Event:2016/03/03 Delegates Meeting

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Weekly Omni Delegates' Meeting - Thursday March 3, 2016

Who's Here?

Meeting Roles

  • Facilitator/s: Laura
  • Explanation of hand signals: "deaf applause", "raised hand", "point of process", "direct response"(wildcard), etc.
  • Stacktaker: Lori
  • Timekeeper: Jenny
  • Notetaker/s: Jenny/Alex
  • Vibe Reader: Thunder
  • Next meeting's facilitator(s): Maybe Tatille/Rachel

Delegates

  • BAPS: Steve (now active)
  • BB: yar (not yet a member collective)
  • BH: Alex
  • BS: Thunder
  • CCL: Ken
  • CSC: MaryAnn
  • FNB: Joe
  • GWS: Lori
  • HNJ: (not yet active)
  • LL: Liz
  • Mess:
  • Sudo: Jenny
  • TIL: inactive
  • Quorum: 9/13

Introductions

Introduce yourself: Name; Prefered Pronoun; Affiliation

  • Alex, Birdhouse delegate, she/they,
  • Mary Ann, she/er, Chiapas delegate
  • Lori, GWS delegate, she/her
  • Spencer, The Mess
  • Liz, Liberated Lens delegate
  • Jenny, sudo delegate, she/her
  • Thunder, Buried Seeds delegate, any
  • Laura, Building Bloc, working groups
  • Dane, he/him/they, FNB
  • Yar, she/her, Sudo room, poppy seed cupcake
  • Ken as CCL delegate
  • Matt, Sudo member, vegan cupcake
  • Joe, FNB, he/him
  • Marc, sudo/ccl, he/they
  • Steve, BAPS delegate
  • Robb, sudo, he
  • Julio, sudo/commons, he
  • theo

Announcements

  • Buried seeds missing the key to their room. They will pass out keys to three people for designated access. It also looks like someone tried to bust their doorknob and they had to replace it.
  • Lori: It's Womens History Month - workshop on the Grim Sleeper
  • Lori: Selma James on March 25th

Bans

  • Josh from Liberated Lens
    • "he did something he knew was wrong, told us about it, working with him to fix the problem, but he's no longer a member of LL and we request he not have access to the building"

Working Group Report-Backs (30 mins)

Building & permits

Meetings: Mondays at 7pm

  • This group needs help; https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/building
  • Pushing to ready the ballroom for a fire inspection by the 18th
  • trying to finalize electrical permit for front door & south wall
  • do we have money for any of this?
    • jenny's ordering exit signs

Commons

Meetings: Second and Fourth Thursdays at 7pm

  • given events of past 2 weeks and surprise fire marshall visit, we cannot have assemblies of any kind in the ballroom until we pass fire clearance.
  • liberated lens may have to move their screening to another room
  • womens global strike is going to use some space in the "treatment/meditation/healing/eyeball" room upstairs.

Communications

  • we really need to communicate with the outside world more
  • jenny's meeting with sang to work on a newsletter. great to have updates from all the collectives.

Finance

Meetings: First and Third Thursdays at 7pm

  • laura's trying to file our 2014 taxes
  • pro-formas (5 year projections for mortgage app) almost ready
  • need help!
  • still tweaking new rent roll breakdown. can adjust collectives' payments as needed
  • we're broke. borrowing heavily. need everyone to find friendly lenders of 2-5k. asap, really important.
  • pay invoices early. pay back invoices.

Buy the Building/Fundraising

Meetings: Mondays at 5pm

  • grantwriting party tomorrow
  • jenny's reaching out for emergency nonprofit loans
  • please take your own initiative to raise money for omni

lawyer liaisons

  • Proposal to add Marcus Zamani as lawyer liaison
  • delegates in favor: maryanne, lori, joe, ken, jenny, alex, thunder. abstaining: liz, steve

Discussion of possible action ideas from post-shooting community meeting (15 mins)

  • Notes from Sunday's Community Safety Meeting

Security

    • Ask people putting on events to provide or pay for security
    • Get assessment of Omni done by security firm to advise what different types of security we need for different size and types of events
    • Break event renters into specific security “classes” that pay for security based on events size, etc.
    • Have renters pay for security if needed from a specific security provider familiar with our building, neighborhood, etc.
    • Always have security on site
    • Stricter security requirements for event rentals
    • Cameras outside
      • robb: these may be necessary.
      • yar had proposed we put them out just for large events
      • steve: the cameras across the street may be the fbi, but our cameras would be for our defense

