Event:2022/12/01 Delegates

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Omni Delegates' Meeting - December 1, 2022 7pm-9pm

Meeting Roles

  • Facilitator/s: Jake
  • Stacktaker: Helen
  • Timekeeper:
  • Notetaker/s: Patrik
  • Next meeting's facilitator(s):

Delegates

  • inactive groups: CSC, GWS, SM
  • ANV: active, Silver
  • BOGSS: active, Geraldo
  • CCL: active, Patrik
  • CLP: active, Silvia
  • FNB:active, joe
  • LL: active, nobody here
  • MOP: active, Jacqi
  • SR: active, jake
  • Quorum (2/3 of active groups):

Agenda

Bans: Gloria and Susan of the Free Store and Dane of FNB called for a Safe Space Ban of Habiba and Merna of FNB for threatening violence.

  • Dane: And they both have keycards, and Merna just entered the building
  • Joe: it's going to be a difficult ban to process for the safe space omni policy, normally includes several steps...Habiba doesn't have a computer, and her attorney told her she doesn't have to go to virtual meetings, she wants to do it in person...
  • Dane: Related to the Safer Space Ban, Habiba indicated that she would use a gun to do harm towards Gloria from the Free Store. Merna provoked this potential gun violence
  • Patrik: the process is a safe space ban goes into effect immediately, we should assign a conflict mediator[steward],
  • Joe: we did inform Habiba that we wanted her and Merna's keycard disfunctioned
  • Patrik: sounds reasonable
  • Jake: we need a conflict STEWARD who will try to find a conflict mediator that the parties agree to
  • Judith: I want to help out, I know Habiba and care about her, I can be fair...her side needs to be heard, but I am super super busy...before I volunteer I want to know what
  • Martin wants to speak, Jake interrupts to clarify that we're focusing on picking a conflict steward and Judith can take names of people who want to talk
  • Helen: I don't want to hear a bunch of complaints about Habiba
  • Joe: Martin how are you involved?

Patrik: the people who called for the safespace ban are gloria, susan, dane Martin: there are so many people who have been hurt by her Joe: FNB will process the incident independantly of the safe space ban. Judith will just deal with Gloria Susan Dane Dane: the free store and ANV/chicago are also involved and want to be part of discussions Patrik: If Martin also wants to call for a safe space ban on Habiba and/or Merna for an incident at Omni, he can be added to the mediation process Jake: Dane can you send an email to Gloria, Susan, and Judith (who will loop in Habiba)? Dane: this is a urgent gun violence threat, we don't feel comfortable... Jake: safe space ban is in place, what more can we do besides proceed with conflict stewardship... [Dane has left the meeting]

  • Jake will remove card access for Habiba and Merna
  • Judith has agreed to be conflict steward (not mediator) and organize communication between the parties involved - primarily Gloria, Susan, Dane, Habiba, Merna, Martin
  • joe:helen says Dane has a good point.Dane want ton change the Omni Safe Space Policy to include more that just the individuals. Dane said ANV and Free Store also want Habiba to be subject to this Safe Space Ban.
  • Judith: Martin I don't appreciate your showing up to this meeting and ...
  • Martin: you silence people by labeling them racist...
  • Jake: Helen will be conflict steward (since Martin objected to Judith) [Helen accepts], Do you need anything from us? [Joe volunteers to help]
  • Helen: I don't think this can be resolved in this way...
  • Jake: Safe space ban is in place already, door cards for Habiba and Merna are disabled now, Conflict steward can suggest other things
  • Patrik: normal process is introductions first, where we add agenda items...

look down

intros

BRIEF INTROS MAY INCLUDE: name, pronouns, groups you're in, land you're on, if you're a delegate, unmet access needs, meeting roles you'd like to help with, discussion topics or proposals to add to agenda, announcements/updates/report-backs from your groups, safe space issues or updates

