Who exactly offered the bus to you at whatever price you wanted?
It sounds like to me this person clearly broke the law by providing the bus to a member for whatever price he wanted.
I was in the workshop when Alan Wan was offering the Space Bus to Adnan, bus Alan was firm on a top dollar figure.
To be fair - I told Adnan the Space Bus was a rusty bucket of shite and not worth his effort.
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Robert Davidson,
Grow up. If you try to sell something for a year and it doesn’t sell, then the price falls, it’s simple supply and demand.
Stop accusing everyone of breaking the law, that’s what it seems half of talk is for. If you were considering the bus then you moved too slow, the damn thing has been for sale for a long time. Nobody is required to post on talk, this is not the formal forum of DMS. Communication is not required to be here. It was in the board meeting minutes and an agenda item on the wiki. Maybe you should pay closer attention.
We were paying to store that thing every month. To sell it for any price is to save money. Stop searching for things to complain about and actually try to do something that benefits the membership.
Like I do not know… coming in and making something, teaching a class, painting walls next door.
The judicial calling out of people here on talk is vapid and it’s disgusting. Sorry things don’t always go everyone’s way, but this bus has been for sale for a long time. It’s not the boards job to post on talk, even Luke Strickland himself voted for its sale and did not post it on talk.
Nothing will please you guys, so just leave things alone if you’re not adding anything constructive.
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Really?
I’m glad you are the now expert here.
The bottom line is.
A DMS board member sold an asset well below market value. It also appears that public notice was not given.
Are you unfamiliar with how this has to be handled? Did you bother reading any of the lengths above?
I believe everyone’s interest here is to understand who exactly brokered the transaction and details surrounding it.
Once more details are out, I suspect the membership will ask that DMS be made whole.
Are you going to tell me to go do something that benefits the membership to? I’d love to hear it.
As for calling people out. If you don’t wanna be questioned in a position of leadership then don’t be in it. The board is answerable to the membership whether you like it or not. Try not to let your personal relationships cloud this…
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None of the people whom expressed interest in buying the bus were alerted to this fact. This isn’t a “grow up” problem it’s a “DMS has a huge liability” problem for failing to do an arms length transaction.
Yeah, at a premium price. Not the $25. If they were going to start taking lower offers they needed to make it a public bid process. That’s the law.
They are actually required by law to make it a public sale. This means craigslist / ebay / public auction etc. Offering to members only at below market is explicitly prohibited by law in a non-profit.
Numerous people expressed interest and would have taken it, including myself. We were all given an unreasonable amount to buy it for at that time. It is now sold for $25. That’s the problem here. The market value was not followed to be able to give it to a specific person without allowing bids from public.
you are again ignoring the core problem; it’s not that it was sold, it’s that it was sold below market without a public bidding process nor notification to any of the other buyers whom had already offered more or been told there was a low price higher than it’s actual sale price.
And violating laws regarding sale of non-profit assets is somehow something the membership should ignore?
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no. If it is sold at market value then it’s not an issue, and even below market value if it’s an event anyone can walk up to that’s still a different story since anyone could have gotten it at that price.
The issue here is that it was well below market value without first offering up that price to the community. This is compounded by the fact there were a lot of interested parties that were just given way higher prices than what was actually paid.
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I would think posting it on the public facing event calendar, and then the other cares they took (kicking people out so all had a fair chance at the open of the event etc) would be sufficiently public.
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And she actually said IN THIS THREAD that they posted it on Craigslist and another makerspace to make sure everything was above board and out in the public space.
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I saw the CA garage sale posted on Talk and Facebook so no. Did anyone see the sale of the space bus posted on Talk, Facebook, a bulletin board at DMS or anywhere that could remotely be described as “public”? I cannot find it for some reason…
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EDIT: this wasn’t actually a reply to my comments on the bus but rather on CA; discourse altered the thread when someone deleted a post. I leave mine for posterity as always
Not. at. that. price
That’s the difference here. It was sold at a vastly different rate than what those whom inquired were originally told when we asked.
Hell I know there are multiple members that would have literally just driven it off, but we were insted quotes prices in the four figure range.
That’s what makes this fail to be an arms length transaction. It was not a public offering at what was in the end way below market value. If it was posted to craigslist as free to drive off or for $25 I would agree with you. But it wasn’t.
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@Draco your post ghosted on me but to add there are specific regulations related to the sell of Motor Vehicles, Boats, and Airplanes
The bar is much higher on assets with significantly more value.
I was trying to respond to Draco’s post before he deleted it and just piggy backed onto your’s to back up your point about the CA sale. I think Draco realized he kinda stepped in it and deleted his post (not that I have ever done that before…)
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it happens. Discourse does weird stuff when posts intermix in that fasion.
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Incontrovertible example of an ad hominem attack.
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Personal relationships? I don’t even know who signed off on it… I don’t care who signed off on it. we were paying money every month to house it… i’m glad the things gone if nobody was actively working on it.
I’m aware that you don’t care what was done is illegal.
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does “expressing an interest” mean making an offer. Did anyone expressing an interest actually show up with a cash offer? if not then “expressing an interest” is just talking about it… there’s a lot of that going on.
I doubt that anyone on the board got a kickback or gained personally from this transaction, i’d highly suggest finding evidence to the matter before insinuating inurement. There are two kinds of people in this world…
Those who suspect every transaction to be nefarious and those who don’t… I’m sorry that you guys always think that there is something terrible going on. With how many talk storms have brewed since the time I joined the space, with how many people crying the demise of DMS because of illegal characters, i’ve seen remarkable little things actually go wrong.
There’s a point where you have to as yourself if what you are doing is doing more harm than good. Constantly questioning a community breaks it apart. It’s not the sale of the space bus that destroys DMS…
Its this. Anyways, I’m tired of this Talk stuff. I hope you guys find some peace
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You don’t seem to understand what was done may have been illegal and all the current information points to this.
Nothing will tear the community apart more then the IRS coming in and shutting us down.
We are nearly a million dollar organization, if we do not follow the law we will be shut down sooner or later. That is why this is important.
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When humorless people in serious suits show up with search warrants, start asking awkward questions about excess benefit, those involved with the matter become persons of interest, and DMS assets are seized you can comfort yourself that at least there was no nefarious intent.
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Lol… we are not dealing drugs guys. stop being so ominous
Yes I do understand that you are worried that there was an insider deal… (its obvious that a more serious form of inurement is highly unlikely)
But the repercussions even if that was true would be that the sale would have to be reversed within a reasonable amount of time…
i.e. he gives the bus back and we give him 25 dollars back… There is no seizing of assets and immediate shutting of the doors. it’s so dramatic lol