BID

    • Send BID follow-up email letting them know what security measures we take
    • Send Omni rep to BID Security Committee meetings, BID Board Meetings, and Temescal neighborhood meetings

Event Mgmt

    • Don’t limit events based on music type or use coded language
    • Nightly event time cap that neighbors agree on
    • Vet event rentals thoroughly [we already do this]
    • Night-of point person for scheduled events for neighbors to call (maybe have google phone forwarded)
    • Re-examine how we handle permits
    • No more private parties
    • People say noise level is okay

Neighborhood Relations

    • Publicize delegates meeting as a time the community can come to the Omni to talk; add community relations line item to all agendas
    • Don't block neighbors driveways
      • Marc: Maybe we should just tell people that we don't mind if they call a tow when it happens
      • Alex: Painting the curb
      • Steve: Loading/unloading could just double park, not a thru street
      • Robb: sign on bldg not to block driveway -will make w Alex
      • Commons needs to be be explicit w/ renters that their attendees cannot block neighbors driveway
    • Be more inclusive
    • Schedule follow-up/report back meeting about safety
    • Host more neighborhood meetings at the Omni
    • Go door-to-door to talk to neighbors every time we have an event
      • definitely before a *large* event
    • Better communication about events- posting on website not enough
      • newsletter!
    • Post on Temescal community website – invite neighbors when events are public

Omni Exterior

    • Pick-up trash outside
      • see curfew/cleaning proposal below
    • Exterior lighting - Robb is already working on this
    • Some people say loitering is a problem, others like the foot traffic and say it makes the neighborhood safer

discussion

  • there was a shooting on saturday
  • community meeting on sunday
  • also a BID security meeting yesterday - laura, david keenan, ken, went. matt took notes.
    • takeaways for the BID: active vs passive transparency (we need to be more active in working with the neighbors); seats opening up on the board of the BID; technically no req. to vote on their committees - if you show up you can vote, though they ask you to come "for a while" before voting;
    • be the photon
  • brian from nautilus group has no information about organizing against omni commons but reports they are "concerned"
  • tell shifra about your events at omni, she can publicize them to the neighborhood
    • Shifra de Benedictis-Kessner at info@temescaldistrict.org 510-860-7327
  • people hanging out in front of your business is NOT necessarily our responsibility to address according to BID -- concern is "anti-social behavior" instead
  • joe: is BID packed against us?
    • dunno, only went to committee meeting. board is very large. but any commitment and participation is valuable. should keep track of what they're doing. apparently there's a lot of money being divided up there
    • marc: opportunity to force them to follow their own rules
    • they're supposed to clean our street but not
  • laura: i'm gonna move to talking about action items from that meeting...
    • reading through all the things
  • things we're not sure about following:
    • cameras
    • private parties
    • security onsite
  • matt found cones to give to neighbors. one neighbor said "i hope you take away that we support you. you're in a pickle"
    • should we just tell them to have the cars towed?
      • that's still a hassle for them
      • they might be afraid of antagonizing us. reassure them we're cool with that, if we don't know who it is
    • who's seen this happen? matt saw it occasionally
    • tell people to double park instead
    • which driveways get blocked the most?
    • hang a sign saying "please don't block our neighbors' driveway. if you do you're banned"
    • add "don't block neighbors' driveway" to small print when advertising events and inviting people
  • newsletter - lots of twinkle fingers for this
    • matt: BID has funding for a newsletter and opening for an editor...
  • steve: having neighborhood meetings and notifying them of large events, are essential. take to heart. consider it an important part of putting on a major event.
  • jenny: robb has already hooked up some exterior lighting on both streets. 3 more coming. applause!
    • yesterday, matt cleaned up a bunch of sidewalk trash. ken trimmed the trees.
  • robb: cameras may be necessary. been suggested to just install them, have them detachable and put them up only during big events. maybe best solution. after what happened, we're vulnerable to a lot of criticism. cmon, a fucking uzi?
    • marc: probably gonna be a really long discussion
    • steve: cameras do reek of surveillance but if there's serious things going on here, FBI is already surveilling us. cameras can be for our defense. if we had more information it would have helped us.
    • matt: i think that was a successful event. people who ran it did the right thing. people did a shitty thing outside that we're not responsible, but we should still be responsible and be better. don't internalize guilt over this.
    • marc: proposes meeting on 6pm sunday to talk about cameras
  • laura: who will summarize this conversation for the discuss list?
    • matt: i really need more time to talk about this
  • Note: BID has an open position for editor of neighborhood newsletter
  • Is there someone willing to summarize this conversation and send it to discuss?
  • Marc: Would like to set a one-time mtg, 6pm Sunday to gather all possible solutions to the camera discussion
  • Ken: Wants to propose holding off on hosting hip hop events for the foreseeable future
    • Yar: Don't even know where to start with those hip-hop comments - the commons working group evaluates each request on its own merits, with the good of the omni at heart
    • Julio: Just want to back yar - I would block this request, it's
    • yar: i'm disgusted enough with neighbors using hip hop and violence synonymously, don't even want to hear other omni people talking that way
  • Julio - maybe communications would be the place to have this conversation
    • Jenny: I'll coordinate a comms meeting