  • Judith Gips, EBFNB over 20 years now, other areas as well, worked with Keith over the years, support weapons ban
  • Patrik, [delegate from CCL] he/him, calling from emeryville
  • Helen: FNB but not delegate,
  • David K: in my car, member of the omni: and Safer DIY spaces
  • Joe: in FNB, working to save peoples park from UC, worked with Habiba a lot...
  • Martin: FNB volunteer; came to meeting to voice hsi opinion on Habiba
  • Linda: 10yr FNB volunteer
  • Jake: sudoroom, facilitating badly, asking for help taking notes, want to recognize previous agenda items first
  • Emily B: Sudo member, wants to talk finance status,
  • Silvia: CLP delegate, want to talk about ABK requesting to be new collective
  • Geraldo, he/him, BOGSS delegate
  • Jacqui MOP delegate
  • Silvia: CLP delegate
  • Jacqi: MOP delegate; still working on fire inspection
  • Sarah Lockhart, former Omni bookkkeeper, Safery DIY (501c3) with d. Hopes to resolve expenses for DIY
  • Silver: event group. wants to hand off ANV delegate to Miguel
  • Desiree: requesting to join as member collective - is starting an art collective

== Safer DIY finance item == https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KyxV0h3CXSWHb3wOy_3fSKfFa9kUK2tuwFn6z0a--x8/edit

  • Sarah: this was circulated for a while, there was a thread on the consensus list during november about it. I'm representing safer DIY because over a year we did work for Omni, we spent money, we're hoping to, when Omni refinances or sells, we can get paid back for some of the expenses.
  • Jake: is this about the consensed proposal for 20% of events income?
  • David: thanks Sarah for accounting, the context for us is, we raise funds to assist low income community spaces/art spaces/homes/livework. We subsidise our work fronting money and getting paid back, which goes to help over 175 community spaces, over 7 years, we would like to get paid back so we can do stuff at other spaces like omni, by numbers we fronted like $111,000.00 and we've been paid back for about $66,000, we donated $15,000 and we're looking to get paid back $30,000. There was some confusion around whether we were getting paid for our labor, but we're not charging anything for our labor, it's a ton of work though. I'm a trained fire inspector and i've helped Omni through fire inspections and entitlements etc, we had to bring the building up to snuff for insurance, we got event insurance, we fronted money, paid contractor, dump runs, it was staggering, we got the building in ship shape, so we could walk banks through without raising red flags. The spreadsheet linked above lists the expenses we've paid...
  • Sarah: we had to decide what we were going to ask to be paid back for and now we've done that and it's spelled out and it's $30,000.00. But we're asking Omni to agree to pay us back at some point...
  • Jake: so the proposal is that you want us to agree to pay you back at some point?
  • David: we thought it would be at the refi around now, it would be great if it were before that, so if we could pick a date, like in 6 months or 3 months, that would be an awesome committment but not an open-ended thing
  • Patrik: Or a repayment schedule
  • David: yes something we can sign and forget and not have to talk about it again
  • Sarah: that's why i brought up the 20% reserve fund [from the events income] we don't want this to be a burden but we do want to get reimbursed, and if that agreement isn't there then we might not...that's what we're asking
  • Yar: I wish we had this money to pay it back but we don't, and demanding to pay it back is going to make Omni less likely to survive, so we need to negotiate this amount down as much as possible. And SDIY should want us to survive so that they can call us a success story, they're giving a biased perspective on this. Omni should push back on this. The misconception that they were paid money, i'm sorry for misinterpreting that they were paid $50-100/hr, they did not front $100,000...
  • Sarah: we did front $100,000, i sent you the spreadsheet
  • Yar: no you didn't
  • Sarah: we fronted $111k, Omni paid us back $66k
  • Yar: the total amount yes, but most of that was paid back
  • Sarah: yes, so all we're asking is $30k of what remains
  • Yar: each time the delegates approved an amount we spent that amount, what we're talking about are the cost overruns, which is $36,000 which you're rounding down, and i'm proposing that we instead cut it in half and divide it between our orgs, Omni was trusting DIY to give us accurate bids, we were really strapped, this was a time when we had less savings, Omni would have never agreed to spend more money than we had to do these things, we were trusting you to tell us whether these things were in our budget, and now you're asking us to retroactively increase the budget. Even if you ask us to roll it into the refinance, numbers numbers...interest...so that $300/mo that we would have to increase our income, you realize it's not trivial, and you're adding that to what we already need to increase it by, to qualify for a loan, a situation that's already unsustainable in itself, Omni...can't afford this right now, and there's no way around it or invisibilize it, I don't think DIY is taking into account Omni's best interest right now. Your interest is more in one of your flagship projects survive the year rather than help another space while Omni collapses entirely...
  • Patrik: I think we approved a $7500 payment a while ago?
  • Sarah: Yes that was the roof loan and it was paid. Omni has paid us for stuff, but I did have to spend a lot of time and effort to make those payments happen, but productively speaking, what we're looking at is whether the delegates want to agree to pay the $30k, or nothing, or Yar's proposal of splitting it in half and then David and I need to discuss whether that's acceptable to us...
  • Patrik: I'm looking at the spreadsheet, and in some cases the amount spent was less than was approved
  • Sarah: some items were paid by Omni directly so they're not on the spreadsheet. There wasn't anything like where there was an underbudget. DIY went overbudget, we were very concerned about Omni's ability to refinance the loan which we thought was going to be right around now based on my and David's assessment, we couldn't envision that space being useful to generate revenue unless ...so we did a whole bunch of work and it snowballed...we paid for things and fixed things prior to making proposals...I took a look at how little was spent on the building in the past, and for refinancing and having events, the fact that Omni didn't spend money on maintenance and upkeep really showed, aka Deferred Maintenance, and so we did it

