[Kzyxtalk] Fw: [MCN-Announce]- [MCN-Discussion]- Fwd: The KZYX's board letter to Members
sako4 at comcast.net
sako4 at comcast.net
Wed Feb 19 18:36:20 PST 2014
The Executive Director things is a fiction, as far as I can tell.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sheila Dawn" <sheila.dawn50 at yahoo.com>
To: "Paul Lambert" <paul.lambert55 at yahoo.com>, kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org, kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2014 3:01:48 PM
Subject: Re: [Kzyxtalk] Fw: [MCN-Announce]- [MCN-Discussion]- Fwd: The KZYX's board letter to Members
The Question to ask the Board & the GM is how have they contributed to making our public radio station a participatory Community organization.
Coate Is Not the Executive Director of KZYX as he claims. There is no mention of such a position either in the Bylaws or in the Public Files required by the FCC (at the Philo studio). He has been caught lying several times-- confronting me at a Board meeting and misstating that the position of Executive Director was written, not only in his contract but in Belinda Rawlins contract. He knows, of course, that no one can peer into his contract but the Board of Directors. In checking with a Board member during Rawlins' time, I was told that the position of Executive Director was a "non issue", meaning that it was never discussed.
People who go along with Coates' analysis of top down management of the station find their status at the station on a fast incline from not a known entity to station programmer to paid news position all without any discussion from either the Board (at least in public) or the members. Is this a democratic or autocratic style of management?
Sheila Dawn Tracy
On Tuesday, February 18, 2014 7:36 PM, Paul Lambert <paul.lambert55 at yahoo.com> wrote:
On Tuesday, February 18, 2014 7:35 PM, Paul Lambert <paul.lambert55 at yahoo.com> wrote:
No one put me up to posting the Board's letter. So many people were talking about it so I went to the website, read it, copied it and posted it - because I thought people would be interested.
There is no conspiracy except in your own minds.
Let's get on with the work of mmaking KZYX better and that has little to do with the Board or even less with the management but with the listeners and the programmers.
Let's stopping playing the old blame game, get down to real issues and get on with it.
This isn't the 1990's or KPFA; you ;lost that battle then, so why re-fight it when all you can do is hurt the very institution you claim to support.
Paul Lambert
On Tuesday, February 18, 2014 1:42 PM, "nsi at mcn.org" <nsi at mcn.org> wrote:
Who is Elaine Herring? And why has she passed the task of making the
Board's letter public, on to a former employee of the station?
To shield her personal contact information I would guess.
Ms. Herring (not of the Anderson Valley Herrings) resided in Ukiah
two years before she managed a seat on the Board of Directors of
KZYX/Z. And now she is the Chair.
A Chair who shudders at the prospect of in-person, public, and
video-streamed Board meetings. Who has reduced the frequency of
those public meetings to even less than what the Board itself
recently agreed to.
Herring has no Institutional memory regarding the station. She is
comparing John Coate's performance with Belinda Rawlins, the ditz who
went through the bank draw and then vanished. And the same Board who
sat clueless while Rawlins went through a $200,000 draw, hired Coate.
Does anyone have contact information for Elaine Herring to share.
She's not listed in the phone book. The Board does not list their
email addresses on the station website.
Elaine does not answer email directed to her through the station
website.
I'd like to know, for instance, how Elaine Herring is connected to
RemCo, a plant along Highway 101 on the fringe of Ukiah, which
manufactures parts for nuclear weaponry. And whether that connection
(if it exists) has any bearing.
So the Board Members statement below, devoid of any opportunity for
Public Input, decided upon behind the curtain of the board
listserv--where they are not supposed to meet as a full group to come
to decisions regarding the station: those are tasks and deliberations
to be performed in Open Board meetings, or NOTICED Closed Sessions
(when assessments of personnel are the subject of evaluation or
scrutiny) .
I am really interested in how these board members came to what they
profess to "know." And how they have juggled the figures independent
of Coate.
And Paul Lambert. He too with the tiny Institutional memory; he too
with a smidgen of experience of residency in Mendocino County: who
was paid the full $20,000 of the allotted News Department budget to
do a daily 5 minute reading of submitted PR pieces, plus excerpts
from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and (occasionally) Ukiah Daily
Journal, often without attribution. The most criticized venture ZXYX
has ever engaged in. And was rewarded with the slot previously held
by Open Lines.
