[Kzyxtalk] Regarding the opaque board and bad management of KZYX.

[Marco McClean]

Okay, whew.

Two weeks ago I wrote a note to the KZYX board members. Not having any 
other way to reach them I used the form on the website, which I 
suspected doesn't go to the members but simply to /board liaison/ Stuart 
Campbell. Among other things I wrote (including that station manager 
John Coate has personally sucked out of KZYX' revenue stream half a 
million dollars in his tenure there in payment for doing some basic 
required tasks that other radio stations' managers accomplish in like a 
lazy afternoon per month), I had asked Stuart Campbell personally these 
questions:

(*1) Stuart, is your show worthwhile and interesting and an asset to the
station? Are you good at it, and are you proud of the show? Now, try to
put yourself in my shoes. Imagine you weren't on the board of directors,
that you brought your show as a finished proven product to KZYX, and you
waited and waited --waited for years-- and when you asked what progress
was being made to put your show on the schedule you got no answer at
all. And when you wrote to the manager, he told you /he/ wasn't the
program director. And when you asked, "What do I have to do to get my
show on KZYX?" the manager said, "I guess you have to convince Mary."
And when you stopped by the station to talk about it you were treated as
though you were an unwanted intrusion and told to use the telephone next
time. What would you do then? Go to the board of directors? They'd tell
you they have no control over who's on the air and who's not. Then what
would you do?

Here is the entire and only response that I got yesterday (two weeks 
later) from the board, or rather from Stuart Campbell, marked /From: 
MCPB Board <BOD at kzyx.org>/

 >Dear Mr. McClean,

 >As a Board, we support John Coate's and his staff's management of the 
day-to-day operations of KZYX&Z. We have also voted unanimously to 
approve the current operating budget.

 >Stuart Campbell
 >Board Liaison

And I wrote this back immediately:

   I want a response from the board members, not just from you. Did you 
even pass my message along?

    And you didn't even answer what I asked you specifically. Here, I'll 
ask you again in case you misplaced the earlier message:

(*1), look up)

    Now I have another couple of questions for you and for the other 
board members: How do you feel when you hear people on the air on KZYX 
lie that the members and the community control the station? when in fact 
the board has given complete control of every aspect of the station to 
John Coate and Mary Aigner, and they don't feel like they have to answer 
to anybody?

    And do you really think it's wise to pay just John and Mary and 
David Steffen the equivalent of more yearly $50 memberships than you 
even have members? Especially now that the CPB grants will be less this 
year and every year from now on, and keeping in mind how little is 
actually required of John and Mary in between pledge drives, and also 
that David Steffen's "business coordination" barely brings in enough 
money to offset his pay?

    Really, Stuart, pass messages like this along, unchanged. When I and 
others write to the board members we expect what we write to reach them. 
I'm sure keeping [the message] to yourself would be breaking the law.

To which Stuart Campbell replied, marked /From: scamp1104 at comcast.net  :

 >To: Marco McClean

 >Every member of the Board received your communication and your request 
unchanged. They may choose to respond to you individually or not--that's 
up to them. I WAS RESPONDING FOR THEM AS A WHOLE BOARD [emphasis mine 
-Marco (*2)] and THE MESSAGE I SENT WAS AGREED TO BY 8 OF THE 9 OF US. 
One Board member did not communicate one way or the other.

 >I consider being a KZYX programmer an honor and a privilege, not a 
right. If I was removed from the air, I might be saddened but not offended.

 >Stuart Campbell

And I wrote just now and am sending to scamp1104 at comcast.net, 
BOD at kzyx.org, kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org and discussion at lists.mcn.org:

    Unlike you, Stuart, I consider it a right to be on the public 
airwaves. Because it is a right, and should be considered so at KZYX. 
The management of KZYX that you claim is doing such a great job is so 
bad at it and so overpaid that KZYX requires taxpayers to pay in federal 
grants the entire /real/ operating budget of the station, and that's 
been the case since the beginning. I was there.

    But you don't consider it a right, so, okay, how about if you were 
kicked off the air in 1989 and then blackballed and ostracized by KZYX 
for a quarter of a century, during which you started and ran a 
countywide newspaper and did 17 years of successful radio, 15 of them 
commercial, while considering it a right for others to be printed and 
aired on equal terms with you, and making all resources available 
instead of hogging them and guarding the edifice from change like a 
junkyard dog? How about if just the underwriters for your show at the 
small station you were on now were happily paying a quarter of the 
station's entire real budget, so you could hold that up to demonstrate 
that you know something of what you're talking about when you speak of 
finances as well as rights?

    Pass this along, too.

    (*2) Oh, wait, I just noticed something in the above, in what little 
you wrote-- where you reveal that the board of your so-called publicly 
held corporation conducts whole-board actions in secret between posted 
board meetings, in that you say the message you sent me was agreed to by 
8 of the 9 of you..That's another thing I wonder about the legality of, 
not to mention abhor the cowardice of, and the hypocritical nature of.

    I don't want to communicate /through/ you, Stuart. I want to write 
to the board members, including you. And then if individually yez don't 
want to respond that is in fact your right, but I need to know what each 
one has to say on the subject so I can report it, and if you don't 
respond of course I need to report that to the people you're all lying 
to when you call KZYX publically controlled.

    I just read where at least two of the new candidates for seats on 
the board feel the same way about the board's monolithic fortress 
against change and recovery as I do. Now you need to give them a fair 
chance to win by putting them on the air the voting members of KZYX hear 
for more than just a single campaign forum show tucked away in the 
nether regions of a single day and for more than just five or ten minutes.

-end-