Event:2023/01/19 Delegates

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Omni Delegates' Meeting - January 19, 2023 7pm-9pm

Meeting Details

Roles

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

Delegates

  • inactive groups: CSC, GWS, ANV, SM
  • BOGSS: active, geraldo
  • CCL: active, Patrik
  • CLP: active, silvia
  • FNB: active, nobody here
  • LL: depends, john
  • MOP: active, nobody here
  • SR: active, jake
  • Quorum (2/3 of active groups): need 4 or 5

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

  • jake sudo
  • cere sudo/ccl
  • yar she/her
  • john liblens, very busy with union stuff
  • silvia CLP she/her
  • geraldo bogss
    • bogss meeting again soon
  • silver they/them, mostly finance now
  • patrik ccl he/him

vacancies

  • Yar: We have empty rooms - need to fill them. Could be difference in whether we can keep the building. Need someone to find new groups and show rooms
    • new room in basement, ~25x25
      • silver: Everyone I show the basement thinks it’s a jail cell
      • sarah: $1 per sqft seems reasonable
      • silver: Roughly 25x25
      • yar: so that's $625? joey was paying $800
    • new room in den
      • still needs window/plexi between den and entrance hall
      • Yar: talked to "unschooling" group - would want den room daytime weekdays 11-4 Mon-Fri; can afford $500. Can we find another group that wants to use evenings and/or weekends?
      • silver: I’m meeting vian tomorrow. The kids helped patch our roof during the shelter
    • ticket booth
      • currently has furniture/stuff, it could go away or go under the stage
    • omni office
      • jake went through stuff today. needs more attention to clear out. let's put important things in the filing cabinets? look through papers, triage them.
      • Jenny would be interested in getting her office supplies back if not being used
    • small classroom between entrance and ballroom (contains mail room)
  • make a flyer to advertize?
    • Silver made some flyers for basement room already
  • Yar: need to figure out rates for rooms. ~1K per room?
    • Sarah: square footage of rooms? Avoid using rooms adjacent to ballroom. maybe $2/sqft for upstairs rooms with windows
  • Jake: what organizations can/can't we rent to? 501c4s etc
  • patrik collecting info at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SiupMb3cNPEG246Nh5MZYgtR-k-5_H9QgwQlbaKxd7k/edit?authuser=1

shelter =

  • Emergency shelter report & cleanup
  • geraldo: we were open for 6 days, friday eve 1/6 - wednesday eve 1/11. lots of good excited motivated volunteers. each day we grew in numbers: 5 guests at beginning, 20 at the end. various east bay orgs helped - west oakland punks with lunch, community kitchen, foodz, mental health first, berkeley need [+ more]. ~150 volunteer signups. learned on the go. press coverage: kqed, kpfa upfront, nytimes, chronicle.
  • silver: folks came from mutual aid backgrounds. FNB, CLP, MOP. really beautiful. infrastructure & bylaws & procedures created. very well written & extensive. other collectives reaching out asking for advice for running other shelters. someone did a 24h shelter in SF, used our procedures as a handbook. pretty chill. folks coming in also had relationships with omni - real mutual aid aspect, looking out for the building. MACRO (city employees) brought people over to our shelter and begged us to stay open, but we're just volunteers. joey gave amazing advice, towards the end offered to find oakland employees to staff. glad it ended when it did, because bedbug fiasco. new folks plugging into omni because of it. rayyan from place threw down.
  • silvia: i'd do a lot differently if we had more planning time, things to critique, but overall happy. tons of donations every day, so much stuff to redistribute to encampments (wood st, peoples park). most press in a while.
  • bedbugs were only spotted in front of the stage and the exterminator sprayed aprehend (beauveria bessiara) successfully
  • John: aggregate news coverage? Important to document, especially for future proposals
  • last leftover stuff being picked up tomorrow

