Secretary Resignation - Board of Directors - MakeICT

the Wave is a seasonal outdoor venue with no proven track record. those places come and go, remember the Chicago Cab Co., The Cowboy, or Mama Love’s (which was underwritten by Anne Garvey)? im reluctant to hitch my wagon to a seasonal place that could burn out in 6 months. old town isnt that safe at nights on weekends, even with cameras and cops. the expense of infrastructure for the makerspace needs to be looked in to as well. would curt be willing to foot the bill for this? im still worried about break ins as well. thieves can move fast and what they cant take they can destroy. a hot Saturday night brawl could spill over into our makerspace and damage our reputation in the creative arts community. ill drive down there and take a look but im very pessimistic about this whole move thing. i remember the old adage "be careful with what you wish for "

Not sure what our budget is, but I read that the building where Greg Steven’s family game room on west street use to be, is available for lease. Its 15k square feet for about $5k per month. Also has a nice size parking lot, which is something we need badly.

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I have never been there… but I hear it is fabulous… so this would be an opportunity…

@Jens can you add John’s suggestion to our list of alternatives.

Discourse is giving me errors when attempting to edit my post to correct the image, so I guess I have to make a new one. Sorry about that.


I keep hearing anecdotes about incidents in that area, so I thought I’d share one. I lived/worked in Oakland California for like a couple of years and, despite being the 5th/6th most dangerous city in the US during that time, I never even witnessed a single crime in progress. Not a one.

Obviously, my experience wasn’t representative, nor is pretty much any singular experience of anything. That’s not to say we shouldn’t share our experiences, but we have to be careful about how much we let them bias our decision making. See:

Here’s a heatmap of crimes in the relevant areas using data from the City of Wichita Open Data portal.

Caveat 1: this only shows reported crimes. Many crimes go unreported and many undesirable incidents aren’t even crimes to begin with.
Caveat 2: the data is only from the last 90 days.

Now we know the REAL reason we don’t see dim much lol

The two big spots are the City and County buildings. Politicians!

Note: Many crimes of undetermined location are simply reported at these two law enforcement addresses, which is much of the reason they show up as artificially high crime areas. I was half-joking about politicians.

Saw this advertised on the news a few weeks ago. I believe this is connected to the public records and lists details of what crimes are committed and where they occurred.

https://www.communitycrimemap.com

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Yes it also lists registered offenders. It’s full of I formation!

I did use www.communitycrimemap.com to compare the two areas as soon as the Board meeting was over.

All the crime mapping sites have some flaws, but so far I have not found another that lets you specify as much as this one. Definitely it can give more information than anything else I found. I did find it necessary to go into the list of what crimes are shown to really see as much as possible about those kinds of incidents our members have said they are concerned about. I also found it useful to change the timeline of what is included to see how much is seasonal versus the longer term. My conclusions were that the amount of reported crime is about the same withing .25 mile of each location. The Printing Inc location does have more reported of some non-violent crimes a couple of blocks away (on Topeka). Our current location has more car larceny and theft a couple of blocks away.

No one can predict whether the indoor/outdoor music venue will invite or inhibit crime, but likely anything that brings cars to be parked will invite car thieves. A fenced lot is not an option where we are, and outside lighting has not received adequate attention. The new location might be better lighted and fenced parking seems like part of the deal as I understand it. Outside cameras and signage would help some too.

Any place that is new can predictably seem scarier than a place you are familiar with. That is an adaptive trait in humans and other animals, and creates a strong bias when trying to just take a look around to compare a new place to an old place.

Mike B

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Wow. There’s a lot happening in this thread, and a lot to think about. My two cents, I don’t feel safe in our current location, but I’d feel even less safe at the proposed location. I drive St. Francis daily and see people sleeping on that sidewalk every day.

I feel frustrated to see the way some folks treat others on this thread and in the makerspace as well. You probably don’t even know me, as I come in, do my thing, clean up and leave, but that’s partly because on several occasions I’ve had interactions with men in our space that left me scared, frustrated, or angry. On several occasions I’ve had “well meaning” men explain basic things to me that I didn’t ask for input on. Mansplaining, especially unsolicited, is infuriating.

On another occasion, I was alone in the ceramics studio when a strange man came in, blocking the door, and just stared at me for several minutes straight. He didn’t respond when I spoke to him, and I felt threatened and endangered. Thankfully, he left, and I never saw him again. I think safety should be a high priority, and I think that we need to make sure that the makerspace is a place where everyone feels comfortable.

