Talk:Madison Community Cooperative

Property Tax Exemption Discussion

This was added by someone at the John Marshall School of Law in Chicago, and it would be helpful for that person to base their entries in fact rather than opinion. Please do this by posting the actual text of the agreement with the City of Madison so that this site can best reflect what was actually legally agreed upon. I moved that section to here until that happens:

"Having one property tax exemption on these grounds, MCC has now obligated itself by an agreement with the City of Madison to not only supporting not-for-profit and democratically-run communitarian livng spaces, but also to ensuring that such living is available to those members of the Madison community who have not traditionally been a part of the co-op movement."

-David Kauffman 68.33.17.156

Nottingham Co-op

Nottingham Co-op was organized by MASC in January 1971 and its first year's lease was between the building's owners (the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity trustees) and MASC, but in its second year the lease and in the years thereafter its ownership was under the name of Nottingham Co-op Inc.

I was among the first residents of Nottingham Co-op, along with Sandra Lottes, Silvio Machado, Eric Roang, Chris Smith, Jeannine Wall, Mary Helen Young, and many others.

Nottingham was active in MASC during its first year, but became and stayed an independent house thereafter. During that first year, MASC changed its name to Madison Community Co-op to better reflect its main product -- community -- and also to establish a name distinct from Max Kummerow, MASC's founder and Madison's "Johnny Co-op-seed."

During that period of time, I served as MASC's and then MCC's executive director. I was paid out of grant from St. Francis House, University of Wisconsin's Episcopal Student Center, whose pastor Arthur Seldon Lloyd was a great supporter of the teachings of Paolo Freire in "The Pedagogy of the Oppressed." St. Francis House received a $9000 bequest from a deceased parishioner who great support of co-ops, and St. Francis House loaned $4000 and granted $5000 to MASC (later MCC). It is not correct to say that I was paid by the houses, although under my administration, we charged $1.00 per month per member to cover expenses, and the system worked. Later, we developed extremely creative methods to finance the purchase of co-op houses, but in Nottingham's case, I negotiated a sweet deal with Pi Lambda Phi fraternity trustees -- a second year of lease, including option to buy the property any time before the end of the lease for a $10,000 down payment and a $90,000 land contract. I met with the fraternity board at a very nice house, thank you, in Kenilworth, Illinois, wearing my best fraternity outfit - a crisp blue dress shirt, a nice jacket, and new blue jeans. About a month later, when the new lease was ready to sign, a team of four of including Jeannine and (oops, I forgot) drove down to meet the fraternity board. We were so poor that we had to pay tolls using quarters scraped up from the grounds around the toll booths.

During the summer of 1971, I offended a few members of Nottingham, and that's a story of its own that does not deserve exposure here. Let me just say that I was not guilty of the offense they accused me of, but I was guilty of plenty of other offenses they didn't know about. In August 1971, at a house members meeting in the dining room, the others asked me, another gentleman, and a lady to leave the house. I learned from that event that people expected the highest level of ethical behavior from me, especially since I was in a position of responsibility. I have acted much more ethically ever since. (No, it had nothing to do with money.)

Technically, Nottingham was an MCC-member house until that point, and thereafter they stopped paying dues.

Benjamin Pierce referred to Madison Area Students of Co-operation, but that was never its name -- he's confused MASC's name with North American Students of Cooperation, the voluntary association of student and campus co-ops in Canada and the USA. MASC never "included MCC", but rather simply changed its name. Union Taxi was never a member of MCC. Then-co-operative Yellow Jersey Bike Co-op was not founded with MCC money, but one of its founders Phil Van Valkenburg and I had lengthy discussions about the best way to organize the proposed new bike shop. We agreed that a consumer's co-op like REI was best, and Yellow Jersey stayed a co-op for about two years before its managers bought out the membership's investment, creating a fund that was supposed to be used to start other co-ops, but that was the last I heard of it. I don't recall whether Yellow Jersey ever joined MCC as an associated co-op. Mifflin Street was never an MCC member, although at an MCC meeting held at Nottingham when its building was up for sale, MCC offered to buy the building for the asking price -- only $32,000! -- but Mifflin Street declined politely. MCC members were among the many who founded and support Williamson Street grocery co-op, but again, I don't recall whether Willy Street ever joined MCC as an associate member. Benjamin's conjecture about MASCO art supply is completely untrue. Also, his statement that "MASC" is defunct is also untrue -- renamed as MCC, the co-op association is very much alive and active.