For those of you with Institutional memory: Remember the struggle at
Pacifica. The struggle against the machinations of the Pacifica Board
background:rgb(228,228,228);">From: "Mitch Clogg"
To:"Mendocino Listserv" ,
Cc:"scott peterson" , "Bruce Anderson"
Sent:Tue, 18 Feb 2014 12:29:55 -0800
Subject:[MCN-Discussion]- Fwd: [Kzyxtalk] The KZYX's board letter to
Members
This is an extraordinary letter. Squint at it. I've never seen one
like it.
Consider the Board of Directors, at the bottom. These are the
directors
of a controversial and floundering radio station. The skimpy I.D.'s
of
each raise more questions than they answer (like, what interest does
a
health-club manager in Santa Rosa have in a Mendocino public-radio
station?). Lots of others. How enlightened and "progressive", on
average, are realtors?
I reject nonsense about "balance" at KZYX, meaning the business and
conservative communities deserve equal air time--or any promised
time-allotment, anymore than Islam should be entitled to build a
minaret
in the Vatican. The Mendocino radio audience can be considered in
the
light of our voter registration. Democrats, Greens, Independents and
Peace-and-Freedom voters represent a much higher share here than
elsewhere, so the question of what's "middle ground" in this
demographic
will yield an answer that is unique to this place. It's as
Left-leaning
here as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The radio station has always been
more conventional and Establishment-friendly than its listeners. (It
was
founded by a wine salesman.)
In other words, the socio-political "neutral" place here is not the
same
(duh!) as it is in Dallas, Texas, Charleston, South Carolina or
Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia. This is obvious, but it is inevitably overlooked
(except
by those who benefit from ignoring the Environmental-Progressive
people
in favor of the chamber-of-commerce people, in the station's
decisions).
Station management will counter this by pointing out all the
folk-friendly shows on air. None has had keen-enough teeth to add
any
note to the coastal breeze, and the station's management, far from
fostering the "OUR THING" jubilation that has characterized, say,
KMUD
(to name just one of numerous good stations), keeps the shades drawn
as
much as the law allows.
Consider, too, that wherever there is a money stream, as there is
whenever KZYX has a pledge drive, there is always somebody with a
straw
stuck in that stream. It is folly to assume that things are on the
up &
up there.
Mitch Clogg
Mendocino
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Kzyxtalk] The KZYX's board letter to Members
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 11:16:28 -0800 (PST)
From: Paul Lambert
Reply-To: Paul Lambert , kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org [1]
To: kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org [2] ,
kzyxtalk-request at lists.mcn.org [3]
The State of the Station February 2014
We are eight of the nine Directors on the Board of Mendocino County
Public Broadcasting. We are pleased to report on the remarkable
STATE
OF THE STATION.
· We know that KZYX&Z is financially secure.
· We know that the station is ready and able to provide the
community with critical, lifesaving information and news when needed
in
an emergency.
· We know that we offer programs that listeners enjoy and
depend on hearing in their daily lives.
· We know that the station has a devoted, stable membership.
· We know that the station is making necessary technical
improvements to its infrastructure and equipment to improve our
signals
and minimize/eliminate downtime.
And we know that we owe much of this progress, this success, to the
efforts and accomplishments of our General Manager John Coate and
his
staff.
Business/Finances:
We give our General Manager full credit for turning around the
stationâ??s finances. When John Coate was hired in 2008, KZYX was
more
than $200K in debt. At this time (Feb. 17, 2014) we have more money
in
the bank than we owe. We could pay every bill we have, past and
present, and still have funds in the bank Our $75K line of credit
has
not been touched since November, and has been untouched for 8 out of
the
past 12 months.
For the past 3 years our audits, prepared by an independent
professional, have included a cover letter declaring that there are
no
irregularities or problems with our bookkeeping and accounting
practices.
John retired $116K in old debts last fiscal year. He restructured
our
remaining debt into a single no-interest monthly payment, which we
have
made without fail for almost two years.
John reorganized our membership department to ensure more timely and
consistent mailings, such as pledge acknowledgement letters.