It’s a shame that infighting like what we’re seeing here can easily overshadow all of the great things about the makerspace. I have had some good times as a member and I’m grateful to everyone who makes that possible, but I don’t like what I’m seeing here.

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What frustrates me about the naysayers in this thread is the general impulse to reject an idea out of hand as not being perfect; deciding to say “no” almost immediately out of habit or fear, and then coming up with reasons to support that decision. This is a documented problem our city has (see the Chung Report) and I would have thought a creative group like ourselves would have not succumbed this thought trap. Above all else, the “no” mentality that seems to pervade is the reason I don’t come by as much anymore.

I went to the first NOMCON in DC several years ago and one of the best things I learned there was that negativity was contagious and should be ejected from the organization. Perhaps this move would be good for us, those who are fearful, spiteful of a new building, etc, are literally left behind.

A few thoughts:

Our current space is on Douglas, a rapidly improving road. We have great visibility. We got a great deal on our lease when Douglas was not nearly as nice or as important as it is now. We don’t own and when our lease expires I expect the building owner to sell the building to re-develop it or raise the rent to market rate of at least $12/sq/ft/yr or $8700 monthly. We also don’t make use of our visibility, we have tables, chairs, and knick knacks in the window, often covered with heavy curtains. The building is at capacity in several ways: heat, AC, electric, new shop space, storage, parking.

We want to stay on Douglas, or in a really nice area of downtown. That isn’t going to happen. Douglas and nice areas of downtown has appreciated in value so much that the time to do that was 5 years ago, back when it looked like the way Printing Inc does now. Either cheaply get into an area you predict will improve or expensively buy into an already nice area.

Printing Inc is in a rapidly improving area of town that has already seen a ton of investment, and continues to do so. The area improves literally by the day, see The Wave being built, and Flats 324’s recent addition. I assume that women and children live safely in those apartments and venture outside after nightfall. Do you know how long Commerce street was a dump? It worked great because it was cheap, and people put up with some discomfort in order to get access to cheap and inspiring workspaces. There are still unsavory people and things even today. Those same people and things occur in nice places too, like College Hill where I live.

Also, that place is huge and had really expensive stuff inside it and as such is already pretty well secured. The perimeter and parking lot looks like it has tall fences, why not just install a motorized gate opener on it?

In summary: disavow yourselves of this notion that we can walk into a super-nice giant facility on Douglas for no increase in dues. We got extremely lucky where we’re at now, and that probably won’t happen again, plus we didn’t capitalize on and don’t need the street exposure we have. We’ll probably have to hike dues some amount, and move into a place that is less than perfect. Think creatively, stop being fearful, say yes to things once in a while.

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Good points Logan. And hopefully the area does improve and the city recognizes what people are trying to do and do their part to help. Has anyone spoken to the city about our intent to move? I wonder if they would be interested in furthering the cause when presented with the right proposal? Dom’s concerns about raising dues having a negative effect on less fortunate people also has a lot of merit. Those who would gladly do their work in a shop that has no air conditioning because they wouldn’t be able to afford it otherwise.

I have been in contact with Brandon Johnson, @Jens and I meet with Downtown Wichita. We need to get a group together and talk to the Economic Development Department. I just personal have not had the time to pursue. We really need more people with that line of thinking in leadership or willing to help leadership in that capacity.

The area is currently blocked off with super high fences. I noticed that yesterday when I went down at nighttime to see if I could find any of the homeless people out there. I couldn’t find any at that location likely because of the new fencing.
Two blocks over, there were some homeless sleeping on the sidewalk. I think there might be a soup kitchen there or something?

It’s not without problems or controversy, but what isn’t? It’s called gentrification, the process of displacing a group to improve (make worthy of middle class tastes) a location in a city that is home to an underserved sub section of the population. Some don’t like it.

I am quite sad you had these experiences, Lisa. If one of my sisters told me your story I would tell her do not go back.

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Thanks Christopher.

I am sorry someone made you feel uncomfortable. I would point out that some of the …umm more technical guys … might not realize that coming in and looking around would be awkward for a lady. i have worked for many years with mostly engineers and for some of them coming up behind you and waiting quietly will kinda creep you out until you realize, they have no clue it is creepy. I also was seriously weirded out when one of the guys at work knew what kind of car I drove… until I realized that almost all of them knew what kind of car I drove… apparently that is normal…lol

@LisaK
Without speculating about someones motives being innocent or bad. They should be made aware of the implication of their actions -> making you unconformable.

That sounds a bit odd. If you do not know the members name, or something like that happens again in the future you could bring your concerns to security@makeict.org. We do have cameras through out the building. “Thanks David/Devin”, They might be able to track down the member and clear things up.