Yar: and there still is [deferred maintenance]

  • Sarah: i'm very aware that $30k is a lot of money, it's about what i make in a year, on the other hand Omni has a large building and could make $3000 in a night from an event, so it's really about how Omni wants to prioritize its uses of its resources, and again if Omni doesn't want to agree to pay for us then ... we have a lot of other people to help and we've done a lot so that Omni wouldn't need us to do a whole lot of work to prep for a fire inspection...

Joe: it hurts to hear us talking to david and sarah as adversaries or in an accusatory manner, david deserves endless heartfelt thanks for where they've gotten us, but I want to hear from Emily, if we're gonna make it we should have our act together in 3-4 months we should be able to make payments on this...after David

  • David: I want to emphasize, Omni's collective system for approving expenditures in advance, can run up against some difficulty when you don't know down to the penny how much it might cost to fix a certain problem, that spreadsheet doesn't have all the [labor] that was performed, when you get into a scope...in construction you have cost overruns. The difference with Safer DIY is we're not a general contractor, we're a group that hires people from our own community to fix specific things, smallscale work, and it's not uncommon that things run over and it's diffutullit to ...with omnis delegates. In terms of the value for the labor, it's unmatched, you're turning at least 5 years of deferred maintenance into a compressed timeline. The value is IN THE BUILDING and now it's possible to show a bank that we could meed the $6400 per month income that is needed to service the loan, we were not in a position to pinch every penny because the worker would be gone.. I LOVE omni, omni is like my first child, anyone thinking that i'm putting safer DIY or other projects first, it breaks my mind, the only reason we did any of this work was because we were asked to, we had to do this work to uncancel the insurance, we needed the fire inspection which took three tries. We did that because we love omni, we want omni to succeed. People can't see the value that we added to the building that will be there for decades to come. If omni did any kind of comparative shopping they would not do as well. We're just saying hay, when you can, let's pay this so someone else can benefit.
  • Emily: December is fundraising month, the month when the most funds are available. I agree with Joe that $30k is not a large amount, it's within the scale of payable, it's reasonable for building construction. December is matching month for donations. The reasons I am here is to talk about what december means, and it interacts with this and other things, Omni needs money coming in, through bank loans and from the community, there are many groups who do similar things who have a robust budget for their projects. To do that you do need financial staff who have the ability and training and the ability to train. I want to echo what Joe said and say thank you (to safer DIY) you saved a lot of my friends warehouses. From a financial perspective it will take some grantwriting to get that money back, but Omni has that. But it should be done THIS MONTH because this it the month that has the biggest potential, but it should be done over the next 6-12 months. There is a suggestion in the chat to table this discussion...
  • Sarah: thank you for mentioning the time. Why we brought this up now is that one of the things that when dealing with lenders, they want to be able to assign dollar values to things, numerical measurement for certain things. A lot of why i'm bringign this up now is so that Omni could have numbers to put on its accounting to show the value of improvements that have been added to the building. Whether Omni is going to reimburse DIY for those expenses, it's important that Omni has those numbers to incorporate into its statements to show how much was spent in fixing up this building, the lender wants to understand why this organization should have this building, what value is this to them. The work that we did is to show that Omni has demonstrated the care for this building by investing this amount of money in fixing the building
  • Jake: should we table this for now?
  • Sarah: in the future if you want to talk about things, i'll be available.
  • Jake: this is tabled, we can discuss more concrete proposals over email maybe in time for the next meeting in two weeks
== Finance status (CFO role) ==
