Welcome to Trafnet

On a cold November morning near the confluence in Franklin Pennsylvania George Washington and Benjamin Franklin looked out over the future settlement. They both agreed that they had done what they could with the new federal government but someday there would be a tavern near this location that would be the most transparent and democratically managed business to ever exist. 

Mitch Miller would like to operate a tavern at 801 Liberty Street in Franklin, Pennsylvania. This location formerly housed a bar named “The Office” which served the community for many years. Mitch has a number of ideas for a business at this location which are detailed below.

On Wednesday the tavern will be open to those seeking to try mental health therapy. Mitch is going to try to work with psychology grad students to get them to listen to patrons for 20 minute sessions. The idea is that more people might get into therapy if they can try it in an environment where they can sip a cocktail and open up about themselves.

The mental health clinic will run from noon til 8pm on Wednesdays. Members and patrons will be able to pay $20 for a 20 minute session with a psychology grad student. Patrons will sign a waiver acknowledging that this is not a legitimate form of mental health care and that they should seek professional licensed help if they are having difficulties. Mitch will buy or build a laptop with no internet capability for notes to be kept on different customers. These notes can be released to the customer so that they can take them to a legitimate psychiatrist should they seek professional therapy.

Thursdays will be “sober Thursday” where not a drop of alcohol will be served at the establishment. Instead mocktails and non-alcoholic beer will be served to patrons. This will hopefully encourage people who do not drink to congregate and socialize. The purpose of this establishment is to create safe spaces for people to gather.

Fridays will be Jazz night. Mitch will try to grow a jazz scene at the bar even if its just him singing some jazz standards with a karaoke machine. In the vein of direct democracy Mitch will take suggestions from the audience for songs he should add to the repertoire. The members and patrons will be able to vote on which song Mitch should work on for the week.

Saturdays will be LGBTQ+ friendly night. Patrons will be asked to be respectful of all cultures all of the time. On Saturdays we will invite this community to drive the entertainment or events happening at the establishment.

Sundays will be another mental health clinic for members and patrons that can’t make it on Wednesdays. The hours for this clinic will be voted on but will probably be from 10am-6pm. Hopefully we can expand this clinic to meet community needs.

Mitch Miller is a free market entrepreneur and the model for this business will reflect that. Mitch is a 2002 graduate of Franklin High School and has a Bachelor’s degree in Film from the University of Pittsburgh. Mitch operated a house painting business in college and managed 12 employees producing $100,000 worth of painting work two summers in a row. After college he started another house painting business and later ventured into handy person work. Mitch is skilled at most aspects of maintaining a building.

Mitch cut his bartending chops in Pittsburgh at a tavern and also spent 3 months in Denmark bartending at a club. Mitch is willing to bartend most days and manage the business for free for the first year. Once we see what type of profit the business produces a percentage of profit will be voted on for Mitch’s compensation. 

Any staff will have to be open to Mitch’s direct democracy management style. Staff meetings will be held weekly or monthly where Mitch will take hand votes to resolve any issues. Compensation will be voted on by staff and after the first year compensation can be renegotiated based off of the profit of the business.

Mitch will run a transparent business and will publish all costs and profit via monthly reports. Any member of the club will have access to this information. He will also keep a podcast about the challenges of the business and any other aspects he wishes to talk about. This podcast will be public and available to anyone for free.

Mitch is looking to both operate a business at 801 Liberty Street while also developing proprietary software for other people to be able to open a similar establishment in their hometown. Mitch is hoping to raise money to acquire the property and develop the web platform through a hybrid club/ open to public model.

There will be two levels of membership in this business, a $50 associate member and a $100 voting member. These membership dues will be due yearly. The $50 associate member level allows for a person to be guaranteed at least one reservation per month for one of the services or nights offered. As the business model develops we will increase how many guaranteed seats associate members will get per month.

The $100 voting membership level grants some equity in the business. These members will be able to vote on all aspects of the business from the beer we serve to the type of toilet paper we buy. Should the website develop in a way that other businesses want to use our platform we will charge a small reasonable fee. Voting members will get a yearly dispersement based off of these fees. Voting members will also be guaranteed a certain number of seats per month just like associate members.

