
• Emji: It's anticipated. It could be more of a durational accountability process. Possible a temporary ban? It's not entirely clear. I'm not sure if the call is being made to the poetry spaces or to the Omni in general.
• Bill: Following up, the Public School did vote on having a general community meeting (probably on Monday) to discuss.
• Olive: It's imperative that this is a feminist space and that this space is in solidarity with survivors of sexual assault. I'm also sensitive to scapegoating. It's almost easier to ban a rapist than to have an ongoing interrogation of gender. I think we should have a bigger meeting about it with other people and also have this be an occassion to think critically about setting up conflict resolution / mediation because this will continue to come up because we live in patriarchy. We should think about banning but we should also think about how we approach gender violence in general
• Kevin: Maybe this would be a good time to speak briefly about how we might like to see this resolved. Does Omni act as a federal body or do collectives make decisions individually.
• Margaretha: I see a distinction between violence that happens onsite versus people not feeling safe because of things that did not happen onsite. When someone says they don't feel safe, I feel committed to making that person feel safe.
• Charu: We had an issue where a guy assaulted women. We put a detail on him.
• Laura: If the Sudo Room policy has been adopted by the Omni, we need to look at that in order to make a decision.
• David: In light of Emji's information, I suggest that we table the proposal until we know what requests are made.
• Sarah: I would add to that, we should - all of us - read the safe space policy that is in place before next week:
  • https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Articles_of_Association#Section_3.2_Conflict_Resolution
  • http://wiki.omni-oakland.org/w/Safe_space

• • Proposal: Hold a community meeting to discuss this issue (perhaps Monday 7pm, preferably w/impartial mediation). **PASSED**

• • Proposal: Support/respect safe space descisions of other collectives

Solvency of groups? Do we want to pay an additional month of rent?

• • Proposal: We pay an additional month of rent into a reserve to protect us in the event that other collectives drop out / are unable to come up with rent?
    • David: To the extent that we can contribute during a month that we negotiated no rent, having a reserve would serve our interest. At the very least, people who are in their spaces.
    • Decided to take this back to collectives for deliberation.

Internal Governance

• Propose a meeting for next Tuesday @ 7pm

Paying Bills

• Proposal: These items will be payed w/out requiring a consensus votes by collectives (Tabled)
  • Rent
  • Utilies:
    • Trash
    • Electricity
    • Water
    • Gas
  • Insurance
• Emji: We need to figure out how these expenses are divided
• Niki: All finances are transparent and I'm happy to share them w/anyone who is interested
• Sarah: We should form a finance committee to collectively manage finances

Action Items

• Delegates to take back the following proposals to collectives for deliberation. A vote will be taken next week:
  • Paying Jesse
  • Paying an additional month of rent into a reserve
  • Revision to Consensus Process:
    • Proposal : New Voting Model

All votes called by the Delegate Council are subject to two rounds of voting. The first round passes by full consensus. If after friendly amendments and conversation full consensus cannot be achieved, the vote moves to a second round which passes by 2/3 majority. If this second vote fails to pass, the vote does not carry.

This amendment to our full consensus voting procedures is proposed in light of advice from radical comrades and colleagues who have seen groups and projects torn apart by bad-faith exploitation of full consensus voting. Our group's aim and aspiration will always be full consensus, and we will always work to make sure all voices are heard. In all of our work and decisionmaking together, let us always be guided by fairness, kindness, and justice.

BIKE Storage & Parking

• take back to your group for discussion; consensus next week?: http://wiki.omni-oakland.org/w/Bike_Storage
• Here's what I (Mary & Patrik of CCL) think is the most viable option:

http://wiki.omni-oakland.org/w/Bike_Storage#Option_2:_diagonal_bike_rack_on_48th_.2B_parallel_on_Shattuck

• TLDR: On the 48th street sidewalk, we should be able to fit 40-50 bikes in 5 racks of 4 or 5 "inverted U" loops perpendicular to the curb.

The sidewalk along Shattuck is a little narrower, so any racks would need to be parallel to the curb. Should be enough space for 12 loops, for 24 bikes. Our first order of business would be to get delegates to take this info back to their groups so we can consense on it next week.

• Niki to email omnilogistics list re: Tues Legal / Governance meeting
  • Discuss financial transparency among collectives at that time

next week

• Further discussion on financial transparency among collectives

BAPS mtg on books

• David B proposes BAPS books be absorbed into Omni books
• Public School books in the room between the bar and the ballroom
• Jenny shares a vision of the south side basement rooms being converted into an infoshop - something we could reach out to Long Haul for collaboration with and combine with printshop resources being contributed by TIL (offset printer) and Sudo (digital duplicator)
• Public School has a stamp, Steve signs on to update it with the new address and make it more 'omnicommons'y

Future Groups:

• Events Mgmt?
• Building Administration / Logistics:
• Focus on intercollectivity?
• Values
• New Member Getting to know you Committee