Also the $1k annual deduction may be able to be changed into $100 off our base
monthly rent,
meaning paying $1400 instead of $1500.
Ah yes, finally somebody outed the rent number that was deemed too
sensitive to discuss in public. Those are of course the floor wide
numbers -- we should keep our discussion here always in Skullspace
terms. ($787.50 a month + $500 annual credit)
Now I don't have to post a censorsed budget on list and an uncensored
one next a jelly bean jar (who went and looked at it when it was there?)
Here's a budget with the rent included folks, with some changes:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16487130/skullspace_budget.pdf
I've assumed that the $500 annual credit (our 50% share) isn't going to
change, so I've penciled it in as $42 a month that we're going to
recieve and $42 a month in extra common area electricty costs we're
going to assume.
Here's the big change: I've *cut* the renovations out of this budget
which was previously an initial $1500 down payment plus $369 a month on
loan payments for 18 month.
I assume under this plan that we just hire an electrician to replace our
dead light fixtures (~$300?) and otherwise engange in no further
electrical renovations and live with the space as it is until there is a
sufficient combination of:
* ear-marked donations
* grants recieved
* demonstrated improvment in operational cash flow to service a loan
The prior electrical estimates were on the asusmption of once we had
improved our electrical -- I assumed with more capacity we'd end up
using more, especially in the summer with more capacity to put A/C
online. Now I'm assuming that our use will only be $400 a month
June-August (down from $500 in prior post) and $250 in other months
(Down from $300)
These cuts allow us to have a $450 a month discretionary budget, which
is pretty good compared to the zero projected before.
The /Jenkins plan/ was to boost membership revenues after doing the
electrical renovations so we could afford them and still have a
discretionary budget.
The /SnikneJ plan/ is to say that current operational revenues (dues,
fundraising, and junk food) can not be used to fund major renovations
and are 100% allocated to operating expenses (rent/utils) and
discretionary spending.
Electrical renovations will need to fund themselves or wait until the
operational revenues grow enough such that they can be used to fund it.
I'd ready to support /Jenkins/ or /SnikneJ/ .
I'm not currently in favour of what I see as our other three options:
1. Accept this lease and do major electrical renovations with a loan
and end up with no discretionary spending and no wiggle room
2. Move somewhere else
Its funny when folks bring up moving somewhere else and they end up
posting a space to illustrate this with a much higher rent in absolute
terms. (higher cost per square foot but less space is what it's going to
have to be)
Any other options that folks raise for either illustration or as a
serrious suggestion must be cheaper than $787.50 per month with GST +
utils extra or cheaper than $1330 with utils included. And in all cases
And I'm assuming management fees, property taxes, and landlords
insurance are included as they are here -- some folks out there
advertise their net rent, which is the actual amount the landlord ends
up with and in reality the tennants pay more because a share of the
bills for management, property taxes, and insurance are also passed on
top of the "rent".
So, here's the four options in my preferred order:
1. boost membership revenue (Jenkins plan or other variation)
2. cut major electrical renovations (SnikneJ plan)
3. move (likely somewhere smaller so rent is smaller in absolute terms)
4. eat these new costs and do major electrical renovations funded out of
operational revenue and live on the edge (suicide plan!)
What's your prefered order folks! Perhaps we can put this to some kind
of preference voting system?
(unfortunately, no preference voting system exists or will ever exist
that guarantees a particular choice is supported by the majority when
there are more than two choices -- so whichever system we choose could
have a bias towards particular choices and a majority may be unhappy
with the result voted in by a minority, but such is a result imposed by
math.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_paradox
and
Joseph Heath
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/%7Ejheath/Oldch11.pdf
"""It’s difficult to think of a single social problem that some
relatively large constituency on the left doesn’t think can be solved by
“more democracy."
"""
)
As for future bullying, with the six-month clause no longer being
at-will we'll be a much better position. If they ever tried to change
the deal on us again I'd want to at least ask a lawyer how large a
judgement we could expect in terms of being compensated for the damages
by a lock-out and how much we'd get in punative damanges. Even after the
lawyer takes a big share, we'd want to see if punative damages could be
high enough to leave us in a great financial position that would make
the suffering caused by a lock-out worthwhile. For sure we'd want to go
to court if we knew the punative damanges we'd be awared minus legal
fees would be enough to have 1/3 the cost of a building of our own which
is a commercial grade downpayment with a bank)
I don't see why our landlord would lock us out right now and risk being
nailed in court because they can just use the 6 month clause to get rid
of us -- so having our day in court is a non-option.
Refusing to sign the proposed lease is equivilent to choosing to move
option (in six months). It seems the landlord would rather loose money
on a vacancy than lose money on this utility bill they originally agreed
to cover.
[I would have favoured holding them accountable (in court if needed) for
thier own communication mistakes and failure to read, grasp, and
understand the lease and management contracts if it weren't for the six
month at-will clause which makes all that moot]
Mark
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