[Kzyxtalk] letter on KZYX elections

[sako4 at comcast.net]

To the Editor: 





Below is a final list of candidates for the KZYX Board of Directors: 




At-large: 
Ed Keller 
Doug McKenty 




District 5: 
Dennis O'Brien 

Clay Eubank 




District 2: 
Tony Novelli 

Benj Thomas 




That said, I hope the current Board Directors and station management -- both -- can resist the urge to meddle in the elections process. Meddling will only result in more complaints to the FCC and the CPB. Please, let the station's 2,300 decide who to elect to the Board during the 2015 elections cycle. 




What does that mean? 




It means no endorsements, especially by KZYX management -- the General Manager, John Coate, the Program Director, Mary Aigner, the Operations Manager, Rich Culbertson, and the Business Manager, David Steffen are employees that the KZYX Board of Directors oversee. 




KZYX management must not be allowed to help elect their next boss. I repeat: Management must not be allowed to help elect their next boss. Boards must be independent. Must be independent by law. This is especially true for the Boards of nonprofit corporations. Likewise, no sniping by management. No disparagement of any candidate. Finally, no get-out-the-vote by management. In other words, management should stop sticking their noses and fingers in Board business. 




Let me put this another way. 




Recruiting and selecting Board Directors without due care is the first cardinal sin that a Board can make in the elections process. It is only superseded by conflict of interest. And conflict of interest means helping friends get elected. 




We sometimes select friends, relatives, and business associates often because we believe that they will share our vision, support our views, and make meetings pleasant. And sometimes because we can’t find anyone else. We sometimes recruit influential or wealthy individuals because they will contribute substantial sums to the organization and connect us to their network of other influential and wealthy persons. All of this sounds well and good, but it's not. The station's 2,300 members -- and only them -- are in a position to select directors who are going to attend meetings, provide real oversight, and govern using their independent judgment. Installing friends on the Board flies in the face of independent judgement. 




Also,helping friends get elected to a Board represents a failure to cultivate board diversity. This is another cardinal sin. 




Time for a little history. 




KZYX's initial Board was made up of friends and advisors of the organization’s founder, Sean Donovan-- a con man . 




Paraphrasing from The Anderson Valley Advertiser , April 24, 2013: "The station was founded — poisoned in the well — by a hustler named Sean Donovan who lived in Boonville at the time. Donovan subsequently left town, but not before he billed the station thirty grand for his work getting it going! Donovan structured the non-profit in a way that enhances top-down management, appointing trustees he cannily assessed as pliable in the authoritarian direction, mostly fagged out old hippies who could be depended on to do what he told them to do. Lately, as the hippies have died off and wealthy libs moved in, the station's trustees have been a mix of, ah, the disinterested and the uninformed, with a few pompous lawyers thrown in to whom the anonymous trustees defer because, 'Hey! This guy's a lawyer. He knows.' Hence, the station's very structure [as set up by Donovan] makes it impossible to reform." 




Sounds like some things never change. 




So what's wrong with friends helping friends get elected in the here and now of 2015, twenty-five years after Donovan? 




Well, this approach to Board recruitment can lead to the “usual suspect” syndrome. In the case of KZYX, this is where the same individuals who agree with one another, and who also generally agree with station management -- leaving management's decisions unquestioned and unchallenged -- are institutionalized onto our station’s Board. 




If our station is, in fact, run by a group of “usual suspects,” what we now need is to consider mixing it up by creating a matrix of skills, experiences, and backgrounds that would add valuable perspectives to the Board. In a word, we need "diversity" -- especially, diversity of viewpoint. And that means we also need Board members who will question and challenge management. 

Some things are very broken at KZYX. Equipment often fails. Why? Because it's old. Station management doesn't make the necessary investment in new equipment. Hence, the broadcast signal is often down. Nothing but dead air. Dead air. For a whole day. Or longer. Several times a years. Unacceptable. 




Also, members are excluded from decision-making. For example, programming is solely decided by one person -- Mary Aigner. Again, unacceptable. 




Worse, programmers who disagree with management or who otherwise "rock the boat" -- Doug McKenty, Norman De Vall, Beth Bosk, Marco McClean, Johanna Schultz, Sister Yasmine, and myself, just to name a few -- are purged from the station. We lose our shows. Mary Aigner fires us. This is censorship. It's why the FCC has held up the renewal of the station's licenses. Censorship. Totally unacceptable. Totally unacceptable at a presumably public radio station. 




Another thing. No Ukiah studio. KZYX desperately needs a Ukiah studio. Ukiah is the county seat. Much, if not most, of county and city news comes from Ukiah. So why is KZYX located in Philo? In the middle of nowhere? Philo, with a population of 349? Oh yeah, I forgot. Mary Aigner lives in Philo. Unacceptable. 




Finally, other things are broken at KZYX. Really broken. Let me list a few more. Monies earmarked for the Ukiah studio are missing. Management's salaries are not disclosed. Several incidents of battery against women on station premises have not been investigated. And KZYX receives low marks for affirmative action by not advertising every open job at the station. All unacceptable. 




In conclusion, KZYX is not in startup mode. We may be stuck, at least temporarily, with a number of Board Directors who regularly fail to meet their legal duties of care. They may be too loyal to station management -- the management who helped get them elected to the Board in the first place. But here's the rub. Amidst all the media attention on cases involving intentional misconduct, we should recognize that the vast majority of Board Directors simply don’t understand what they are supposed to be doing and believe that they will not be held accountable for their inaction. 




They're wrong, of course. Board Directors can be sued. And the station can lose its FCC licenses and CPB funding. 




And that's why I'll be hiring an attorney out of my own pocket to act as a "poll watcher" during KZYX's upcoming elections. Too much is at stake. There should be no meddling in elections by the current Board of Directors. And especially no meddling by management. 




Yours very truly, 




John Sakowicz 
KZYX Board of Directors (2013-2016), Board Treasurer (2014) 


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