Voting members will also be issued a dividend at the end of the year when the profit report comes out. To incentivize members to maximize profit per seat Mitch has developed a free market reservation system strategy. Members will be able to download an app that allows them to make a reservation for a seat at the club. All members that have the app can see which members are currently seated and which members are waiting for a seat. They will also be able to see the current and potential bar tab of members.

For example, it’s a busy Friday night and John has been at the club for an hour and racked up a $100 bar tab. Kim is waiting for a table but through the app she can pre-order her first round of drinks. Kim pre-orders 3 martinis for about $50 and another member waiting for a table, Hillary, pre-orders 3 beers for $12. John is about ready to leave and sees both Hillary and Kim’s pre-orders. John is able to choose which member he wants to give his table to and because he wants that end of year dividend to be larger he chooses Kim. John only vacates the table after Kim’s card has been run for her pre-order.

Mitch is looking to collect first year membership dues to put a down payment on the property at 801 Liberty Street and secure a mortgage. He will also use it to form a LLC and launch the business. If Mitch is not able to secure the property at 801 Liberty he will return your money to you less any processing fees and the cost of a stamp and check. Basically if you pay $50 through this site and the business fails to launch you will be returned around $45 or more once he works out the costs of returning all of the money. Isn’t $5 worth investing in a really cool community space that could pay potential dividends?

The property is listed through Coldwell Banker for $300,000. A mortgage will probably be around $36,000 per year. If we can raise the yearly mortgage in membership fees I am hoping to be able to talk to a bank about buying the property. There may be an email to follow that is an agreement to pay yearly dues but the first step is using the PayPal button below to get this project off the ground. We thank you for any support you can offer!

Trafnet is a non-profit dedicated to streamlining and better organizing traffic on the roads. We have a multitude of different strategies to accomplish this that we intend to roll out in different phases. Whether you are an urban driver or rural driver we have ideas to improve your driving experience.

Phase 1 focuses on traffic in densely populated areas around rush hour. We are designing stickers and magnets that can be attached to the rear of vehicles. These magnets will have the parking area a vehicle is driving to during morning rush hour and be attached to the left rear of the vehicle. A magnet with the main thoroughfare that vehicle takes during evening rush hour will be attached to the right rear of the vehicle. Our idea is that if drivers can better identify where a vehicle is going, they will be more likely to allow that vehicle to merge into the correct lane. As drivers become more familiar with traffic patterns the commute will become more reduced and traffic will become more streamlined.

During phase 1 our goal is to establish relationships with businesses located in densely populated areas. Most cities and business are developing strategies to become more sustainable and we believe we can help them meet those goals. If you would like to become a Trafnet coordinator at your downtown business please fill out the email form below.

Phase 2 involves more technology based strategies for coordinating traffic. We want to work with businesses and their employees to identify what routes they take to commute to and from work. We will then breakdown each route around a city and figure out what its capacity is without causing congestion. We will then work with employees and businesses to break each commuter into 3 separate groups. Group A will report to work by 8am, Group B will report to work by 8:30am and Group C will report to work by 9am. The same strategy will be used for the evening commute. Stickers and magnets will be available for each group to attach to the rear of their vehicle. We believe this strategy will greatly reduce rush hour traffic.

Phase 3 is geared more toward weekend commuters and rural drivers. It involves the interstate highway system. We want to lobby the government to require all commercial vehicles to stay in the right lane on these highways between the hours of 7am and 7pm. With adequate enforcement this will free up the passing lane for commuters and push commercial traffic to the nighttime hours when traffic is not as busy. We believe that an even 12 hour split is fair to commercial freight liners and we will work to improve pay for nighttime drivers.

Those are the first 3 phases for our new non-profit but we have many more ideas for improving traffic thereby reducing emissions and headaches. Please check out the funding page to help fund the formation of the non-profit. Also look at the Pittsburgh designs page to see the magnet designs we have come up with so far for the city of Pittsburgh and send us your ideas for designs that can help improve traffic.

Please see our funding page or click the button below to view our Gofundme. Thanks.

Can't support us monetarily at this time? Please consider joining our Facebook group to show support for the program. We can use this group to share ideas and vote on different aspects of the business. Click the button to see the group.