Talk:Madison Community Cooperative

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1 Property Tax Exemption Discussion
2 Nottingham Co-op a former MASCO member, but (probably) not a former MCC house
3 240 Langdon
4 Former Houses
5 MASC vs. MCC

[edit] 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

[edit] Nottingham Co-op a former MASCO member, but (probably) not a former MCC house

I note that Nottingham Co-op is listed as a former MCC house--and I think that may be inaccurate. There was a closer formal relationship at one time, but as I recall it was under the auspices of the more loosly organized networking organization Madison Area Students of CO-Operation which included MCC as such, but also Union Taxi, the then-co-operative Yellow Jersy Bike shop, and I believe both the Mifflin and Willy Stret Grocery Co-ops, and the MASCO art supply store which is still on University, stll bearing that name. MASCO itself has long since been defunct.

The oral tradition at Nottingham has always been that Nottingham ceded from MASCO as an objection to the fact that MCC decided to hire paid staffers, I believe when Jay Jacob Wind was MCC President, and that soon after that that other MASCO affiliates dropped away. MASCO was not, as such, a co-operative insofar as it distributed no assets among the participants.

As a long-time resident of Nottingham, I have had occasion to look at our oldest reords, including our articles of incorporation and an early-80's court case where the former land owner sought to avoid full transferrence of the title to Nottingham inc, and an insurace 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.

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 partici[pated in this ownership structure, there would be copious records , especially since Nottingham would have had to achieve permission to secede at an MCC General memebrship meeting--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.

Unless there are specific records of Nottingham belong to, then seceding from MCC rather than MASCO, I feel that Nottingham should be taken off the list of former houses.

I also feel that a Wikipedia article on MASCO is long overdue--does MCC still have the minutes, etc?

Benjamin Pierce of Nottingham Co-op

[edit] 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

[edit] 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