Event:2015/08/13 Delegates Meeting

Omni Delegates Meeting - August 13, 2015

Who's Here?

Meeting Roles

• Facilitator/s: helen?
• Explanation of hand signals: "deaf applause", "raised hand", "point of process", "direct response"(wildcard), etc.
• Stacktaker: jerad
• Timekeeper: jose
• Notetaker/s: yar
  • URL of this pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/omninom
• Vibe Reader: jacob
• Next weeks facilitator(s): joe, jose

Delegates

• BAPS: jose
• CCL: Jacob
• FNB: joe (& helen)
• MPM:
• OptikAllusions: sarah
• Phat Beets: not a member collective?
• Sudo Room: yar (& matt)
• TIL: emji
• Global Women's Strike: lori
• Quorum: yes!

Introductions

Introduce yourself: Name; Prefered Pronoun; Affiliation

• helen, fnb
• lori, wgs
• jerad, wants to help
• jose, baps
• joe, fnb
• emji, til, mpm
• rob, sudo
• yar, sudo
• jacob, ccl
• sarah, opal

Announcements

• emji: helped tooth move stuff out today. one more large piece of equipment moving out saturday. other stuff might look like black hole's but it's not theirs. belongs to some other darkroom collective. maybe chloe knows?
• matt: that was from noisebridge. if they don't want it, it'll be our problem, probably sudoroom's
• joe: fnb cooking saturday at unitarian fellowship in berkeley, not our usual day. protest song festival.

Working Group Report-Backs

• please note all lawyer communications

Building & permits

Meetings: Mondays at 8pm

• Mailing list: https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/building
• Work party Saturday 12-6. May become a regular thing.
• Still a lot to do, trying our best. New volunteers much appreciated.
• joe: exciting week. south wall inspection yesterday - passed insulation, failed electrical (miserably) because i provided group with bad info. we have to take out all the romex & replace with metal sheathed cable because assembly of 100+ people. so my son & i volunteered to pay for that. not a huge thing other than the upset.
• matt: jack is the contractor making front door, got paycheck from matt g. said he'd complete it within a few weeks (said that 1.5 weeks ago).
• yar: another work party on saturday 12-6!

Becoming Omni

• Inconclusive but very positive.
• libbie: y'all are invited to the second half of the planning meeting for the visioning & planning meeting, this Sunday 2pm in the ballroom. you can see fruits of our labors on the sound walls up there. thanks for being there if you were, otherwise you can catch up.

Commons

Meetings: Sundays at 7pm

Communications

• matt: new wiki plugin to print pages to pdf

Finance

Meetings: Every other Thursday at 7pm

Buy the Building

Meetings: Mondays at 6:30pm

• yar: waiting to be able to talk to lawyer. see below...

Bans

• has anyone been banned? no. *applause*
• joe: front door getting left open a lot. please don't leave it open, that's our policy
• matt: kwikness?
• joe: yes he's banned. claims affiliation but never cooked with us. he sleeps here and reacts poorly to being woken up
• helen: he's not a fnb issue, not our problem
• if he wants to seek resolution he needs to contact the omni, not a collective