  • Emily: the longer we wait to get this loan done, the more money will be spent simply going to a bank on interest, and it's going to be at least half a percent of a million dollars for every three months (lower end estimate) so the longer it's pushed out the more interest rate accumulates and money goes to bank. I feel like we've talked about this is a timing oriented issue, if you wait even into January it could increase your loan $5000 just in interest over the course of the mortgage. Another issue is grantwriting, a while ago someone made a list of grants we could go after, it would be beneficial to do that this month. That's why this is time sensitive. You need to have profeessional experience to run the books, ....i think we went over the role pretty extensively last time, i brought my resume tonight and have sent it to those who have asked for it. I have people interested in vouching for me if needed. If you hire me i can help you get grants this month while that's happening. I can set you up to get ...
  • Yar: I am in favor of us hiring emily for the financial stuff, i wouldn't call it CFO but bookkeeper+ all of the systems that they...
  • Emily: not a bookkeeper role, we discussed this before
  • Yar: i'm open to changing the culture but you're taking the role of the last people who have called themselves bookkeeper
  • Emily: right but i am not going to be bookkeeper
  • Yar: i am in favor of hiring emily despite past shitty encounters and i'm willing to chalk it up to misunderstandings, the combination of optimism/pessimism makes sense to me. As for the suggestion that we formalize this hiring process i support actual efforts to do it

Jake We have done the hiring process beofre and not deen as extensive as YR IS SUGGESTING. Jake hears Emily's asking to get into loan readiness and grants soon in DEc. Jake reads statement from Sudo room specifically suggesting formalizing a hiring process. Also Sudo asks about how much is budgeted for this position, and how much is "in our coffers".

  • Yar 3-5 K per month and we can afford that now. But not in a long term
  • Patrik Asks for Emily's CV
  • Emily: Yes I will put a link to my CV in the notes. Emily last person in this role got $75/hour which transslates to 3-5 K / month which is typical for Omni salaries for this position recently.Resume, CV, now in the notes.

Yar:is glad REsume is in the notes and hopes someone has called a reference for Emily. Jake: Iwill m ake that call

  • Emily: what was the previous hiring process for what i'm being considered? Was there this committee or long interview? I get the impression that in the past it was more of a quick decision to hire people
  • Joe: unless there are major risks that i'm not seeing, i think Emily is a good fit, i like that she pushes back with yar, and is there a reason that we can't tentatively (contingent on jake's phonecall to her references) agree to hire her?
  • Patrik: we would need to get jesse to write up a concrete contract that can pass muster for a 1099 contractor
  • jake: is anyone willing to ask Jesse to do that? Nobody? OK i will.
  • Helen: we don't need to wait for the phonecall or lawyer contract to agree in priciple
  • Jake: can someone spell out a concrete proposal? The month of December? anything?
  • Emily: something from the last meeting perhaps?
  • last meeting notes: https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Event:2022/11/17_Delegates
  • Proposal moved lower after discussion
  • Patrik: outline some intermediate goals at 3 months
  • Patrik: lets put the hourly wage in there as well
  • Emily: Originally I said $100 but I'll put $75 to be more comparable to previous hires (editing proposal above)
  • Joe: since Emily has voluntarily cut her pay to $75/hr i suggest that if she has to work extra in the process of getting grants... I think we should grant her that liberty
  • Patrik: And if there's a crunch time where you need more than 15hr/wk, that can be approved case by case by the delegates as well
  • Yar: I would like to add this, communicating with the delegates about Omni's financial status, it's sort of implied but i'd rather be explicit. I'd really like if you could commit to regular reports to delegates meetings. What we have, what we have coming in and...I know that quickbooks can generate things but i'd like for there to be a human to vouch for the information. In the past few years the delegates have made policies that depend on accurate accounting that didn't exist, such as the consensus item that 20% of events income, which we are unable to figure out what it was...
  • Emily: ...I am a fan of doing reports, i am very into that, if there's time at delegate's meetings
  • Yar: are you willing to commit to show up to at least 1 delegate meeting per month?
  • Emily: yeah that's fine
  • Emily: PROPOSAL: "Hire Emily as Financial Coordinator / Head of Finance for 6 mo at 10-15hr/wk, to accomplish a specific set of tasks at $75/hour, similar to previous hire"