Nottingham did not proactively "secede" from MCC -- it simply stopped paying dues but stayed friendly with the other co-ops, and leased and bought its property under its own name. Benjamin cites "The oral tradition at Nottingham has always been that Nottingham ceded from MASC as an objection to the fact that MCC decided to hire paid staffers," but when I never heard that objection during the years I was paid $100 a month. I would say with more clarity that I offended some members at Nottingham, the fault was entirely mine, I bear no hard feelings, I regret my actions, I'm sorry, and we've all moved on.

I do not agree with Benjamin's statement "When Jay Jacob Wind was MCC President, and that soon after that that other MASC affiliates dropped away. MASC was not, as such, a co-operative insofar as it distributed no assets among the participants." It's totally false. First, I was MCC's president in the fall of 1970 for about four months. Thereafter, our presidents were Mary Neisius of Co-operative Threads, a gentleman from Solveig House whose name I don not recall just now, then Merrill Glustrom of International House who proposed the name "MCC" and who I worked with to re-write MCC's bylaws to give people to the people, then Marc McNary of LeChateau, who had the good fortune to be MCC president when MCC successfully outbid James Korb to purchase 636 Langdon Street.

Benjamin wrote [my comments are in brackets] As a long-time resident of Nottingham, I have had occasion to look at our oldest records, including our articles of incorporation (and probably by-laws, which I wrote both of) and an early-80's court case where the former land owner [that would be Pi Lambda Phi fraternity's trustees] sought to avoid full transference of the title to Nottingham, and an insurance settlement from an attic fire, in about 1982. MCC as such is never mentioned in any of these documents, and so I strongly doubt that Nottingham is a former MCC house [expect that MASC, later MCC, organized the co-op and held the lease of for the first year.]

Benjamin wrote [my comments are in brackets] Finally, I know that all MCC houses are collectively owned by all members of each house, and I believe it has been that way since it was founded out of what was then Stone Manor. Had Nottingham ever participated in this ownership structure, there would be copious records [the minutes of meetings in 1971 are problably nowhere to be found, but MCC met occasionally in Nottingham's spacious living room], especially since Nottingham would have had to achieve permission to secede at an MCC General membership meeting [as covered above, they simply just stopped participating after I left -- I'm sad to say that is was the catalyst for that disaster] --and I think the collective memory, as well as the records would still be intact. Perhaps I am mistaken in thinking that MCC always had that ownership structure -- but I think it dates back to the late 60's/early 70's purchase of what was then LeChateau co-op by the core of MCC at Stone Manor, and the similar purchase of Lothlorien around that time. [I agree 100% with Benjamin. Members own all MCC houses as "tenants in common" not with a subdivided interest. If you're an MCC member, you own an equal share of all house. If you're a Nottingham member, you own an equal share just of Nottingham. Same for Rochdale, and Summit Avenue. Badger Photo Co-op was a different story. Larry Kneeland bought the house and wanted MCC's help to find other photography students to fill the house. MCC helped him for a year or two, they paid MCC dues, and we even had one meeting there where Larry and his members took plenty of photos.]

Benjamin wrote [my comments are in brackets] Unless there are specific records of Nottingham belong to, then seceding from MCC rather than MASC, I feel that Nottingham should be taken off the list of former houses. [Not exactly. The correct phrasing is simply, Nottingham was founded by MASC and was a participating member co-op house during its first year of existence. Leave it at that.] I also feel that a Wikipedia article on MASC is long overdue--does MCC still have the minutes, etc?

Benjamin Pierce of Nottingham Co-op with comments by Jay Jacob Wind, and at long last, I can say "Co-founder of Nottingham Co-op, but lasted there only for 8 months"

240 Langdon

The former MCC house listed as "240 Langdon" was known as "Tralfamadore" while it functioned. It was always refered to as such, as an historical example, in BOD meetings etc. throughout the 1990's if anyone wishes to verify this point. I have taken the liberty of changing adding Tra's name to the list.

Benjamin Pierce of Nottingham Co-op

Former Houses

The list of Former Houses seems awkward because it does not distinguish between houses that were once owned by MCC and were either sold or restarted and independant co-ops that may or may not still be in existence which were once Class B members houses before MCC was restructured to only included owned houses. If we are going to include former MCC houses, there should be more history on the page that explains what that means. I was thinking that we should perhaps create a page that lists all Madison area co-ops, and maybe has a general history of co-ops in Madison, since there are so many and they are quite important to the culture of Madison and to the co-op movement in general. Some of that history could come from the history that is on the MCC homepage, although I've heard that it's somewhat innaccurate so we may need to do more research.

