Urban Unrest

18 October 2006 | Pacifica | Ernesto Aguilar

It’s a shame that Pacifica elections are right around the time of mid-term elections, as many listeners have been confused about the races. However, Pacifica elections are incredibly important. Our board helps determine the direction of KPFT, and your vote matters tremendously.

The Pacifica Foundation is engaged in a unique process right now, in which its local boards of directors are being elected from a pool of listeners and volunteers. Listeners get to vote, as do our volunteers. From the local boards come members that compose our national board of directors.

As in any election, I encourage you to make an educated vote.

There are a number of resources available. Please read up on the candidates via their candidate statements. Candidates Allen (Teresa), Schroell, Swain, Woodson and Young are running for re-election, and many others are regulars at board meeting public comment, so you can listen to the board meeting archive to hear what they say and do. You may also listen to the audio from the October on-air forums for candidates: LSB Candidate Forum (Friday) [Teresa Allen, Wendy Schroell], LSB Candidate Forum (Saturday) [James Allen, Bill Crossier, Thomas Williams], LSB Candidate Forum (Sunday) [Wesley Bethune, Don Cook], LSB Candidate Forum (Monday) [Abati Doe, Bob Sanborn, Brian Swain] and LSB Candidate Forum (Tuesday) [Joseph Kaye, Rick Pothoff, Susan Young].

As you hear the forums, you’ll note many questions are of the fascism-versus-freedom variety (e.g. “do you favor a general manager with a fedora, cape and cartoon-style bomb ready to hurl at a crate of puppies or a board that brings peace, prosperity and a chicken in every pot?”). Some questions were very leading, and almost always disparaged someone in their utterance. Some candidates handled these well, and addressed the big picture for the complex and unique growth opportunities they represented. You’ll also hear a lot of questions about programming, which candidates most certainly have their opinions about, but which they have little direct selection of. More on that in a bit.

Some things I do when reviewing candidates for elected office:

• Experience and contributions to the area
• Community work in service of community values
• Overall leadership and management philosophy

We have some great candidates. A bit of research will reveal some true local leaders who could be real assets to KPFT. It is crucial that you understand, as you review candidates, what our board does and does not do. Pacifica’s bylaws describe board tasks:

A. To review and approve that station’s budget and make quarterly reports to the Foundation’s Board of Directors regarding the station’s budget, actual income and expenditures.

B. To screen and select a pool of candidates for the position of General Manager of its respective radio station, from which pool of approved candidates the Executive Director shall hire the station’s General Manager.. The LSB may appoint a special sub-committee for this purpose.

C. To prepare an annual written evaluation of the station’s General Manager.

D. Both the Executive Director and/or an LSB may initiate the process to fire a station General Manager. However, to effectuate it, both the Executive Director and the LSB must agree to fire said General Manager. If the Executive Director and the LSB cannot agree, the decision to terminate or retain said General Manager shall be made by the Board of Directors.

E. To screen and select a pool of candidates for the position of station Program Director, from which pool of approved candidates the station’s General Manager shall hire the station’s Program Director. The LSB may appoint a special sub-committee for this purpose.

F. To prepare an annual written evaluation of the station’s Program Director.

G. To work with station management to ensure that station programming fulfills the purposes of the Foundation and is responsive to the diverse needs of the listeners (demographic) and communities (geographic) served by the station, and that station policies and procedures for making programming decisions and for program evaluation are working in a fair, collaborative and respectful manner to provide quality programming.

H. To conduct “Town Hall” style meetings at least twice a year, devoted to hearing listeners views, needs and concerns.

I. To assist in station fundraising activities.

J. To actively reach out to underrepresented communities to help the station serve a diversity of all races, creeds, colors and nations, classes, genders and sexual orientations, and ages and to help build collaborative relations with organizations working for similar purposes.

K. To perform community needs assessments, or see to it that separate “Community Advisory Committees” are formed to do so.

L. To ensure that the station works diligently towards the goal of diversity in staffing at all levels and maintenance of a discrimination-free atmosphere in the workplace.

M. To exercise all of its powers and duties with care, loyalty, diligence and sound business judgment consistent with the manner in which those terms are generally defined under applicable California law.

To address two common views: although it is very easy to campaign on issues like programming and management, voters should understand that board members do not have the power individually to change our program grid to fit a campaign promise. Even if you might agree with their individual views about how a programming selection should be made, board members are not general managers nor program directors and don’t set the schedule. Similarly, board members cannot individually remove managers. Our bylaws state such decisions must be made by the board and Pacifica’s executive director. If the board wants one thing and the ED wants another, that discussion can be had by the national board of directors. However, the process itself is involved and is not something any one person can promise to do within the context of the bylaws.

Your ballots should arrive shortly. Please do your homework and make an educated vote for your community.

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