Specific tasks:

    • Making list of necessary tasks ("Omni Essentials") via interviews with collectives (pending delegate review to confirm essentials)
    • Omni mortgage loan coordination (keeping the building open and owned by omni in short term)
    • Make sure we can close the refinance mortgage loan within 6 months
    • Organizing finance data to bank standards for a mortgage team
    • Coordination of tax exemption status with orgs and city
    • Creation of workflows and training for finance roles
    • Review of grants list for non-loan income
    • Tax filings (Sarah already doing most of this)
    • Hiring or training a bookkeeper
    • Communicating financial info with delegates, answering questions

Description

  • Financial Coordination - budgeting, analysis, forecasting, and reporting to delegates the financial status of Omni accounts in the past, present, and future
  • Fiscal Sponsorship and Funds Support - financial operations and transactional support to internal teams
  • Financial Operations - coordination of accounts payable, accounts receivable, treasury, general ledger accounting, and statutory filings for the Omni and associated entities
  • Grants and Impact Investments - grants and impact investment priorities, policies, and strategies
  • Real Estate - coordination of financial aspects of property in East Bay

"What does this mean?" The focus is on understanding what the Omni needs to keep the building going, maintaining and improving those processes (with input when people have interest as this is an often overlooked role).

These are things everyone does a bit of, with a person who has expertise in the field making sure they are happening and that there are people available and trained for the tasks to happen.

Resume: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bAUZlgBYFLTyAxmRPaMSEZ5exrw2WDMg/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=106287343685082166429&rtpof=true&sd=true (Send request for access if needed)

  • Jacqi MOP 9:08PM (in chat): That sounds good to me definitely in favor of hiring and grateful for all the effort you’ve put into constructing the role so far Emily thank you. I have to jump off everyone. Goodnight
  • Patrik: I have to go, i give my delegate's vote to Yar
  • Jake SUDOROOM: In favor on behalf of sudoroom
  • Joe: FNB Yes
  • Silvia CLP: i guess i'm in favor, pending references and general hiring processes
  • Geraldo: BOGSS abstains
  • Yar: proxying for Patrik/CCL I say yes
  • CONSENSUS: yes (joe/fnb ccl/patrik-via-yar sr/jake jacqi/mop silver/anv silvia/clp), abstain (geraldo/bogss), blocks (none), active and absent (LL), inactive (GWS, CSC, SM). 7 of active delegates. PASSES.


meeting is over

Proposal: ban weapons from Omni

  • yar: i thought we already did that but would be good to renew. would need to make very clear with our licensed/bonded event security folks. also would like to be able to quote this rule to cops with more confidence. there were cops taking their guns into omni a while back it sucked.
    • Just did a search on our wiki - couldn't find anything relevant under "guns" or "weapon"

Crates in entrance hall?

Delegates had issues with the white crates ANV was leaving behind in the entrance hall. Now there are even more crates. Does ANV have a plan for when to remove them, or where to store them? Does ANV want to rent additional storage space from Omni?

== (All Be Known) ABK requesting to be a memeber collective (email sent out 11/4) from Desiree Lo


End of Meeting

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