ACM minutes, August 23, 2026

ACM Minutes, August 23, 2026

In attendance: Ben, Cheryl, Kerry, Sarah, Coleman, Steven, Shawn, Becky, Emily, Abby, Joe, Starla, Kay, Lynda, Mary, Grae, Christy, Brian
Notetaker: Sarah W

Opening comments

• Lynda opened the meeting by encouraging everyone to review meeting guidelines, posted on the inside of the whiteboard case behind the white couch; encouraged all to remember respect and wellbeing of present members, and to stay calm and collected.

• Lynda solicited announcements, which were given as follows: 

  • Emily and Christy offered jalapeno peppers (unknown hotness levels) and Melrose peppers (like a bell pepper)

  • Kay offered packages of red tulip bulbs, several packages in dozen and five-dozen packages; “they reproduce prolifically”

  • Christy offered thanks for rubber bands, paper, and plastic bags for Farmette packing

  • Kerry offered thanks for CH cleanup team from Saturday 8/22, with a particular shoutout to Shawn and Becky for their presence and contributions; Becky reciprocated with thanks for Kerry’s organization

    • Mary asked whether this was a work party; Kerry clarified that it was a gathering of the monthly CH cleaning teams; Mary requested a paper version and Kerry agreed to have one posted

  • Ben announced the incoming arrival of some wildflower seed mix to plant experimentally in front of his unit to see what will grow; noted that now that he's announced it, he's got to follow through on planting them

  • Lynda announced that Laura [please correct name if incorrect], former resident of Emily and Michael’s unit, has reserved the CH for a Rosh Hashanah service on 9/11/2026, including a walk to the canal for ceremonial releasing of breadcrumbs as symbol of renewal and release; community is invited to join in

Pay-or-Play proposal and discussion

• Ben distributed a handout with a proposed clarification amending the 2012 update of what counts as “community work” for the Pay-or-play system.

• Ben presented the contents of the handout, summarized as follows:

  • Notes the current definition of community work is “self-determined”; proposes to replace with an expanded definition, including providing a non-exhaustive list of examples and a list of things that don’t meet the threshold;

  • Proposes to amend the definition of “adult” to clarify who in a household must contribute;

  • Explains rationale for proposed amendment, clarifying that the sense that the current language and system aren’t adequately facilitating community goals;

  • Explains how the proposal intends to address the issue; lists pros and cons

• After reviewing the handout, Ben opened the floor to questions and comments

• Becky asked, as a new member, for a crash course in how the process works when someone brings a proposal like this to the community

  • Ben explained as follows: have an idea --> start talking with people --> bring it to an ACM planning meeting to determine at what stage to start, from initial discussion to fully-formed proposal --> at least one discussion to solicit feedback --> at the very earliest call for consensus decision at next ACM

  • Becky asked a follow-up questions about consensus, and Ben clarified the distinction between consensus and voting

• Brian commented that he appreciates the clarification and the examples, as well as the flexibility of the new wording, as it leaves room for individuals to decide what makes sense; Ben agreed that the wording intentionally leaves things open-ended, and added that the goal is to trust community members to make decisions, not to police or comb through contributions

• Emily asked a question about the distinction between “own yard” and “community space;” Ben responded that ideally he perceives that as falling under the individual’s own discretion

  • Emily clarified that there are cases in which activity in the enclosed backyard of her unit, such as adding a tree, would need a proposal, so she has conceived of it as community space, since it falls under at least some community jurisdiction; Ben clarified that planting a tree would need to go through Landscaping, not necessarily a proposal

• Shawn commented that a more exhaustive list would be useful to him as a newcomer; he noted that a ranking of things that constitute immediate needs would be useful

  • Ben agreed and handed the mic to Cheryl, who explained that a document with a list of of prioritized community needs is a work in progress, forthcoming to facilitate participation

• Mary commented that in former systems in the community, there was such a list, with a sign-up system for community contributions like taking out garbage and yard waste bins, including sweeping the bin area. She noted the need for equipment for this kind of work and the difficulty of keeping track of such equipment, and gave an example of equipment she has provided or intended to use that has disappeared, including a broom for dumpster cleanup and a humane trap that she recently intended to use to trap a raccoon around her unit

• Christy suggested that Welcoming committee encounters and onboarding might be an area where clarifications of contributions and boundaries might be useful operationally, such that those clarifications needn't necessarily go into the language of the proposal; Ben responded affirmatively to the comment; generally agreeing that making the list of community work is also viable community work (seconded by Kay).