La Commune

• Yar: I'm sorry for the confusion last week. They are definitely leaving, and their 30 days notice on July 30 was in good faith. I propose we honor this original notice.
• joe: what the hell happened? at that meeting LC left, and sarah said she has no faith in our principles... haven't heard anything said about those earth shattering things
• matt: last week we decided to prorate it based on the date we found resolution, to give us more time to find a replacement. i think that's a reason to not honor july 30. also i think we should assess if there's any structural damage to the space which mean we should keep their deposit, such as the bar which was destroyed and nothing was replaced
• joe: would they remove all fixtures and books?
• yar: i've been assuming they'll remove anything that's their property, but I can ask just to be sure
• helen: they said they wanted to leave at the end of august. our determination to change that was due to a misunderstanding on our part. i think we need to honor the original statement. but i think you're right about the security deposit. maybe we should wait until they move out and see what we think about that.
• emji: niki was here at that meeting, so that makes me less confident that that was our misunderstanding
• rob: but niki quit the collective
• yar: no it really was just a misunderstanding
• matt: steve was here and nobody consulted or asked him. he said he wasn't aware of the 30 days notice. example of ambiguity for which nobody can be held accountable outside that collective. yar, your due diligence would be the only reason for me to accept that delay. this was a point of contention for another perspective group that made it more difficult to work with them. there are consequences to that. that's why having 30 days is meaningful to me. need to have enough time to find replacements. notice is a 2-sided coin
• matt: i talked to rock paper scissors. no guarantee
• helen: this is a side issue, but not hte question before us
• emji: do you know what day RPS is being evicted? i think it's relevant because i want to know when we can bring them in
• matt: they were packing last week
• yar: straw poll. who thinks honoring july 30 is a good idea? yes: 3, blocks: 2, abstains: 5/6
• yar: so there's two options. they owe us money through sep 1 or through sep 12
• jacob: how much money is on the table there?
• yar: like $4-500
• matt: i just want to express my experience here
• joe: i appreciate everyone's perspective, i also want to evaluate the deposit issue. don't want to cut them down to nothing, they've got a lot of people who will lose money
• emji: i like the idea that it's advantageous to have a group start on the 1st
• jacob: are RPS not going to be able to move in on the 1st now?
• matt: ambiguous, they haven't even submitted a proposal
• sarah: i agree with emji, i'm changing my decision. idk what to do
• yar: if we do nothing they're on the hook for a couple more weeks
• jose: can we talk to LC about this?
• matt: group is swaying towards just letting them leave asap. maybe a gift.
• helen: i think we need a proposal
• yar: i propose we honor the original 30 days notice and let them move out at the end of august
• delegates in favor: jacob, lori, joe, emji, jose, sarah
  • abstaining: matt/yar. passes
• emji: i think the deposit stuff is in the lease
• matt: who wants to check the lease...
• jacob: maybe we should formalize rules about giving 30 days notice so there's complicated rigamorole to rescinding that
• yar: that would require community-wide discussion
• matt: let's put it on next week's agenda
• helen: this is our front door so we should give serious consideration to who goes there

Lawyer Liaisons

• matt: this should be quick & simple. jesse palmer, prominent local lawyer works with many activist groups. he helped us write our lease. fundraising wg want to talk to him about the building purchase. then started talking about board meeting. he started asking questions about who he's allowed to talk to, and wants a list of approved people. yar started a "legal" email list. i propose we use that list, and anyone wanting to liaise with a lawyer just ask to join the list at a delegate's meeting. doesn't preclude lawyers from talking to people but we expect him to talk to that list for sensitive things.
• yar: so your proposal is...?
• matt: we empower all board members, board officers, and anyone who's been approved to be a liaison to communicate with our lawyers, and our lawyers to communicate with them, at their discretion.
• matt: if you're a radical lawyer, the bar will come down on you faster
• emji: i think "at their discretion" is hard because hourly rate is low for lawyers but high for us. we need to make sure we're not wasting his time or our money
• matt: ok friendly amendment - this doesn't condone any new expense for lawyer's time
• yar: when he emails us has he been clocking in & out?
• jerad: traditionally they do
• matt: we should ask him that
• matt: who's interested in being a liaison at this meeting right now?
  • raised hands: matt, yar, jerad
  • jerad: also matt griffin
• emji: delegates change weekly. i feel like with a wg that makes sense but how do you determine who that is?
• helen: yes, also the list is long if you include all delegates
• matt: it's a bunch of state BS. delegates are functionally representitive
• yar: laura said our bylaws are weuird and say delegates are board members no matter who they are. maybe we should take out "and delegates" until we read the bylaws?
• emji: i'm not blocking, just wanted to bring it up
• joe: i want to know how & when info gets passed on so everybody is included & up to date
• matt: can request people either tell the legal list or the delegates
• yar: it always ends up in the notes
• joe: i think there should be term limits
• matt: we could add annual renewal
• final proposal: we empower all board members, board officers, and anyone who's been approved to be a liaison to communicate with our lawyers, and our lawyers to communicate with them, at their discretion. this doesn't condone any new expense for lawyer's time.
• lori: who's on board now?
  • yar: https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Event:2015/07/30_2nd_Annual_Board_Meeting
  • matt: still waiting from opal & mpm about who their board members will be
  • sarah b: i'm the opal officer until october. then liz takes my place, because i'm leaving the country and not coming back forever.
• delegates consenting: lori, jose, joe, sarah, matt/yar
  • emji abstains. passes
• yar: next proposal is that yar, matt, jerad and julio be approved to liaise
  • all delegates approve. passes.

