[Kzyxtalk] For Doug McKenty

[smmail]

Doug McKenty, my understanding of what you are complaining about 
regarding KZYX is that you think that changes in station management 
caused a loss of members. You have claimed that there are a thousand 
folks out there who would pay their dues if the more recent changes in 
programming and administration were reversed. For the sake of argument, 
I claim that your group is in the tens of listeners, not a thousand. So, 
now we have a disagreement about an unknown fact. We could yak about 
this forever. In actual fact, the Board, staff, and programmers would 
all try to accommodate a verified large group of listeners. Verified.

If you want to support your contention, you have to come up with the 
thousand listeners. You are not going to find proof of dissatisfaction 
and loss of membership in the back rooms of the Philo studio. I can’t 
even imagine how this could be done reliably. Your enthusiasm for 
finding this info at the station is rightfully regarded by the Board, 
station personnel and, probably all of the programmers as harassment. 
Bad move.

What you need to do is to gather up your dissatisfied group because one 
thousand is considerably more than the number of members who actually 
vote on a Board election. You could take over an election. You don’t 
need any information from the station to do this. This is Mendocino 
County where advocacy is rampant. You have recent experience with the 
Charter County question. You must know some of the group that you wish 
to organize, and you could get them to help. Make a few handbills. 
Advertise a meeting, and then build. All of this fumbling around about 
what is fair or legal or transparent or democratic is just dumb because 
these concepts are quite variable in the context of the operation of a 
real organization.

I hope you understand the reality of what I am saying, but here is some 
further advice if you wish to be successful. Distance yourself from the 
dissatisfied and noisy minority here at KZYXtalk. They all appear to be 
playing a very different game that you are. If you advertised a meeting 
about the future of community radio and said that John, Sheila, Scott, 
King, Norman, Richard, and Jeff (and I am forgetting a few) were part of 
your junta there would be people in attendance with vigorous opposing 
views. The reality you have to deal with is that two thirds of the 
membership don’t even vote on Board elections. Well, not exactly. These 
people vote by plunking down many thousands of dollars for the station. 
The only interpretation of this behavior is that these folks like what 
they are getting from the station as it is. If the crew of wreckers, I 
identified above, got involved, then the great majority of members who 
are satisfied would wake up. Oops! You have to, at least, appear to be 
reasonable. SM