[Kzyxtalk] from the AVA''s "Mendocino County Today" October 6, 2015

[sako4 at comcast.net]

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OF COURSE YOU CAN'T LOOK AT OUR BOOKS. WHAT DO YOU THINK WE'RE RUNNING HERE, A PUBLIC RADIO STATION? 




SO THE KZYX DISSIDENTS write a nicey-nice request to Public Radio, Mendocino County asking for a look at the numbers. They address their request to the station's interim director, a close pal of the previous director: 




Dear Mr. Campbell, 




Thank you for your email of September 5 concerning our demand for inspection of documents. In it, you state that your current position concerning the inspection is the same as your initial response of June 23, wherein you asserted that you could delay the inspection until you had hired a general manager and that our rights of inspection were more restricted than we claimed. 




Please refer to our response of June 26, copied below. In it, we explained how your restrictions have no basis in the law. As for a delay, the organization has had plenty of time to prepare for the inspection, a total of four months by the time it happens. You have not identified any specific record that cannot be made available for inspection by October 7. 




We intend to proceed with the inspection on October 7, beginning at 1:00pm, at the Philo office. It is not clear from your letter that you intend to refuse access at that time. Pursuant to the Corporations Code, you would need a court order to do so. Otherwise you will be in violation of California law, our own bylaws, and your duty to comply with both. 




We thank you in advance for facilitating the inspection on October 7. 




Doug McKenty 

John Sakowicz 

King Collins 

Norm de Vall 

Peter Kafin 




Campbell 


MR. CAMPBELL, natch, refuses the request. It the station was running in the black, Campbell would welcome any and all to inspect station finances, but..... But the station isn't running in the black because it's been mismanaged for years, especially under departed manager, Coate. Coate's clone, this Campbell character, continues management's nutty secrecy and even nuttier pursuit of its perceived enemies. On the other hand, as the libs invariably put it, state dissidents are pursuing a strategy of relentless Gotcha. Smart management would cool them out, i.e., give them all programs, but KZYX management is not smart. Never has been. 




THE DISSIDENTS WROTE back to Campbell, a portly full-of-himself type prevalent among Mendolibs. 




Thank you for your email of June 23, 2015, responding to our written demand of June 9 for the inspection of documents. We disagree with your analysis. 




The right of a member to inspect and copy records is not based solely on California Corporations Code Section 6330, which authorizes the inspection of membership records. There is also Section 6333, which states: 




"6333. The accounting books and records and minutes of proceedings of the members and the board and committees of the board shall be open to inspection upon the written demand on the corporation of any member at any reasonable time, for a purpose reasonably related to such person's interests as a member." 




In addition, the Bylaws of Mendocino County Public Broadcasting grant members the right to inspect any records that are not personnel records or otherwise protected by law: 




"Member Inspection Rights: 




Members shall have the right at all reasonable times to inspect all of MCPB’s records which are or should be maintained at the principal office except personnel records and other items that would violate the privacy of a specific individual or are otherwise protected under Federal or California law." 




CAMPBELL WASTED NO TIME REPLYING: 




You will not be admitted to the Philo studio on October 7, 2015. We disagree with your assertion that this would put us in violation of any legal obligation that we have. 




WHAT WOULD JUDI BARI DO? Show up, bull rush Campbell and whatever other dope-soaked marshmallow is in the way, take over the mike, explain live what you're doing, maybe even get arrested. Make a major issue out of it. When Bari was denied she rallied a strike force and barged right on in. Only the noble Gordy Black tried to stop her, and he was shoved mercilessly aside, greasy cravat and all, but not before he'd thrown a couple of elbows into the elderly (and late) Rusty and FloAnn Norvell. This approach to management intransigence is called Direct Action. It's what you do when the other side is behaving in an illegal and indefensible manner, as is the case here. 




JOHN COATE'S delusional self-assessment of his work at KZYX isn't surprising in a time and a place where self-evaluations, rubber-stamped by credulous and irresponsible boards of directors, are a fact of civic life. Put video cameras and a team of sports writers to work evaluating the work performances of Mendo's lead bureaucrats and we'd see some sad sights. 




ACCORDING TO COATE “I was the GM of KZYX radio in Mendocino County and the Executive Director of Mendocino County Public Broadcasting from 2008 until 2015. KZYX is listener-supported public radio. It serves a wide geographic area that is quite rural. When I arrived the station was mired in debt. Most of that debt is paid off and the station is better than it ever was.” 




IF THE FINANCIAL picture is so rosy, let's see the books. Coate, instinctively secretive and a generally chickenbleep dude, always resisted transparency and, given the over-large management and pay structure at the station, added to a shrinking membership, we'll soon learn that KZYX badly needs to take a hard fiscal look at the way it operates. But its board, being the usual Mendo board of happy faces and professional joiners, is incapable of hard looks at anything. I've assumed for a long time that the books have been cooked and, by now, are probably totally fried. 




AS A STATION MEMBER but infrequent listener, I have to say I think programming fairly reflects the gamut of local big issue public opinion, left to soft right (NPR). The local news reporting is improved. What's missing is the kind of freewheeling call-in talk about local matters that Doug McKenty and Norman deVall used to do, and before them, KC Meadows who did it best of all. 




AND NOW for an instructive trip down Memory Lane. A pair of putative liberals and dope monomaniacs — Pebs Trippett and Lynda McClure — got KC removed from her volunteer slot as a bi-monthly talk show host. And even station program director, Mary Aigner, ordinarily sacrosanct, got herself suspended because she said on-air that her neighborhood (Hungry Hollow, Nash Mill Road) was teeming with growers claiming that they had only the purest of the pure medical marijuana motives. The stoners claimed that Mares' opinion was outtaline and that KC wasn't an 'objective' moderator because she'd also ventured her opinion that the pending ballot measure under discussion was probably a good idea, aimed as it was at bringing some order to the local pot industry. People still get thrown off the air for even dumber reasons, and, ironically, it's Aig who does most of the throwing. 