Anna of Nottingham

MASC vs. MCC

Madison Association of Student Cooperatives (MASC) was the original name of the organization incorporated in approximately 1967 to hold the lease on the co-op house to be newly-opened at 225 Lakelawn Place. I attended its organizational meeting in the living room of International Co-op House, 140 West Gilman Street. Max Kummerow had been to or knew of co-op systems in other cities, particularly Minneapolis-St. Paul, East Lansing, Ann Arbor, and Toronto. Also attending that meeting were George Farrens, Tom Klein (who invited me to the meeting), Julie Stein, and Ward Paxton of International Co-op. Also Phillip Davis, from Chicago like me, and an extraordinarily-creative thinker and poet who happened to sit next to me at the meeting. Max presented the offer of a grant of $4000 and a loan of $5000 from St. Francis House, the campus Episcopal church whose pastor, Father Arthur Seldon Lloyd, was already knowledgeable about co-ops and a proponent of Paul Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed." We agreed to call the new organization "MASC," to accept the grant and loan, and to lease the new co-op house. Then the question arose, "What do we call the house?" I moved "Let's call it Stone Manor." Phillip seconded my motion, and the name was approved unanimously.

What we didn't understand is that we were at the tip of an iceberg. The fraternity/sorority system along Langdon Street was fast diminishing numbers, emptying many great big houses, perfect for co-ops, to be up for rent or for sale. MASC rented Stone Manor for a year starting June 1969 and then bought the building for $160,000 in June 1970. I moved there when we opened and quickly discovered that every member of a co-op had unique abilities and perspectives, and somehow, Max and I became "Johnny Co-op-seeds," scouting all the vacant house with a plan to rent them for a year and then offer to buy them. So in the June 1970, MASC rented 226 Lakelawn Place, which the members, led by Ken Perlow (a former member of Inter Co-operative Council in Ann Arbor) and Jimmy Regis (the guy who could fix anything), named "Marvin Gardens." MASC also rented 1820 Summit Avenue, led by James Reavis, and simpy called it "Summit Avenue Co-op. Then in January 1970, MASC rented 146 Langdon Street, which the members named "Nottingham Co-op." I was one of the first members to move in, along with Jeannine Wall, also a veteran of Stone Manor, and Chris Smith, formerly of International Co-op.

That fall, Mary Neisius, formerly a member of Susan B. Davis House (which was next door to Zoe Bayliss House, the two women's co-ops owned by University of Wisconsin), approached us about funding a new kind of co-ops, a showplace for handcrafts. MASC's board asked a bunch of questions on why to fund non-housing co-ops, but after the discussion, we happily voted to fund Co-operative Threads, which opened on University Drive west of Park Street, next to Rennebohm's Drug Store, and with a location like that and a mission to promote local artisans, became an instant success.

That January, MASC elected Merrill Glustrom of International Co-op as president. He and I had some long-lasting ideas. First, we realized "MASC" was a terrible name. We settled on "Madison Community Co-op" and officially changed our corporate name. After all, just like the Madison Book Co-op's principal product was books, our principal project was community -- as sense of belonging to a group in a house that belonged to you. Merrill and I re-wrote the by-laws of MCC to make it operable even with just one house or scale-able to any number of houses. Our secret recipe: Five members at a membership meeting makes a quorum. Five directors at a board meeting makes a quorum. The directors included officers elected by the membership - president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, plus an executive director selected by the board - plus one director from every house, plus one additional director from any house with 25 (26?) or more members. Thus MCC meetings could always proceed even in the absence of enthusiasm.

We also realized housing was not the only kind of co-op. Green Lantern Dining Co-op predated MCC by several decades. Mifflin Street Co-op grew on its own, although when the building came up for sale that spring, MCC offered to buy the building but give entire authority to Mifflin Street Co-op. Also, I met with the five bicyclists who founded Yellow Jersey Bike Co-op, including my good friend Phil Van Valkenburg, although they got it started without any MCC money.

The other long-lasting idea was that MCC would own the houses that it started, so all future members and houses would share the common base of equity. On the strength of that idea, I negotiated the second year's lease at Nottingham and the option to buy it for just $10,000 down and a $90,000 land contract. Unfortunately, I became increasing unpopular at Nottingham because of inconsiderate personal habits and the feeling that somehow, I was special. Now I realize that my ethical compass was all awry back then, and all I can do is apologize for my errors and move forward.