  • Ben further noted that not all of the qualifying tasks require physical labor

• Christy brought up the issue of tracking who is contributing to what task once we do have a list, and the need to reflect who is taking on a given task and to what extent

  • Cheryl agreed and noted that that kind of communication has worked successfully when organizing work parties, but has been more of a struggle when it comes to regular tasks

• Mary noted that she has always cleaned her own gutters, and has counted that as community work; she asked whether only cleaning someone else’s gutters would now qualify as community work given the "community space" language; Ben replied that he thinks cleaning one’s own gutters does count

  • Ben further noted that tasks will likely remain in flux, giving the example that even a task that someone offers to complete regularly may still need support, e.g. if the person who takes out the bins is out of town or incapacitated. Better communication means a greater ability for people to both step in and take things on, and to do a regular task to simply complete their hours, e.g. periodically mopping the CH floor

  • Cheryl gave the example of cleaning the CH dryer vents as a once-a-month task, noting that she’s struggled to know how to manage that; she neither wants to breathe down anyone’s neck nor leave it up to chance, and would prefer a setup in which there could be clear communication to check a regular task off the list

  • Shawn added his own experience of worrying about stepping on someone’s toes, ex. taking the glass recycling and being informed “Cheryl usually does that”

• Steven wondered whether there was a way to create subsections of the non-exhaustive list items by committee.

  • Cheryl responded that committee meetings might be a good place to manage that, but low-personnel meetings make it difficult. Cheryl further noted that she perceives the community as being at a crossroads where communication and organization are concerned

  • Kerry noted the plan to resurrect the Community Chronicle as a means of communication, potential for listing priority items and/or completed tasks

• Cheryl commented that she’s been working under the assumption that Discord is the most effective way to communicate, but invites communication that if there are better ways to get information out there

  • Kay responded that a Discord channel, like a jobs-posting, could be useful

  • Mary mentioned past systems in which hours could be calculated by different methods of logging and communicating, including regular signs on the doors of CH, posting meeting times; noted that the system only held up for a year or two because folks couldn’t agree on who should put up signs; mentioned that this constituted a useful system that split the difference between individual responsibility to stay informed and notifications being publicized

• Abby commented that she thinks Community Chronicle will be a great way to communicate these things, and recommends printing and putting it up; Ben and Emily concurred re: putting it on unit doors and on CH doors 

  • Cheryl asked whether monthly frequency works, as per the previous Community Chronicle; no objections

• Ben asked if anyone has any concerns about the proposed amendment to wording

  • Kay replied that the proposed definition of “adult” would seem to potentially sweep in guests; Ben replied explaining his rationale for changing the wording

  • Lynda pointed out that the term “resident” is sufficiently clarifying such that, for example, someone’s brother staying for two weeks is not considered a resident, and therefore not pulled into the Pay-or-play requirement

• Ben asked that anyone who has further thoughts or comments please put them in the ACM planning channel on Discord

**Break for snack and Giveaway Table shopping**

Second proposal: Increasing the monthly minimum work hours

• Ben distributed the second handout and went over it; this proposal involves the following:
  

  • Proposal to raise the minimum work hours contributed by adult members from 2 to 4 per month;

  • Statement that the current requirement of 2 hours does not meet the labor needs of the community; even increase to 4 keeps us below requirements in comparable cohousing communities (information on these comparable communities documented on the back of the proposal)

  • Pros and cons  of proposed increase

   

• Shawn asked about seasonal work needs, noting that it seems like there are high needs for community contributions in summer months, for example; is there less to do in the winter?

  • Ben clarified that the current Pay-or-play agreement allows for carrying hours forward during high work periods when one might complete more than the minimum on season-specific tasks

  • In response to Shawn's question, Ben noted that there is still plenty to do in the winter; Kerry affirmed, mentioning suggested projects in CH (carpet cleaning); Cheryl noted the workshop inventory as another example of a winter-friendly project

• Becky asked for clarification of the claim that 2 hours doesn’t cut it for community needs. If not that, then what does it take?

  • Ben replied that what we’re currently asking for in terms of reporting, i.e. in hours, is not currently granular enough to do analytics on what amount of time it takes to cover all community needs, but that going from 2 to 4 required hours seems like a good start

  • Becky further asked for clarification about what the expectation is—what are we hoping to get out of it?

