[sudo-discuss] Fwd: Children

[Matthew Senate]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Laurie Cooperman Rosen <Lscoop at comcast.net>
Date: Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 4:02 PM
Subject: RE: Children
To: Matthew Senate <mattsenate at gmail.com>


Hi Matt-****

I received your note and drafted a response that night, but didn’t mail it
out because I wanted to make sure George has nothing to add first.  You
will have it this weekend.  The number one concern (before even anything
else) is that WE are not insured for this and have received no evidence of
coverage from your group either.  At this point everybody who has any
visitors on a regular basis MUST have insurance coverage with us as named
insureds, and we at this point need to enforce that.  Next on the list are
permitting related issues from the City of Oakland for children to be
allowed in any kind of day care setting, and also arrangements that will
need to be made by your group (and the School too) to take care of
janitorial during and immediately after any group activities being held
there.  This is not necessarily inclusive, but a start.   We can discuss
the possibility of this happening (allowing children in eventually), but
not until these and other issues are fully addressed.  I apologize for the
miscommunications on both sides that caused George to get upset about this
and perhaps act too heated, but it was not without reason (given that he
assumed that the communications had been disbursed), and for the time being
we need to start with the insurance issue because it looks like that will
be required because of all of the traffic whether children are able to use
the space eventually or not.****

Sorry, I worked on the email and saved it and was waiting for George to
have time to look at it.  The first month always keeps us both hopping and
we only pass like ships in the night!****

Laurie****

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*From:* Matthew Senate [mailto:mattsenate at gmail.com]
*Sent:* Friday, September 06, 2013 1:38 PM
*To:* Laurie Cooperman Rosen
*Subject:* Re: Children****

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Laurie,****

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Please let me know when you have a chance to read our note, even if you are
unable to respond immediately.****

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Thanks,
Matt****

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On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 11:23 PM, Matthew Senate <mattsenate at gmail.com>
wrote:****

Hi Laurie, ****

This week George addressed a group of folks in the common area outside of
Sudo Room and the Public School regarding the presence of minors in the
building. His behavior was confrontational, hostile, loud, and very
upsetting to many of those who were present, including some
parentally-accompanied minors. There has unfortunately been a series of
miscommunications about this issue, and we are dedicated foremost to
resolving it amicably. ****

First, thank you for communicating the building's policies on minors via
email. Unfortunately, due to a lapse in our own internal communication, the
contents of your email were not conveyed sufficiently to the relevant sudo
room members before Wednesday of this week. Please understand this was a
lapse in communication that has been rectified. ****

Secondly, since early June, every Tuesday evening parent-supervised minors
have attended sudo room. We provide no supervision services for minors. In
fact, we provide no services to customers (we don't have customers) as we
are a membership association. It was unclear that this event was
specifically of any concern since it followed the requirement of
supervision by parents. We are willing to meet the necessary requirements
to ensure that you and George are provided with the appropriate advanced
notification of any planned future sudo room events involving supervised
minors and their parents. It is relevant to note that in the past we have
allowed accompanied minors to be in the "Art Room" and not use common
space, but in recent instances the common room has been used as well.
Further, since we are interested in being as accessible as possible to
different communities and demographics, we would like to clarify what
opportunities there might be (through city services, insurance, waivers,
etc.) for minors to be in the building in ways other than those outlined in
your email. ****

Thirdly, regarding the damage to the bathroom you discuss in your email, we
understand your concerns and are sorry that it happened. We have raised
awareness in hopes of preventing instances like this from happening in the
future. While we are happy to take shared responsibility for ensuring the
bathrooms are clean and usable, we want to communicate that we are not
aware of any evidence that the minors who have been at sudo room were
responsible for the damage. We fully support your desire to keep all parts
of the space (including the bathrooms) vandalism-free, clean, and usable,
so we have made all sudo room members aware of this incident, reinforced
the expectations surrounding bathroom cleanliness, and reiterated the
policy that children should not use bathrooms unaccompanied. Please let us
know if you encounter any problems with the bathrooms in the future so that
we can take appropriate action. However, we also ask for understanding that
if there are problems with a shared space in the building, that absent
specific evidence, sudo room may not have been the source of a particular
problem. ****

Finally, we would like to share with you a few of our expectations as
lessees that we hope will help us continue to stay in this building that we
have been very happy to rent for the last 9 months: ****

Our Expectations: ****

* That issues with our use of common space or our use of our rented "Art
Room" be conveyed in writing, with disrespectful confrontations being
completely unacceptable, in any circumstances. ****

* Consistent with Sudo Room standards, that minors continue to be able to
participate at Sudo Room, provided they are accompanied by parents or a
legal guardian. ****

* To work together with you as we grow, which requires we be accessible to
more communities and demographics. ****

* To consider options for mitigating liability through additional
insurance, waivers, etc.****

Thanks,
Matt****

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