[Kzyxtalk] [MCN-Announce]- MCPB Board meeting, June 29 -- time for change

[Marco McClean]

Jim Heid wrote:
> We'd be hard-pressed to find a more competent, more talented chief engineer than Rich Culbertson, who has performed miracles with expensive equipment that the station currently doesn't have the money to replace -- in part because a small group of people have cost the station tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees over the past year or two. 
>   


    I've heard good things about Rich Culbertson. But, Jim, John Coate 
cost the station /half a million/ dollars over the past eight years. 
Mary Aigner has cost the station much more than that. And a lawsuit 
doesn't happen in a vacuum. Were there legitimate grievances or weren't 
there? Couldn't John Coate and the board have compromised with the 
plaintiffs and avoided all legal costs? There were lots of chances for 
that. But they dug in instead, because they felt their authority to be 
threatened. Not very grown up of them and, you're right, expensive.

   
> Know of any potential hourly contractors who'd be willing to drive to a transmitter site in a winter storm, as John Coate frequently did? How much in overtime would it cost when an hourly contractor spends 18 hours a day at the station during a crisis, such as a major winter storm or fire? What do you suggest the hourly wage be? Will there be benefits? Ultimately, how would this save money over the current salaried positions -- positions that don't exactly pay a king's ransom?
>   


    In the nearly fifteen years I was at KMFB I went out to the 
transmitter site dozens of times in storms to solve problems. Several 
times I sat and nursed the generator for hours. I got $10/hr. for that 
and other service, including building equipment from scratch to solve 
problems, repairing satellite dishes and programming dish boxes. For a 
few years we used a mixing board that I built. I helped build and wire 
the Boatyard studio. There were lots of people cheerfully involved in 
keeping KMFB going.


> As a volunteer programmer since 1997, I find the Philo location to be convenient and "fair" insofar as it's more-or-less equidistant between the coast and inland areas. Yes, Mendocino has a satellite studio, but it isn't as well equipped. Ukiah certainly should have a satellite studio.
>   


    I have a studio in my wife's kitchen that I use to do my KNYO show 
when I'm away from Fort Bragg. It's a complete studio that anyone could 
sit down to and use instantly without special training, and it uses free 
software to connect to the station. Others at KNYO have similar studios. 
They can be constructed for two or three hundred dollars each, including 
microphones, mixer and computer. They rely on broadband, but a low-tier 
DSL connection is adequate for CD quality sound. No-one needs to control 
the signal switching but the radio person who starts and ends his or her 
own show with a single click.
    KZYX could have had a system like that all along. It could have it 
tomorrow.

    KNYO's physical studio is in a good-sized storefront in downtown 
Fort Bragg. It has a performance space and a broadcast booth. KNYO's 
entire yearly budget-- including rent, phone, electricity, music 
publishers' fees, everything-- is about $12,000 and it's always been in 
the black because good shows attract underwriters. No government grant.

    KMEC in Ukiah has a similar situation. I think they spend $18,000 a 
year. Radio, done right, is surprisingly cheap.

    KZYX, on the other hand, blew through $575,000 last year, and would 
have failed utterly every year of its existence if not for being bailed 
out by the CPB grant, which in the real world by itself pays twice-over 
all the real operating expenses of KZYX. Relying so completely on the 
largess of Uncle Sugar is appallingly bad management. John Coate's 
salary alone cost KZYX the equivalent of 1,200 yearly $50 memberships. 
Mary Aigner's and David Steffen's positions are superfluous to the 
operation of the station, and together they cost the station the 
equivalent of 1,600 $50 memberships. Total: 2,800-- more active members 
than KZYX has ever had or likely ever will have.

    A good manager like, say, Bob Woelfel, can easily do the work of 
KZYX' manager, program director and ad (underwriting) salesman. Put Bob 
in to manage the place and go ahead and pay him $60,000 if you can't 
help yourself, and I just saved the station $800,000 over the next ten 
years. KMFB never got a dime from the government, and Bob got us all 
paid to do our shows, and gave us a generous cut of the ad money we 
brought in, and still KMFB cost a third what KZYX sprays away God knows 
where every year. KMFB had a pretty good news department, too.


> Does KZYX have financial and technological challenges? Absolutely. But I have faith in the current staff's ability to work through these challenges, and I can only hope the staff and the board will find a new general manager who will be as selfless and tireless as John Coate in guiding our little station into the future with fairness, level headedness, and maturity. I'm proud of what we do.
>
> And so that I'm not abusing the announce list, I'll share the details for the upcoming board meeting: Monday June 29 in Willits 6 PM. Willits City Council Chamber, 111 East Commercial St.
>   


    It's good to be proud of what you do. But how fondly would you be 
speaking of KZYX now if you had been kicked out back at the beginning of 
your time there, and treated like dirt, and had no recourse but to 
appeal to the person who kicked you out? And then you found that the 
board was in no way sympathetic to you? And then you had to listen to 
others praising the wonderful, selfless people who hadn't quite yet 
banished them?

    You might get your show on other radio stations, but it would still 
rankle, I think, whenever you thought about the injustice of it. I think 
that sort of thing might have something to do with how John Sakowicz 
feels. It's how I feel. I don't entirely understand why he wants some of 
the things he wants --the teevee thing, for example-- but in general 
he's been pretty hard done by and his excellent show belongs on KZYX, as 
does mine, as does Facilitator One's, and Joel Waldman's, and Beth 
Bosk's, and Doug McKenty's, and Norman duVall's, and etc.

    And you are actually skirting abuse of the Announce list. I've moved 
this over to the Discussion list, as Stuart Campbell has refused to even 
consider allowing a true public forum for airpeople, members, the board 
and the general public on KZYX' web page, and certainly never on the 
air. His refusal is unreasonable and creepy.

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Marco McClean
memo at mcn.org
http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com