  • Emily replied that she’s hoping for less burnout, and discussed labor-hour breakdowns and phenomenon of a few individuals or households shouldering inordinate burdens in current system

• Mary suggested a change in the wording of the proposal, noting that 2 hours a month never reflected the monthly needs of the community

• Becky asked for further clarification about the difference between doing work for someone else, versus donating, e.g. via helping someone mow their lawn if they’re not able to, versus donating hours from other work completed

  • In response to continued discussion of a donation system for hourse, Ben said that he would not add such a change to this proposal, but invited anyone else to bring an additional proposal

    • • Joe, Mary, and Kay each objected to Ben’s response, clarifying that changes to proposals have been standard in the past

  • Becky introduced a hypothetical situation in which an individual living alone was neither able to complete their hours nor pay $80, e.g. due to surgery plus financial constraints. She noted that would like to hear an explicit conversation about older members of the community in particular, regarding the stress of the feeling of needing to earn one’s keep either via labor or money that might be dearly needed; she advocated strongly for a donation system

    • • Starla concurred, elaborating with an idea of banking hours specifically to fill in or donate to people who had difficulty; she gave the example of donating her hours to Greg, which several meeting attendees noted falls under the same-household clause

  • Brian clarified that he doesn’t think anyone is rejecting the idea, but that there needs to be either another proposal or an amended proposal

  • Kay volunteered to write a draft of an alternate proposal

  • Joe noted he recommends we fix the language of the existing proposal

  • Ben replied by noting again that there are ample opportunities for non-physical labor

    • Christy clarified that she believed Becky’s comments addressed limited incidents, not a hypothetical issue of supplying labor for chronic non-participants; she further argued that if Becky wants to consistently donate her labor, that seems like it should be Becky’s choice

    • Becky concurred, and explored further the example of making a temporary or one-off arrangement in emergency circumstances; she further clarified that she’s hoping for the possibility of some cushion or flexibility

  • Mary suggested using the mailroom bulletin board asking for community donations of half and hour or an hour, rather than having a community pool of labor hours

    • Mary further noted additional projects with high labor needs, including inventories, tool maintenance, indoor work in the CH, and so on

    • Mary continued by noting the difficulty for people with young children, people who are in school, and so on, i.e. people with large outside commitments, to fulfill increased hours; she pointed out that past systems allowed for reporting work hours on someone else’s behalf, or donating them; she’d like to propose bringing back such a credit-based system

  • Ben clarified again that the current agreement allows for same-household crediting or hours, but not donating time otherwise; Kay and Joe commented on the neighborliness and general benefit of being able to donate hours

• Emily noted that leaving decisions like this up to Management is tricky, because the intent of the current formulation of community governance is not to have management be the decision-makers for the community, nor act as an enforcement arm or morality police; she would personally like to remove that role from Management 

• Starla stated that she would like to make a proposal for a labor-hours bank; she further asked whether anything like that exists

  • Ben stated that current system allows for banking within a unit; he affirmed that that language is present in the current agreement. He stated again that the proposed policy change is a direct result of not having enough community work being completed

• Abby contributed to the banking discussion by noting that she foresees a time in her own family when she would be in need of banked community hours or other assistance, e.g. a subsequent pregnancy; she expressed that she is sympathetic to the idea that people may similarly have situations in their lives that oblige reliance on community; she also recognized the presence in the community of non-contributors. She stated that she is not sure if a bank is the solution.

  • Abby noted that she is not currently pregnant

• Shawn acknowledged that the banking idea does seem to need a separate proposal; he then to the present proposal, about which he expressed strong approval

  • Ben noted that he personally puts in at least 10-15 hours a month, and hypothetically he could bank those extra hours, and someone could draw on it...after which no more work would be done. Furthermore, CC&Rs happen to cap the fee at $20/hr, which he further states is not enough, as $20 or $40 does not suffice to replace the labor lost in non-participation by hiring work out; he stated that changing that language in the CC&Rs may be a reasonable goal for the future

  • Ben further noted that there is no time pressure to pass this proposal swiftly, and that the proposal can be amended and discussed at length

• Steven noted that he’d like to speak on behalf of parents with multiple children; he commented on how the current wording of the proposal has the potential to exponentially increase the burden on young families, simply via the difficulty of fitting more hours in while parenting and working

  • Steven clarified that he did not intend to invite ten more clauses; he further stated that he wanted to speak on behalf of parents, and allude to the vast disparities in how much individual households are already paying simply to be in the community, e.g. via burdensomely high mortgage payments and interest rates

• Lynda asked why donating hours needed to be something official, giving the example of just having someone who needed the hours put someone else’s labor on their own form. Is it sneaky? she asked, clarifying that she sees complications as this procedure becomes institutionalized

  • Ben responded acknowledging an understanding that there will always be needs for here-and-there assistance in the community, and a need for flexibility in any system; he argued that some of that understanding is already embedded in the current system, but is at a loss to what to think about what happens when a critical mass of people have a bad month and can't or don't contribute

  • Emily responded with the suggestion that work-hour donations could be task-based, which would further be facilitated by a knowledge of who does what tasks normally. 

