[Kzyxtalk] Give Mary a lot of slack?

[King Collins]

BC said: 
> Give Mary a lot of slack…she has done a great job  under trying conditions.


Dear BC,
As  you know I respect your gentle nature and your community perspective. But in the case of Mary Aigner, I don’t agree that she has done a “great job.”

Ten years ago, I was a member of the board. It was a good board, not just a go-along board. There was an “egalitarian” minority and a genuine discussion. And once Mary found out my position, her attitude toward me was nothing less than nasty, and I remember how she shut down our efforts to communicate with the members by doing a board show. (See Communication with members, below)  

In spite of our differences, I still feel fondly toward the folks I worked with at the time, including Adam Springwater, then the president, Tony Miksak who became president, Johanna (Wildoak) Cummings, Wendy Blankenheim, Charlie Hochberg, Robert Crawford, and the rest. But Mary was just too abrasive and inhospitable toward everyone she disagreed with, even when she spoke before the board, spitting out her words, she reminding us that we were only elected by “a few hundred members.” 

So that’s one thing, even if she is competent, which I question, does a community radio station want someone with such a nasty attitude to be a major player, the “Program Director” who has a crucial role in dealing with the public? 

My stint on the board had been an ongoing struggle between the member-oriented “egalitarian” minority--Zac Zachary, Lynda McClure and me and the “centrist” majority. The conflict between the two tendencies resulted in a number of important discussions and some good precedent-setting changes, including how meeting agendas and committees are set, how programming decisions should be made, the relationship between board and staff, how to deal with irate members at meetings, and other matters. After the election in which Zac and I were replaced, some of these questions were no longer talked about at all, including the fate of the Ukiah studio and the money that had been raised for it.  

The member-oriented perspective had been mostly defeated and ignored but I decided to write about my experience, and I did so in a pamphlet “The Secret Life of KZYX.” (http://www.greenmac.com/hiddenAgenda/report-PDF/SL1_KZYX_2005(2010).pdf)
 I passed the first draft around to the board before I put it out to the public and I asked for feedback from anyone on the board or staff who disagreed with any of the facts or content. There was NO RESPONSE from the board majority. Tony Miksak claimed that he “never read” the pamphlet. No response at all. And I mean that quite literally. Not one member of the board majority (which had dominated the minority) responded in any way. I thought that was remarkable at the time, and since then the silent treatment has proved to be the centrist’s main tactic, combined with personal (irrelevant) attacks. I’m talking ten years here. 

So as you may gather, I differ from many of the dissidents in that I do not believe that the root problem is the individuals who manage the station, not Coate or Aigner. Whatever their faults, I blame the lazy board, which fails in its responsibility to minimally  oversee management and to insist upon a “style of management” that is compatible with a community radio station. 

Communication with members and Mary’s attitude toward a board call-in show:

 From the Secret Life, p. 18: "Communication with members. “Since I’ve been on the board, I have brought up this issue many times. A community radio station ought to be an example of interactive communication. I’ve put forward several ideas, including a special board-listener call-in show. Tony Miksak and I, working together (at the beginning of our term before he became president of the board) tried to set up a board call-in show.
    Tony and I finally convinced GM Diane Hering, a self-described “control freak,” that the board should do its own call-in show. But when the Program Director (name deleted) was contacted to find a place on the schedule, she wouldn’t give us the time of day. “Our listeners would not be interested in that,” said (name deleted). And that was that. Even elected board members who want on-air time to communicate with listeners have no recourse when the Program Director doesn’t like the idea. Lots of luck if you’re a mere programmer or a lowly member.”

And briefly, about infrastructure and the engineering problems: John Sakowicz and Marco are right that there is a lack of engineering expertise at the station. Once we had Ron O’Brien, a talented and qualified radio engineer who gave so much to the station for so little. He has withdrawn for health reasons. instead of finding another competent engineer, the board and management choose instead to get along with unskilled help and outside experts, starting with Owen O’tool who was hired for the difficult job, but had no training or experience. He barely filled the gap with help from Ron. As a loyal critic I approached management and suggested Govinda Dalton, who is one of the most competent self-trained engineers in the area, who had already distinguished himself in the difficult milieu of pirate radio in many places around the world. Govinda is a very smart guy. I suggested him to Mary. I will never forget her response: “Oh, that would be good for Govinda” In typical Aigner style, the put-down: It would be good for Govinda but not for the radio station. It is this turning away from, and insulting the potential help of our skilled community that has hampered the progress of KZYX. So now we have a radio station without an engineer. 

By chance I saw Govinda yesterday at Starbucks. I’m always lifted by his sunny irrepressible happy self. He told me how he got a call a while back, from John Coate. The station was doing a live broadcast of a major event and they couldn’t figure out how to do it.  I think it was the Anderson Valley beer fest. Time was running out. So guess what? They called Govinda Dalton who was far away. They paid to have him fly in to the Anderson Valley airport. John Coate met him there and rushed him to the event. And Govinda saved the day. 

That’s one of the things that’s wrong with the station. The board let’s the management have it s way. They treat some people like shit, and as a consequence they waste the very resource that could make things right: the community. 

There’s more to say, but let me end this by renewing my challenge to all the liberal centrists or anyone else: Have I lied about anything? Are there any facts I have misstated or anything that is untrue?

For the members,

King Collins
Board Member 2003-2005