revisiting discussion

  • matt: prospect of working on this list and email it out is not appealing to me as a task. needs more work, commitment. can we escalate that into something something
    • laura: i just want to clarify what things we're going to do and who's going to do them.
    • jenny's doing it
  • marc will send out a questionairre to schedule the camera discussion
  • alex: should we set more time to talk about this, not just as action items but human beings who are affected by things
    • alex & dragon will coordinate that. laura doesn't have time.
    • straw polls: it'll be monday at 7.
  • talk about spinning off another temporary working group for this, or maybe another delegates meeting next week. but that would conflict with commons.
    • matt: i think it's not an issue of authority. it's just basic stuff that needs to be done.
  • joe: i propose a work/fire inspection meeting saturday at noon (in 2 days)
    • talk about how to spend money

MEETINGS

  • Marc will schedule a discussion about security, sending out a doodle
  • Saturday work party to prep for fire inspection
  • Monday @ 7 to discuss the shooting

Proposal: Buried Seeds Monthly Payment Reduction (10 mins)

Buried Seeds is proposing to adjust our original agreement which was to pay $500 rent which includes utilities starting in March to paying a clean $500/mt and revisiting the amount in 4 months. We are asking for the adjustment because we weren't expecting the expenses plus rent to be so high and we've just learned that due to the nature of our business, we have to make two payments of $1000 within 30 days of accepting the policy. This amounts to a lot of unexpected expenses for us right now.

discussion

  • surprised by how hard and expensive insurance has been to get. also didn't realize they had to pay omni insurance. tatille does the budgeting, not here tonight. hard to come up with money until there's membership. also plumbing backing up. just want to pay a clean $500 and come back after a few months
  • already paid march rent. need response before april. very brief discussion now
  • just paid $500 for march
  • marc: what's the difference?
    • they're paying less the utilities now
  • matt: you're asking for conflicting things. if you want to pay flat 500, it's a bit backwards. we can just say you're paying more and just waive the something fee. currently you're just paying 568. so you're asking for a reduction of 68?
    • thunder: yes
    • matt: that wouldn't be dropping all the taxes, insurance, etc. it would be less. wasn't your original proposal to pay 400 + utilities?
    • laura: no, it's 500
  • proposal to do this in 2 weeks
  • later, matt looked at numbers again. it would be a drop from 686 to 500. and mean that only half the collectives are contributing towards shared expenses

Proposal: 10pm Building-Wide Curfew (10 mins)

via Jenny, Joe, Judith, Marc, Ken, Habiba, Beverly:

  • For reasons of health and fire safety, no non-members will be allowed in the building after 10pm unless explicitly sponsored by a member in the space. Building-wide 9pm warning song, 9:45pm cleaning song - all hands on deck to clean the space (especially the upstairs kitchen and the sidewalks). Every human being present in the building at 9:45pm participates in cleaning.

discussion

  • jenny: we just held a meeting for people invested in the food situation. worried about a surprise health inspection. needs a lot of work. big problem is people (mostly non-members) leaving food out in the kitchen overnight. judith often has to clean it up in the morning. serious issue. rats.
  • marc: make it a 3 month trial
  • steve: what's the status of non-members other times of the day? this doesn't change anything
    • jenny: this would be a time to actually check... also the later it gets, it falls on just a couple people who are left
    • thunder: any thought of just abolishing the free food thing and people just having food for their collective? like labelled food?
    • jenny: that'd be a contentious can of worms. some people depend on the kitchen
    • joe: too much falling on judith. i like getting people up off their butts
    • yar: weird to have a policy about when to actually enforce our existing policy. makes things more confusing before 10pm. also, maybe shorter trial period - 2 weeks? and please make exceptions for peoples' varying level of ability. not everyone's able to get off their butts.
  • laura: shorter trial period; who's going to uphold this?
    • ken: the members in the building at that time would round up everyone around for cleanup; if folks are able to partake of the food here, they're able to clean up after themselves. think it will take at least a month to work te kinks out.
    • robb: already thinking of ways to set up the syncronized sound system; VOIP server w/ robot voice announcing it's cleanup time
  • thunder: some sort of tag system that indicates which collective people are a part of
  • laura: who would be opposed to trying this as soon as it could be implemented
  • marc: it's really just enforcing the policies we already have, i'm going to just do it anyway
  • yar: so long as we make language saying we make exceptions for scheduled events