• Abby responded to Steven’s comment, affirming that her family was likely in the category of community member he described; she emphasized that she’s looking forward to the task list and more regularly scheduled opportunities to contribute to clearly organized opportunities for community work

• Ben returned to Becky’s earlier questions about community needs, donations, etc., and advocated for the idea that spending time together, i.e. while doing the work together, is part of building community; he further commented that the proposal, realistically, does not solve all problems, but rather creates different (perhaps more manageable?) problems, e.g. logistics.

• Mary added that hers long experience in the community, and Kay's, gives both of them an additional layer of perspective: she noted that she has seen decisions made by individuals working in the community that have, rather than solving issues, create long-term large-scale issues.

  • She gave the examples of weed barrier and wood chips on the west berm, noting that current chips are now flowing over the curb onto the current parking surface, creating additional making obligatory work of shoveling them back up onto the curb, and so on, in an ongoing cycle.

  • She noted that it would be nice to come up with a system in which people bring proposed projects to the community to ensure that the project is beneficial without causing a need for additional labor.

• Lynda responded asking whether there is a Discord channel with instructions for how to do particular tasks; Cheryl affirmed that there is, and Lynda expressed hope that the growth of this channel and such documentation would facilitate the kind of communication Mary described

  • Mary advocated for printed materials on learning of the Discord, such as a compendium of consensed decisions of the community; Mary expressed frustration at the evident requirement for computer literacy in how the community is currently run, and the lack of accommodation for those who do not use digital communications

• Coleman asked whether, if the proposals are intended to get more participation, Proposal 2 feels counterproductive. He argued that because we have been here to have this conversation, the people in the room are likely to step up their contributions…but that in some cases the people who aren’t not regularly contributing are evidently the problem to begin with. He expressed that he does not feel Proposal 2 is going to produce results, while Proposal 1 he sees as likely more effective in getting more people out to do more things.

  • Ben replied that Coleman is likely right that there are people who will continue to not participate, but with Proposal 2 at least we will have a little more financial leeway to spend on hiring out work that’s not getting done

• Christy asked a clarifying question as to whether there’s a way to amend the proposals to make them work to address Coleman’s concerns

  • Coleman replied that he’s not sure, noting that the motivating qualities of, for example, a list of community work versus the threat of financial repercussions.

  • Coleman argued that it feels like more of a solution to continue the call for participation, as opposed to a potential material change to an individual or family’s life if they can’t meet the requirements.

• Kay stated that her take on the proposal is the opposite, and she feels that Proposal 2 is going to produce clearer results; she stated that she feels like she’s currently in a burnout phase of contributing 2 hours, but will up it to 4, until she’s able to contribute the 10-15 that she’s been accustomed to doing

• Joe reminded the group that a) the proposal needs to be approved, and that’s the way things have been; and b) that community members should be able to do what they wish with their hours, and if there’s no facilitation of that, it seems counter to the spirit of co-housing

• Kay and Starla agreed to take on the planned development of language around banking or donation

  • Ben noted that if we amend the proposal to include it, it might result in consensing on this part but not that part

• Coleman asked whether there’s a record of how much money has been collected through Pay-or-play, stating an interest in having that data included in future discussions about the proposed amendment

  • Ben and Kerry affirmed that that data does exist, with Ben noting that while the system has been voluntary, there was less responsiveness to either paying or playing, but that that has shifted more recently with the introduction of reminder emails

• Kerry clarified that in the same way we receive donations for CH guests, Pay-or-play monetary contributions are treated as donations, in response to Becky’s question about how those funds are allocated vis-a-vis tasks that were not completed due to lack of community labor

• Kay offered information about the original writer of the Pay-or-play proposal, past community member Michelle, who proposed the system as an honorable way of fulfilling her commitment due to traveling for work often and wishing she could contribute more.

• Lynda closed the discussion by noting the need to continue talking about and amending the proposals; Lynda also noted the development by Cheryl of a work survey to gather information on what kind of work community members prefer doing

  • Cheryl affirmed the description, stated the presence in the community of individuals with very specific skills, folks who want to learn how to do something, etc., and the desire to get a sense of community skills, interests and strengths.

  • Cheryl further stated that she sees it as potentially useful for those present now, as well as future members of the community, with clearer communication about how we function as a community.

  • Mary noted that it would be good information to know and record existing skills of individuals in the community.