Present: Paul (minutes), Philip, Bernard, Kate, Beryl (facilitator), Chinhae, Cory, Tiff, Don, Russ, Jennifer, Graham, Alyssa, Leah, Stormie, Len
Matthew (second meeting, approved), Kristen (second meeting, approved)
Minutes approved.
(Paul) To the line in Contract Break Policy “The Membership Coordinator must inform the house via e-mail, and posting to next meeting's new business” add “that they plan to waive this for a member within three days of deciding this.” which was the original intent of the line but accidentally not appended because of an amendment.
Update approved.
(Len) Discuss making a plan to prevent verbal harassment of officers
Len: I get people yelling at me about officer positions before I can even let myself inside sometimes. Multiple occasions, multiple people. It’s challenging to tolerate and I want to discuss it. I do have a stressful job and I just want to come home when I come home. Yelling at me in the courtyard is not OK. I will member review people if it happens again with them.
Point of information: I’m highly sympathetic. A lot of this is covered by the Harassment Policy.
Bernard: This is directed at me. Nobody yelled. I don’t see officers talking to each other. People don’t assist other officers. I apologized after getting upset.
Stormie; You did yell. You apologized to me, not to Len. There were other people who have yelled at us. There were at least 4 people over two months.
Len: This wasn’t directed at anyone particular. Officers need to communicate, and I’ve worked to help deal with issues related to other officers. I’ve been very clear about how I prefer to be communicated with. Maybe we define yelling differently.
POI: This is a long-standing issue. It happens to MemCo and Maintenance officers too. Please use direct communication whenever you can, but respect that officers aren’t always wearing their officer hats, and have limited bandwidth. Please respect that even when you’re frustrated.
Kate, maintenance: If anything is leaking or on fire, feel free to yell at me.
(automatic) Officer reports
Kate, maintenance: Changed out a water shutoff. We got an AC guy to look at some easy-fix AC issues. We cleared a commons couch. We patched commons rat holes, but this won’t solve the rat problem. I’m taking a list of people who want to hold on to some of Logan’s things. Hopefully that space is cleared out in a week or so. The dumpster is full. Are we paid up?
Point of information: That was people across the street dumping moving trash.
Kate, maintenance: We have roach traps. Let us know if you have roaches.
Alyssa, food buyer: There’s some stuff that didn’t come in the last order, but I’ll get it in soon. Things are going well.
Beryl for Ivy, membership: Still getting a handle on MemCo stuff. He’s got the email. Fred might move in with Dwain but needs to get his deposit in. Isaiah might move in with Leo.
Beryl, steward: I got the behavior contract in. Chinhae is the new labor czar, congratulations. NP Board Rep election is ongoing - Tuesday is the last day to put your vote in the rent box.
Leah, board rep: I’ve been out of the loop. I’ve got an agenda item for the big issue ongoing. Also, we lost NASCO coverage for some of our operations manager hours, so David is on reduced hours - 25 down to 10 - until we get that resolved.
Cory, finance advisor to the board: We’re still evaluating bank accounts to figure out which is best. We’re also gearing up to create the CHEA budget.
Stormie: We got a printer. It’s all set up now, except we can’t print from the Linux computer there. I updated the labor spreadsheet to have color. I also updated Russ. A bunch of people are being reviewed for labor, so I put up an agenda item for a labor reset. That was only from two weeks of no-shows. I’m not sure of a lot else going on in labor, since I didn’t have labor czar email access.
Philip, grounds: Not everyone on grounds is doing their labor, or not signing off on it. It’s a problem. Otherwise everything’s going good.
Len, treasurer: We’re a little behind this month because of the Quickbooks situation, but we’re catching up - maintenance and receipts are done. Some receipts around labor holiday didn’t get posted - turn in your receipts! Bills are paid, we’re good for this month. I’ll be helping not with CHEA budget but I’ll help with La Reunion budget.
Chinhae, labor czar: I’m the new labor czar. I’m still new. I need to get with Bernard and get email access. I want to talk to people about their accessibility needs and how they can be accommodated. People have different levels of support needs and I want to be able to address them all. Behold your glorious new leader.