A year later, Nottingham Co-op raised the $10,000 cash and executed the option-to-buy, and I congratulated Eric Roang, Jeannine, Sandy Lottes, Chris Smith, Mary Helen Young, Silvio Machado, and all the other members of Nottingham for succeeding where I failed.

Moving right along, with the support of St. Francis House's grant, I was paid $100 a month to manage and enlarge MCC and co-ops in general, and we moved MCC's office to the basement of St. Francis House, 1011 University Avenue. From there, I negotiate the purchases of 240 Langdon Street for Tralfamadore Co-op from Mutual Services Insurance Co-op in Minneapolis; and 244 Lakelawn Place from the Zeier Brothers for Lothlorien Co-op. I also worked to organize Langdon Area Grocery Co-op in the basement of Tralfamadore.

I left Madison in June 1974 to take a job at Student Housing Co-operative at Michigan State University in East Lansing. Suddenly, a crisis arose in Madison at the corner of Langdon and Lake Streets. The owner of a building occupied by Le Chateau Co-op, previously an affiliated but not MCC-owned house was putting it up for sale to James Korb, a large-scale land owner in Madison. By long distance phone calls and frequent drives back to Madison, I helped the group working to save the co-op house, and through co-operative work and especially efforts by Ed Korn and previous MCC president Mark McNary, MCC succeeded in raising the $120,000 to match Mr. Korb's offer, and the co-op house was saved.

I shall edit Benjamin Pierce's histories later.

-- Thank you -- Jay Jacob Wind

CMHC vs. MCC vs. MASC

Benjamin wrote:

[My comments are in brackets]

I seriously question the inclusion of some of these houses in a generic list, which has current houses that were always MCC or were in MCC from early on, with houses that were never in MCC and in a few cases were in the co-op arm of the now-defunct Madison Mutual Housing and Co-operative Association (which kept its mutual housing arm as Madison Development Corporation)

• Anon, 170 Jackson Street was never an MCC house [I have no information.]

• Badger Photo [Co-op House was owned by Larry Kneeland, who asked MCC for help finding other photography students to live there. MCC held one meeting there, and all the members took photos. Badger Photo joined MCC and paid associate member dues for one or two years.]

• Kibbutz Langdon, 142 Langdon, [was the site of a terrible mistake by MCC (the name "MASC" was changed a few years earlier.) The leader of Kibbutz Langdon somehow convinced MCC's board to lease the building to the house corporation which an option to buy, and then when the house corporation failed to exercise its option, MCC's board extended the lease and the option for another year. Then the house corporation did exercise its option, stayed in place for one more year, and then sold the house (flipped it) to Theta Delta Chi, who were not its original residents. It was an owned house and dues-paying member of MCC during its entire three-year existence as a co-op.]

• Melting Snow Co-op -- never in MCC. Went defunct c. 1990-91 because the inhabitants decided not to pursue successors upon moving out. [I have no information.]

• Rivendell, 622 N Henry St. was in MCC for at least one year as an associate member. The official corporate name behind Rivendell is CMHC -- Central Madison Housing Corporation.

[You have to understand something about the era. University of Wisconsin had bought vast tracts of low-priced housing and bulldozed whole blocks downtown to make space for university buildings that never came during my entire seven years in Madison. The absence of all those houses put enormous pressure on the university to provide housing, so they built high-rises like Ogg, Sellery, and Witte. Some would call those properties vertical slums.]

[MCC had three MCC advisors -- real estate professor Dr. James Graaskamp, MASC founder Max Kummerow, and our attorney Mark Musolf. In the fall of 1970, when I was selected as MCC's executive director, I spent many hours talking with them to understand what we could do and should do. MASC (later to be called MCC) rented Summit Avenue and Nottingham for a year each, before the house corporations bought the houses. Along the way, 222 Langdon was a one-year co-op leased by a house corporation, and then sold by its fraternity trustee owners to James Korb. MCC could have bought it, if the members of 222 Langdon Street had asked us. 260 Langdon was a big house but totally trashed by its last generation of fraternity members. MCC could have bought it, gutted it, and rebuilt it as a co-op, but we didn't think of that idea at the time, and James Korb bought it. Resistance House, 211 Langdon Street, was for sale for a few months, and MCC could have / should have bought it. Many other houses were for sale, and MCC could have bought them for $100,000 to $150,000 each -- and pass the benefits of those house purchases to generations of students to come. We were held down, however, by a few anti-expansion members, and we preferred to operate by consensus.]