Proposal: No Excess Storage (10 mins)

via Jenny, Joe, Judith, Marc, Ken, Habiba, Beverly:

  • For reasons of health and fire safety, no excess storage is allowed in common areas. Anything stored outside of a collective's designated area is subject to immediate disposal. anything with a green sticker is omni property, any items left in an area for a period of time should be labeled with date and contact info


discussion

  • yar: isn't this another existing rule?
  • just no personal storage
  • marc: it's about enforcement. if you find food lying around you can throw it out immediately and not feel bad about it.
  • laura: i always feel like i'm being the mom
    • robb: should we post some signs?
    • lori: yeah, your mother doesn't work here
    • jenny: photos of what spaces should look like when they're clean
    • ken will take pictures
  • joe: should there be a lost & found?
  • marc: maybe things should be tagged
    • yar: should we provide tag materials?
    • jenny will buy green stickers
    • marc: anything with a green sticker is omni property, any items left in an area for a period of time should be labeled with date and contact info
  • delegates in favor: ken, thunder, steve. abstaining: alex, liz, jenny, joe, lori. maryanne left the room.

Proposal: Liberated Lens Move to Ticket Booth Room (15 mins)

via Liz, 3/1:

Liberated Lens would like to explore the possibility of upgrading to the ticket booth room, at a raised rate. If it is already slated for something else, please let me know; otherwise, it would really suit our needs. Here is our situation:

• We have an increasing number of people getting involved, and can scarcely fit into our current room to edit together. • We also have grant money from Alternative Exposure which we must apply towards educational courses, and we need space for more editing stations to achieve our goals. • We have been keeping our equipment in the storage room next to the stage, which has increasingly filled up with stage equipment. We also plan to buy more equipment with the grant money, so space will become even more of an issue. If we move into a larger room, we can store our equipment there instead, and free up space for stage gear. • Our current room gets unbearably warm in the summer. It is not only uncomfortable for members, especially when there are more people, but we think it poses a risk to our computers and hard drives for overheating. The ticket booth room is lower in altitude (where heat doesn't accumulate), and it has a window to ventilate.

I know other member groups don't prefer to do a rent breakdown based on square footage, but for me it is helpful. Our current room adds up to approximately 132.25' square (this includes the loft but not the crows nest, which we didn't apply for), and for $100/mo that comes out to $0.75/square foot. The ticket booth room is about 164.8'square, and we would like to offer $150/mo, which would be $0.91/square foot.

It seems fitting that Optik Allusions started in a storage closet, then leveled up to a larger room when we had the capacity, and now we're ready to level up again. I would personally like to thank the delegates and the Omni community for giving us a space to grow our operations and our potential.

Thank you for considering our offer!

-Liz from Liberated Lens

discussion

  • liz: maybe for april? please talk with your collectives
  • yar: could it be multi-use? could people have meetings in there?
    • liz: i don't see how. we'd lock it when we're not there.
  • julio: would the current space be common area?
    • liz: yes. and we can remove the countertop space or leave it in there.
  • joe: might have audio problems. you can hear people on the steps.
  • julio: how much bigger than the treatment room? idk what's up for grabs. that's one of the few accessible small spaces.
  • yar: yeah we put a lot of work into making that space wheelchair accessible. widened the door. one of the few small meeting rooms we have accessible to wheelchairs
    • liz: we don't have members in wheelchairs. wider door would be nice for moving equipment in & out. is anyone in wheelchairs meeting in that room right now?
    • yar: not right now that i know of, but we'd like omni to be accessible
    • blue classroom doors aren't wide enough
  • Joe: MPM room partitioned will open up potentially 3-4 more spaces

process

  • Discussion: Decision Process / Feedback Session with Mitar[edit]
  • TABLED

End of Meeting

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