John shares all financial information with the Board in a way that
is
prompt and upfront. During his tenure as GM he has become an expert
in
managing a highly unpredictable cash flow and implementing cost
control
measures.
Operations/Infrastructure:
We installed a new backup power generator at the Philo studio. In
the
past, the entire station would go off the air every winter,
sometimes
for days at a time, due to power failure. This no longer happens.
Now we have
a new Emergency Alert System
a new main control console in Philo
a new state-of-the-art antenna for KZYX 90.7
a new and improved program automation system
a digital storage unit to begin building a comprehensive digital
music
library.
backup equipment for various parts of the signal path resulting in
far
less downtime when something breaks
We have changed the way the satellite studios connect to Philo,
saving
hundreds of dollars each month in phone charges.
We rebuilt every part of the equipment required for the 88.1 signal
on
Bald Hill above Fort Bragg. Now it is trouble-free.
We replaced the unit that converts audio to a radio signal to a
higher
quality unit that greatly improves the fidelity of the broadcast.
We completely rebuilt the kzyx.org website in 2012, relying
primarily on
the efforts of staff and volunteers
There have been numerous improvements to office and studio
components
such as computers, microphones, CD players, etc. and the Philo
studio
building has been rewired for better reliability.
Programming:
We have a dedicated volunteer staff of about 100 programmers who
provide
a quality product, week in and week out. We have 31 local
programmers
and 17 local programs on the air today that were not on the air in
August 2008 when John began. These include Mendo Matters, Give and
Take, Consider This, The Sonic Blender, Portrait in Jazz as well as
many
others. We are constantly looking to update our programming to keep
it
fresh, and we continue to welcome new programmers and new program
ideas
that will help us to better serve our community. We expanded our
local
news coverage with the addition of Michael Kisslinger and veteran
reporter and producer Sheri Quinn.
We, the undersigned trustees on the MCPB Board of Directors, are
very
grateful to John Coate and to his A-Team staff for their excellent
contributions to our station. We are diverse, independent-minded
individuals who believe wholeheartedly that they are doing a fine
job of
day-to-day management, and that they are moving the station forward
in
the right strategic direction.
February 17, 2014
Eliane Herring, Board President, Attorney (admitted to practice in
Wash.
D.C. and Tex., not Cal.)
Holly Madrigal, Board Vice-President, Mayor of Willits
Meg Courtney, Board Secretary, Vice-Mayor of Ft. Bragg
Stuart Campbell, Programmer-Elected Representative, College
Professor
Fran Koliner, Retired Teacher, Visual Artist
Bob Page, Managing Partner, Airport Health Club, Santa Rosa
Laviva Dakers, Mother and KZYX programmer
Ed Keller, Realtor and Property Development Consultant
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
The Mendocino Community Network (MCN) provides the MCN Discussion
list.
Use of the list is subject to the terms of service at
http://www.mcn.org/email/dtos.html [4]
TO UNSUBSCRIBE from this list send an email to
discussion-leave at lists.mcn.org [5]
(To complete the process you must reply to the email you receive in
response)
For listserv technical problems please contact: listmanager at mcn.org
[6]
Links:
------
[1] mailto: kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org
[2] mailto: kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org
[3] mailto: kzyxtalk-request at listsmcn.org
[4] http://www.mcn.org/email/dtos.html
[5] mailto: discussion-leave at lists.mcn.org
[6] mailto: listmanager at mcn.org
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
Announcement mailing list
announce at lists.mcn.org
The Mendocino Community Network (MCN) provides the MCN Announcement list.
Use of the list is subject to the terms of service at
http://www.mcn.org/email/atos.html
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
TO POST to this list send emails to announce at lists.mcn.org
TO UNSUBSCRIBE from this list send an email to announce-leave at lists.mcn.org
*** To complete the process you must reply to the email you receive in response. ***
For listserv technical problems please contact:
listmanager at mcn.org
_______________________________________________
Kzyxtalk mailing list
Kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org
http://lists.mcn.org/mailman/listinfo/kzyxtalk
_______________________________________________
Kzyxtalk mailing list
Kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org
http://lists.mcn.org/mailman/listinfo/kzyxtalk
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.mcn.org/pipermail/kzyxtalk/attachments/20140220/db59b6ab/attachment-0001.html
More information about the Kzyxtalk
mailing list