[Kzyxtalk] KZYX WTF!

[Marco McClean]

On 1/11/2023 11:58 AM, JR Rossum wrote:
 > Have you ever noticed how that every time you send them a little 
money, their signal gets weaker and they decide to expand?

JR, have you ever noticed that they pay just the manager and program 
director /all/ the membership money you give the station? Around 2000 
members at $25 or $50 a year, and a few who give a little extra, amounts 
to $100,000. The manager pays herself $60,000 out of that, plus full 
medical and dental and vision. If the program director gets $40,000, 
then that's all the money, to two people in the office.

But because of donations from corporations and rich ranch families and 
winery types, not to mention the $160,000 annual CPB grant, they have 
enough to pay the surprisingly small expenses of keeping on the air and 
keeping a roof overhead and the lights on, and enough left over so that 
lately they've bought and are spiffing up a new office palace in Ukiah, 
besides. You might recall my mentioning they don't pay the local 
airpeople, and that the airpeople's representative on the board has 
never brought it up, except once at a board meeting when I pointed it 
out, and the aptly named Jerry Karp, the airpeople's representative at 
the time, turned to the boardmember next to him, repeated what I'd said, 
and they both chuckled at the very idea of it.

Any suggestions of improvement or change in any area are simply 
stonewalled and ignored until objectors get tired and go away. That's 
the way it's always been at KZYX, all the way back to 1989. Ask Joel 
Waldman... Oh, wait, you can't. He died of old age waiting twenty-five 
years for his issues to be addressed.

Rudy Redwood wrote, "Geez. It seems like Alicia Bales has been there 
from the start but I thought that she was in the news arena. Too bad 
that these egomaniacs can just randomly fire the volunteers - she was a 
volunteer - not paid - right?"

No, Alicia Bales is the Program Director, the second-highest-paid person 
there, after the manager. Or was until yesterday. Next week there'll be 
another one. Meanwhile I think the second-highest-paid person might be 
the Business Underwriting Coordinator, or the Vice President in Charge 
of Fundraising Strategy. It might be the Logo Designer, or the Bells And 
Whistles Shaker and Blower. I dunno. It won't be any of the local 
airpeople who actually use the transmitter to do radio on KZYX, because 
all of them preparing for and doing their shows all year long, all put 
together, year after year after year, continue to be paid nothing,

--
Marco McClean, memo at mcn.org
https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com