[Kzyxtalk] Gordon Black's letter to the AVA's "Mendocino County Today", January 12, and my response

[sako4 at comcast.net]

Editor: 




Any KZYX Board candidate suffering the great good fortune of an endorsement from John Sakowicz will have to answer the following. Was it appropriate for Sako to write to the FCC demanding refusal to renew the broadcast license? 




Gordon Black, Mendocino 




*************** 




Editor: 




To Gordon Black’s most recent letter, I did not “demand” that the FCC not renew KZYX’s two licenses. 




What I did was that I filed an “informal objection” to the renewal of the station’s two licenses pending a change in management. I was one of five members of the public who filed such an objection. 




Pending a change in management, Gordy. 




Why a change in management? 




I really don’t have room here to count the ways, do I, Gordy? 




Let’s just say management has hijacked our beloved public radio station. KZYX isn’t operated on behalf of public. The public certainly doesn’t make programming decisions. Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t be playing the same records after 25 years. Talk about tedious and tiresome. But I do really understand why you keep your show all these years, Gordy. You are KZYX’s most reliable apologist. I understand. 




No, Gordon Black, KZYX is not operated on behalf of the public, not operated on behalf of the community, not operated on behalf of the people. Instead, KZYX is operated on behalf of the five people who work at the station. 

Pure and simple, KZYX is a jobs program for the five people who work at KZYX. 




Those five people expect lifetime job security, even as they refuse to document hours worked and to provide job descriptions. 




Also, objective job performance evaluations by someone other than another staff member are strictly out of the question. 




As a Board member, I asked for these all these things, and I was laughed out of the room. 




Job security? You bet! KZYX Program Director, Mary Aigner, has been at KZYX since it was started 25 years ago. She’s the one who has given you the free pass on your show for the last 25 years, Gordy. 

The other four staffers are going on ten years or more. 




Five staffers. With lifetime job security. And all this without documentation for hours worked, job descriptions, and objective job performance evaluations. 




Those five people also expect raises, Gordy, even as real income is falling in Mendocino County, i.e., KZYX Executive Director and GM, John Coate, gave himself a 10% raise in 2013, at precisely the same time that County workers were either getting laid off or having a 10% pay cut forced on down their throats. 




I find Coate’s lack of solidarity with County workers to be absolutely appalling. As a supporter of unions, in general, and of SEIU, the Teamsters, the Deputy Sheriff’s Association, and the County’s other collective bargaining units, in particular, I’m ashamed for everyone at KZYX, especially the Board. 




Those five people with lifetime job security at KZYX will also not disclose their salaries. I find this secrecy to be highly offensive at a presumably public radio station. Transparency and accountability are strictly the norm in the not-for-profit world, so why not at KZYX? Why Gordy? 




Talk about secrecy, lets talk about how KZYX reports its financials. They report in three different formats: the Executive Director’s Annual Report; the station’s IRS Tax Returns; and the Audit. No line item for one financial report matches up with a line item on either of the two other reports. It’s like comparing apples to oranges to kumquats. It’s impossible to decode, and that’s deliberate, Gordy. I should know. I was KZYX’s Treasurer for 2014. And I’m certainly the station’s most highly trained financial person. So why obfuscate station finances? Why? 




Secrecy. That’s the name of the game here at KZYX, Gordy. KZYX management won’t even investigate the battery of two women in two separate incidents. 




One victim of battery, a former co-host of “Trading Time”, was assaulted on station property. Station management refused to investigate. She ended up reporting the incident to the Sheriff’s Office. In a separate incident, a woman — who, incidentally, was one of the five complainants to the FCC — was spit at by a member of staff in the station’s parking lot. I witnessed the incident. The woman documented the incident in an affidavit. When I brought the matter before the Board, another Board member, Jane Futcher, protested that the incident couldn’t be publicly discussed at a Board meeting, because it was a "confidential personnel issue”; yet, the incident was neither discussed in a closed session of the Board, nor was it investigated by the station”s GM. 




Secrecy trumps the truth at KZYX, Gordy. Secrecy trumps all. Management calls all the shots. Every feminist in Mendocino County should be outraged by the two incidents described above. 




But we can save KZYX. We can pry it out of the iron grip of management. The upcoming Board elections offer an opportunity for change. 




Personally, I’d like to see the Board reassert its authority. Take the Executive Director title away from the GM. Executive Director is synonymous with Emperor, in my opinion, especially at a closed shop like KZYX. 




I could also see eliminating the position of Program Director entirely. Combine that job with the job of General Manager. Make it one job. Save a few bucks, and with that money hire a News Direcxtor. 




In the alternative, take all the money spent on salaries — about $250,000 — and pool it. And out of that pool, pay all people at the station for time worked, including the station’s programmers, news stringers, fundraisers, and other volunteers. How about that for a radical, socialist idea, Gordy! 




John Sakowicz 

KZYX Board, 2013-2016; KZYX Treasurer, 2014 
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