finances status

  • Joe proposing that we first hear some background on what has been stated recently by Emily regarding her ability to issue payments and then take what action we find necessary to correct that limitation to Emily's efficient performance of their duiies as our finincial officer. If this is not feasible can the delegates please approve the payment of the approximately $500 I AM owed by Omni Commons and the $500 SDIY paid for Bay Area Bed Bugs to fumigate our ballroom.
    • sarah: he wants us to give emily permission to pay bills, and for reimbursements for bedbugs to happen
    • Yar: shelter brought in $2500 in restricted donations for shelter; fumigation expenses should come from that
    • sarah: we can use it for costs and expenses related to the shelter, but i think that includes omni expenses because the building enabled the shelter
  • yar's just saying we should let the shelter organizers determine whether there are remaining shelter expenses to pay before it's handed over to omni general funds. let's maybe give them til the end of january to sort that out?
  • John: Emily / finance comittee can approve payments up to $500, higher needs approval from delegates. Any standard payments like electricity bill should be OK as well.
    • the $500 to joe dump run was for fire inspection, not shelter
    • Sarah: Do need to have receipts for reimbursements (e.g. fire inspection costs)
  • Yar: FYI we are also paying Sarah to do bookkeeping again. emily is not doing bookkeeping, it's not part of her job. silver still needs a lot more training to be ready.
  • Sarah: getting closer to property tax exemption. we now have accurate square footage numbers for prop taxes process
  • Sarah: cleaned up most accounting weirdness from last 7mo
  • we still need to get a copy of emily's contract, and timesheets for her first month of work
  • sarah made this doc to divide up finance labor https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oOz8L-FH-CRmiGaN4kjBQlIxlFXekAIdVPWTHPTu7l8/edit
  • silver wanted training from emily, but it hasn't happened yet. wants clear boundaries, there was conflict when emily tried to stop new years events from happening
    • contract includes "Creation of workflows and training for finance roles, including hiring or training a bookkeeper"
  • if we also need to pay other people to do work that she's directing, then maybe we can't afford 15 hours/week for her. will be clearer when we see timesheets.
  • some concerns
  • yar: i am trying to stay out of conflict with her since there have been ongoing conflicts. she refused to have a mediation with me in october when i asked for it.
  • yar: also very concerned that she is overconfident we can get a loan based on loan-to-value ratio alone, but i think our cashflow needs to be a big part of it. what sarah called DSCR (debt service coverage ratio)
  • sarah: maybe she has connections or can find someone that can underwrite this loan. i'm willing to see if that's the case. but i do have experiences with this and it's frustrating to be talked down to about that. it's important for us to be honest when we don't know or aren't sure about what's true or how to do something. there was too much focus on fire permit issue in december. but david and i were taking care of it.

grants

use of gofundme money

  • discussion held from previous meeting
  • Proposal: GoFundMe money can be used specifically for the following purposes:
    • Paying off the principal of our loan, including whatever % of our monthly mortgage goes towards principal (see loan amortization schedule for exact amounts - around $1600-1700/mo)
    • Property taxes
    • Any taxes, fees, expenses that are used directly for the loan refinance
    • Paying general operating expenses (e.g. mortgage, utilities) if no other funds are available; these funds would need to be be replenished as soon as funds are available
  • yar: fine with me, but need clarity about what "no other funds available" means and whether it'd be replenished when funds are available. whether we're borrowing from it or allocating it.
    • yar: this came out of a conflict which happened in the depths of our poverty in december after months of not being able to have events. hope we don't face that much scarcity again.
  • fwiw the events group still needs a budget to spend, that's a huge business initiative that needs investment to thrive. we shouldn't be moving all their money to general funds.

hiring building manager

  • proposal held from previous meeting/s
    • proposal by Emily; not here today - postponed to next meeting
  • the proposal came out of confusion during & after the fire inspection. it would be great, but not sure if it's the most pressing need or if we can afford it yet.
    • sarah explains at length the confusion over permits (oops, sorry for long, xo SL)

crates

  • jacqi was going to ask anv
  • silvia: white crates came in handy for the shelter
  • Yar: they got a grant that could only be spent on crates
  • nobody here from anv or jacqi is here, so not much to say

End of Meeting

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