I ALSO DISAGREE with Marco McClean's notion that all programmers should be paid. Please, Marco. Totally impractical, even with a pared-down management structure. How you gonna pay 120 programmers? Public radio stations, especially in rural areas, are volunteer-reliant by their very nature. I'd pay extra for a weekly public affairs on local matters but only if it were hosted by someone smart and articulate like Ms. Meadows. But smart and articulate are like kryptonite to the reigning KZYX politburo, hence, well, no need for the mantra. (Pay me to listen and I promise to tune in an hour a week.) 




NOT THAT IT'S LIKELY, but if KZYX were ever to hire a smart, reasonable, friendly, hard working person to oversee Mendocino County Public Radio, membership would double and its local news and discussion shows would become must listening. As is, with the thing being run like a private club, KZYX will continue to flatline. 




THE FOLLOWING is from our report on the purge of Ms. Meadows and the two week suspension meted out to Mary Aigner: 




Meadows: “Mary never said, ‘Vote for Measure B.’ She simply stated that problems with commercial pot growing were real and she'd seen them first hand. Suspending her for that, it seems to me, borders on a serious First Amendment violation. (I wonder, if Mary had said something like, ‘It’s been my experience that medical marijuana patients really have a problem finding supplies’ she would be under suspension right now.) 




“For some reason there was a real crowd at the station last night, I assume because they're in the middle of pledge drive. The crowd, I am told from someone standing among them, was also going crazy trying to get me to shut up, too. One woman (later identified as Lynda McClure, an opponent of Measure B) actually put a note to that effect up to the broadcast booth window, but I didn't have my glasses on and couldn't see it. 




“Anyway I wouldn't have shut up. I said at the beginning of the broadcast that I was a fervent B supporter and that would be clear during the show. For some reason the folks at KZYX assumed I was simply hosting some kind of non-partisan debate on Measure B. I would never have agreed to that. First, I am not unbiased about it. That is why I stepped aside from my usual role as moderator for the forum the Daily Journal is hosting May 8 with the American Association of University Women and the National Women's Political Caucus. Plus, I express my opinions on my monthly show all the time. Why would last night be any different? 




"It was an absolutely surreal experience watching the meltdown in the crowd outside the booth as the program progressed. I guess they were there for pledge night, but I'd never seen so many people at the station. At one point a woman [Lynda McClure] was holding a hand written sign up to the booth glass trying to get me to keep quiet. When Mary Aigner started talking about how her Anderson Valley neighborhood was full of commercial pot growers claiming to be medical marijuana growers I thought the KZYX team was going to rip the microphone out of the wall. Their free speech cop came bounding into the booth with us making faces and signaling wildly to Mary to SHUT UP!!!! I've had my disagreements with Mary, but I have to give her credit for speaking up. 




“The only people having a problem throughout all this were outside the booth. As heartily as Faulder and I disagree on this issue, even he pointed out during a break after one caller claimed I was part of the right wing takeover that people forget the UDJ endorsed him for DA. 




“Anyway, I hope Mary doesn't get thrown under the bus for this. I just found out when I got to work this morning that they canceled today's planned Measure B ‘forum’ with Karen Ottoboni, Ross Liberty and Dan Hamburg. And that they won't be airing anything on the subject for two weeks. Belinda (then station manager Belinda Rollins) said this morning to me that they were consulting their attorneys about how seri¬ous this flaunting of their rules turns out to be. I also understand that they are not allowing anyone to have a copy of the tape of the show either. Well, good luck to them.” 




But Mary Aigner has been thrown under the bus. Whether or not she’ll be rescued or run over until she’s flattened right out of a job remains to be seen. 

This is what Aigner, a single mother who has raised two daughters by herself, said on the public airwaves Thursday night; this is her crime, verbatim: 




“Aigner: I just want to jump in here and say, because I happen to live in a rural subdivision with wonderful southern exposure, so I’ve seen what’s happened in my neighborhood over the last five years. I must say that I don’t think that anyone in Mendocino County will ever say they are not growing medical marijuana. According to people who grow it, it’s all medical marijuana. And so I think that that is interesting to me and that’s one of the things that both the Yes and No need to address is this huge loophole in Measure G because it’s obviously not all medical marijuana. I don’t think there are that many cancer and AIDS and chronic pain patients.” 




Faulder responded, “Why do you think that, first of all? That there aren’t that many? 




Aigner: Pardon me? 




Faulder: Why do you think that? I know… 




Aigner: Personally, I do know people who do use medical marijuana because they’re HIV positive and it’s very important for them, mostly as an appetite stimulant and to counterattack the drugs that they take. And they tell me, where they live, if they go into a dispensary, they see very few of people, they say very few of the patients they see in the dispensary, they’re, you know, young, healthy kids. 




Faulder: “What does diabetes look like?” 




Aigner: “I’m just… I’m…” 




Faulder: “What does Krohn’s Disease look like? You know, I’m no doctor, but you can’t see a lot of these… ” 




Aigner: “My perspective is that everyone who has, you know, is definitely, it’s all medical marijuana and I think that that is an important distinction in this situation. Is that some of it’s medical marijuana, some of it’s personal use and some of it is just economic. And I think that that distinction should perhaps be made in this conversation.” 




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