Bike Parking

• sarah: aww i thought it said "bike party"
• matt: finally, it's been 6 weeks. my proposal is turn the "red stage area" into bike parking. goofy place - if we use it, the hallway is too narrow so we'd be required to make lots of other changes. basement used to be a banquet hall, and bands would play there. i want to designate it for exclusive use of bike parking so you can lock your bikes to hooks. several bikes have been jacked outside & inside lately. not fair there's no place to park. also stuff there is a fire hazard. needs to be contained & stored. i already have pieces ready to go so we'll have some bike parking soon if you agree to this.
• joe: how many bikes can you accomodate?
• matt: i already have 8 hooks. with more hooks, i have more pipe. could double to 16 without using the whole stage area. phat beets might want shelving eventually
• joe: so for everyday use that seems adequate but for events that'd be VIP. the lucky 16.
• sarah: i like this idea but i need to talk to my collective about it. can't vote.
• rob: i question the wisdom of that location. this area gets used by meetings. cruising back & forth is disruptive. maybe closer to the stairs?
• matt: but BH maybe wanted to move into there. i just want to dodge controversy and solve a real problem. i dont' feel that strongly. but i'll be clearing off the red stage anyway
• emjI: i like this proposal because we can't use that space anyway. not super desirable. two entrances. you can come through the ballroom
  • rob: that's true...
  • yar: weren't you going to block it last week?
  • emji: i thought it was the other bike parking proposal
• yar: i just want to point out this has been on the table for weeks, so if any collective hasn't talked about it yet, that kinda sucks
  • sarah: i apologize, i just know they might have opinions and need to talk to them
  • sarah: ok i'll vote on it. i'll get serious flak at the meeting next week, but i think it'll be ok
• matt: now i'm wondering if we could put more parking in more places
• jose: what about the la commune space
  • emji: i'll block that...
• jacob: sounds like we definitely want the red stage but maybe more accessible parking is a hairier subject, so for the sake of passing this, let's vote...
• yar: straw poll - who'd block this?
  • joe: i just really don't like people walking back and forth
  • talk about moving it to another part of the basement
  • matt: did anyone even look at my drawing
• yar: i think if we don't put parking there it's a waste of a couple hundred square feet
• jerad: is there anyplace else with storage that we could move down here?
  • matt: i tried. you've seen sudoroom.
  • joe: you didn't find places in sudoroom?
  • yar: wheelchair accessibility is a serious issue for sudoroom
  • joe: but in a line on the wall?
  • sarah: this area isn't accessible yet so bikes here makes sense
• yar: ok so proposal to put bike parking on red stage area
  • delegates approving: yar, jacob, lori, jose, emji, sarah
  • joe: i'm voting no. helen also doesn't like it
  • yar: are you blocking or abstaining?
  • helen & joe decide they're abstaining
• emji: what about this other wall? by the staircase
  • matt: contingent on them feeling good about their storage. don't wanna screw them over
  • yar: the east basement wall before the other east basement wall
    • emji: the westernmost east wall
    • matt: the one under the ADA bathroom
    • yar: no wait i got my east & west concerned
• sarah: i have a blcoking concern. every month opal uses that area to sell concessions. need to talk to them
  • matt: maybe you could fit?
  • sarah: i'll have to talk to them
• matt: that's the plumbing area
• yar: i propose we can't decide this week and should talk after the meeting

joe

• joe: i want to discuss something. we had a restorative justice meeting at julio's house. talked to facilitator about common values. julie offered to have weekly meetings. libbie was open. pretty clear it's important for us. becomes clearer & clearer every week. we haven't done any of it. on thursdays we don't really talk to each other. i propose we do at least some of that during these meetings
• emji: idk what you're talking about
• sarah: i'm leaving. this is so boring.
• joe: we have all these email lists. huge things are happening, commons is going through a 7.1 and there's nothing going on. does everybody not talk to each other? i dont' thik so, people talk in smaller groups and form opinons, some cohesive, some antagonistic .... idk we need to be more of a community
• yar: my hands hurt. not taking notes anymore

End of Meeting

• please archive these meeting notes by copying the entire pad contents onto the omni wiki
• then please erase the contents of this pad
• then please cut & paste a blank template from here: https://omnicommons.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Delegates_Meeting_Notes_Template&action=edit
• previous notes are archived here: https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Calendar