Jennifer, events: Co-op Birthday Party next Saturday, 8 pm, May the 4th! Bring friends, food, drinks, it’ll be a good time!
Russ, bookkeeper: Three people aren’t active on their payment plans. One has made a verbal commitment to pay, but the other two have not. Another 4 are paid up on their payment plans.
Paul, minutes: I am not an officer. But we need another minutes taker! If you want to, sign up.
(Stormie) Under officer report of Labor Czar- Waive all current automatic member reviews for no labor and suspend labor fines. All policies surrounding labor would be re-enacted concluding the meeting on 04/28/2024.
Beryl: I know that one person on that list is now an officer.
Stormie: It would be a lot to process automatic member reviews. We keep switching officer positions and it’s been confusing to people. I don’t want to have reviews when we haven’t been holding that standard.
Leah: I strongly feel we should have these member reviews.
POI: We could review people who were no-showed, but not people who just didn’t sign off on sheets.
Clarifying question: But then how do we hold people accountable?
Chinhae: There hasn’t been accessible labor for some people in the past, which makes their labor difficult or impossible. I want to make sure people have labor that works for them going forward.
Bernard: We have accommodated people with health needs, and people still don’t do their labor. People don’t sign off on their labor, and then when I was labor czar I was in charge of no-showing everyone. I was on the hook for figuring out whether everyone was doing labor. It’s tiring.
Leah: Having the reviews just get people to the table and publicly discussing the issues preventing them from doing labor, whatever those issues are.
POI: Any member can ask the labor czar to remove no-shows, for any reason, and the labor czar has the option to do that. Any member can put up an agenda item to the house to appeal no-shows, or half of someone’s no-shows.
Russ: I lost the chain of no-shows going to fines at some point. I’m sorry about that.
Cory: Could we just waive their old fines?
Paul: Could we wipe the old no-shows instead of waiving membership reviews? Otherwise the no-shows will just trigger new reviews.
Stormie: I want us to address people who work nights and can’t attend the meetings. Sending an email isn’t the same, it doesn’t have any give-and-take or question-answering.
Point of information: It’s hard to have an emergency meeting for those people, and I’m not sure how useful it’ll be to helping those people engage with the co-op.
Corey: Proposed amendment: Waive the fines for past labor but not the automatic membership reviews for past labor.
Amendment approved.
Agenda item approved as amended.
(Robbie) Allow me one additional week to deposit money towards my payment plan.
Tabled by Robbie as unnecessary.
(Steward) The House should review and finalize the terms and language for Keen's behavior contract so it can be signed.
Steward: I showed it to Keen, he didn’t have any big objections.
Steward: <reads text of behavior contract>
House approves.
(Memco) Fred is officially moving in on the 3rd of May
Actually he doesn’t have a deposit in yet and hasn’t signed a contract.
(Leah) Discuss impact of Hardy House situation on CHEA & opportunities for cooperation between La Re & Hardy House, including referring prospective La Re members to HH & possibly offering displaced HH members priority move-in to La Re
Leah: We signed a guaranty for their lease. It could involve some big costs going forward.
Cory, financial advisor to the board: We might also be on the hook for damages. We’re talking with lawyers. We might need to get a loan from NP. We might need to increase rent. We probably won’t disappear but it’ll hurt.
Stormie: I’m currently their membership coordinator. They need to rent 6 rooms out. Prices vary from $880-1300. They do things differently from us. They only require a deposit after 3 months. Email me or hardyhouseaustin@gmail.com.
Leah: Maybe we could offer priority move-in if Hardy House does collapse, since we’re at least tangentially involved.
Point of information: Hardy House has not missed lease payments yet.
Clarifying question: How would we handle the priority move-in?
Point of information: We can just treat them as automatic associates.
Proposed amendment: Add language: “If Hardy House is no longer in good financial standing and Hardy House members are displaced by Hardy House dissolution, then we shall offer spaces to those former Hardy House members as if they have associate membership.”
Amendment approved.
Agenda item approved as amended.
Hardy House, Friday May 10th, 6 pm is hosting an open house. Maybe bring your friends who are looking to be housed.
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Co-op Birthday party next Saturday!
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NP Board Rep election is ongoing through Tuesday. Vote in the rent box.