Present: zandria, jose, kate, paul, chinhae, beryl, ivy (minutes), phillip, lorenzo, stormie (facilitator), dwayne, bernard, jill, jenn, graham

Ronnie (virtual, 1st meeting)- found la re online, curious about roommate matching/accountability, very very covid conscious and wants to know if masking happens in common spaces,

Amanda aka Pickles (1st meeting, virtual)- found la re through jill, a current coop member, went through a rough patch in the past, but would be a great addition and is doing well now

minutes approved

NASCO (Daniel and Maggie) are visiting, maggie 2/9-2/11, daniel dates unsure, both interested in possibly staying at la re- all are cool if a bit worried abt housing folks due to allergy concerns

(Paul) There have been discussions recently about how to improve our rarely-amended member review policy. After a board meeting discussion, here are some suggestions. Reasoning is in brackets, and I bolded any new language.

[The member review may be viewed in court at some point.]

After “A membership review is called by writing it on the meeting agenda and publicly posting the reasons for the review by Friday at noon before the meeting.” add: “Reasons should include specific accusations, specific rules violated, and a summary of any specific evidence for the claims.”

At the end of the same paragraph, add: “It should be verified with the minutes taker that they are comfortable taking notes that will potentially withstand legal scrutiny.”

[The member must be notified of the review. We already do this, and this is implicit in the existing rules, but it should be explicit. Add this to the Steward job description too.] In the same paragraph, after the words “The Steward will ensure” add: “that the member being reviewed is notified as soon as possible,”

[While I'm at it, our house meetings have facilitators.] Change instances of “Meeting Chair” and “Chair” to “facilitator” in member review and officer review descriptions.

agenda item 1 approved

(Paul) [Many members are bothered by the shortest time-frame of a member review, which can currently go from a Friday posting to a Sunday meeting – maybe 55 hours or less of notice going into what is effectively an eviction hearing. Allow at least a week for people to respond to normal member reviews.]

Replace “A membership review is called by writing it on the meeting agenda and publicly posting the reasons for the review by Friday at noon before the meeting.” with:

“A membership review is called by publicly posting reasons that have collected enough signatures. The following Sunday meeting, the Steward or another officer shall announce that there will be a membership review coming the subsequent meeting, 7 days away.”

[This won’t apply to officer reviews, behavioral contract violations, or automatic member reviews for any reason, which can all be posted like other agenda items.]

Insert a new paragraph between “It is the expectation of …” and “Any three members of …”:

“Behavioral contract violation reviews and automatic member reviews are called by publicly posting the reasons on the meeting agenda by Friday at noon before the meeting.”

[This shall not prevent house officers from calling a 48-hour emergency meeting to discuss a member review in any case involving imminent danger, serious threats, or concerns for physical safety.]

there was some confusion about automatic member reviews and their function/the reasoning behind current procedure but after clarification, agenda item 2 approved.

(Paul) Repeal / remove the Yellow Card System described in our house manual, which has led to one membership review in 8 years and is probably unknown/mysterious to most house members.

corey gave historical context behind yellow card system; zandria, Storemie and others agreed that the system is irrelevant+not effective,

repeal the yellow card system: all voted in favor, agenda item approved

(Paul) Discussion Item only: Add the concept of a “Limited Member Review”. This is a membership review in all ways except that the straw poll only includes options for “no action” and “behavioral contract.” This option should be considered when members feel someone’s actions require house discussion but do not seek immediate eviction. Some house processes could also operate this way: e.g. if every member’s first automatic membership review for labor violations was a Limited Member Review, or perhaps if every automatic membership review was.

Potential corollary: Increase the threshold required for a house to decide a behavioral contract has been violated to 2/3rds, or 3/4ths, so that a Limited Member Review does not turn into a delayed eviction vote with a lower threshold.

Taking suggestions on the name and everything else.

Leah proposed raising the minimum vote req. for deciding if a limited member review needs to be 3/4th.

stormie: add concrete deadline of no less than 7 days for signing behavior contract; possible integration of docusign for signing behavior contracts in conjunction with posting

Corey: revisiting behavior contracts: behavior contracts are still for evictable offenses, so they need to be handled as such-

stormie: distributing a copy/posting a copy of the grievance procedure

stormie: specifying stringent requirements for behavior contracts involving labor reviews

(Stormie) Request new payment plan: was out of work and working towards a more stable spot

wants to renegotiate payback amount

Agenda item approved

(Logan) I got an email in the MemCo email from the office of Congressman Lloyd Doggett who wanted to see if anyone here is interested in being a part of a zoom call about the affordability crisis in Austin and how La Re can play a role in combatting it as well as hear concerns from the community. He wants to know when a good time for us would be.

interested parties can email david and operations to facilitate a date and time

issues with volume involving one member has been impacting other members, has caused injuries.

what to do: noise is caused by panic attacks, but must still follow rules

Ivy will meet one on one to discuss what to do/how to mitigate noise+harm to other coop members

Bernard: labor holiday for weekend of feb. 17th/feb/24th

shelby may be moving out,

dryer: any updates? waiting for nasco to approve Purchase