[Then even as MCC had opportunities to expand, to our surprise, Graaskamp, Kummerow, and Musolf -- who helped us conceive and dedicate Stone Manor, Marvin Gardens, Nottingham, and Summit Avenue-- had the bright idea to go into business in opposition to MCC. They had no faith whatsoever in the co-ops they themselves had promoted.]

[I think the problem was me. I think they didn't think that I could manage the co-op system -- I don't know -- I always thought they were friends until a year later, when I realized that Rivendell could have been an MCC house, and the beauty of a co-op house is, once it's paid for, you don't have to keep paying for it over and over, like normal real estate that's bought and sold. Instead, you can use the proceeds from members' monthly house payments to buy more co-op houses. I had a vision 50 years ago that looked forward 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years into the future. My beloved real estate professor, my attorney, and my partner in co-op organizing lacked a fundamental understanding of how the future should be. Was my vision correct? Looking back after 50 years, I can say with 100% certainty that my vision of correct. All the co-ops I worked to start (except Tralfamadore, which MCC sold for a big profit) are continuing and thriving to this day. In the words of "Hamilton," "I prob'ly shouldn't brag, but dag, I amaze and astonish / The problem is I got a lot of brains but no polish."]

• Rochdale [International Co-op is still functioning, being the second longest-running co-op in Madison after Babcock House Co-op, which opened in the 1940's and thrived ever since, never touched by the rest of the co-op movement. Benjamin wrote about "Rochdale Confederation" but no such thing exists. Rochdale International Co-op House was a dues-paying member of MCC for at least one year, but it is an independent house. Babcock was never an associate member of MCC, but MCC should approach them about membership.]

• Solveig House [was an enthusiast participant in MCC for its year of existence, and in fact at the time, MCC president Robert Bohrer was a resident of Solveig. The problem was that the house corporation held a one-year lease, and a year later, another group, not a co-op, outbid them for a lease. MCC could have AND SHOULD HAVE attempted to negotiate a second year's lease and maybe a purchase.]

• Summit Avenue at 1820 Summit Avenue [was just like Nottingham. Max Kummerow and James Reaven negotiated the lease for the first year under MASC's name, then the house corporation bought the house. They paid MCC dues for a few years early in their life cycle.]

• Tralfamadore Co-op at 240 Langdon [was an MCC house from day one. I negotiated the purchase for $120,000 after driving up to Minneapolis in a snowstorm to meet with executives of the owner, Mutual Services Insurance Company, which acquired the property after a mortgage default by its previous residents. Mutual Services is a consumer's co-op, and I reprented MCC as a fellow co-op. The price tag was just $120,000 for a big property, always owned by MCC until they sold it about 8 years later.]

• Yahara [Land Trust on Linden Street was founded by Janet Hilliker, an alumna of Stone Manor. She had the same idea as me -- take a house off the market and let subsequent generations of members enjoy the fruits of the labors of the earlier members, except she called it a "Land Trust." Janet did a good job, but I wish the house had joined MCC, at least as an associate. They may have done so after I moved to East Lansing.]

[I suggest even today that MCC should rent vacant houses for a year with an option to buy. MCC's treasury has grown through the years, and now is always a good time to buy real estate.]

[Will Rogers said, "Buy land. They ain’t making any more of the stuff." Mark Twain said, "Buy land, they’re not making it anymore."]

Jay.wind (talk) 03:09, 22 March 2021 (UTC) Jay Jacob Wind, former executive director, Madison Community Co-operative

prod!

[Jay Jacob Wind wrote: I don't have great Wikipedia editing skills, but I have wanted to set the record straight for many years. I can only cite my own recollections, but fortunately, I have a (Badger) photographic memory.]

I prodded this article, as the only citations are primary, and even those are few. Please remove the prod tag if you feel you can wikify the article and cite factual assertions to non-primary sources. Failing that, though, I'll either nominate for AfD or stubify if the prod tag comes down. LOL^thulu 19:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I removed the prod tag, added more content, and multiple references. I'm now creating a to do list and will work on cleaning up the rest of the article and adding more references. Poseurtech (talk) 15:30, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I removed all of the primary sources, including references to MCC's own web page, minutes from meetings of Dane County boards, the Loth wiki, and I think that's it. Please review WP:PRIMARY and WP:OR before replacing them. LOL^thulu 16:07, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Cooperatives Mid-importance Reasoning

MCC is a 200 person co-op organization with a unique organizational structure with deep ties to NASCO and radical/progressive movements in Madison. Poseurtech (talk) 15:38, 17 January 2009 (UTC)