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<p><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', monospace;">Dear Mr. Arteaga,</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', monospace;">I just read the following excerpt from your July 14, 2015 column</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', monospace;">in the Ukiah Daily Journal. "I very much wish that (John Sakowicz)</span></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">could make peace with KZYX and bring his show back to its</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">airwaves, but mainly I wish he would simply stick to doing what he</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">does best, producing compelling radio interviews, and leave</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">station management to those who've been doing it damn well for a</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">number of years.":</font></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', monospace;"><a href="http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/opinion/20150714/addendumhttp://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/opinion/20150714/addendum" class="OWAAutoLink" id="LPlnk37853">http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/opinion/20150714/addendumhttp://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/opinion/20150714/addendum</a></span><font face="Courier New, monospace"><br>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">The phrase 'a number of years' struck me. It's an old salesman</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">trick. Zero is a number, Mr. Arteaga. Which is the precise number </font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">of years that station management has been running KZYX 'damn well'.</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">If you'd taken the time to look through the so-called audits on the</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">KZYX website, you'd know that. Ditto for the Form 990s. Swearing </font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">that those audits don't exist. You'd also notice that under John</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">Coate's management, KZYX lost three-quarters of its net worth.</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">How could that happen? Simple. The board of directors was kept in</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">the dark. And given a rosy picture instead of the truth. Mr. </font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">Sakowicz saw right through that. So he blew the whistle on it.</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">Which was the right thing to do.</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">But instead of investigating, KZYX's rubber-stamp board went with</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">Mr. Coate's narrative. That he'd turned KZYX around. When he'd</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">nothing of the kind. </font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">Mr. Coate was certainly convincing. Wasn't he? Telling you and</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">everyone on God's green earth how wonderful he was. Did you ever</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">look at his website, Mr. Arteaga? Better late than never:</font></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', monospace;"><a href="http://johncoate.com/porchlight_story.html" class="OWAAutoLink" id="LPlnk654969">http://johncoate.com/porchlight_story.html</a></span><font face="Courier New, monospace"><br>
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<p><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', monospace;">See the part where Mr. Coate got rejected by a U.S. Army shrink?</span><br>
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<p><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', monospace;">For being a 'mystic nomad'? That's the man who ran KZYX 'damn</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', monospace;">well for a number of years.' The same man who earned an average</span></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">of $200 a year for fifteen years. Damn straight. That was</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">written by John Coate himself. Just a few months before KZYX</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">hired him. At <a href="http://www.johncoate.com" class="OWAAutoLink" id="LPlnk556103">
www.johncoate.com</a>.</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">At the time of your article, Mr. Coate had just decided to hit</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">the road. Over family priorities and such. The fact is that he</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">was at the end of his rope here. By running up a huge legal bill</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">and blaming it on Mr. Sakowicz. Successfully, too. Expenses went</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">up during his term here. While revenue went down. Way down. So</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">Mr. Coate was in a jam, Mr. Arteaga. He needed believers. And he</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">got them. In spades.</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">I've got a name for people like Mr. Coate. For his believers too.</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">P.T. Barnum wasn't too far off the mark when he quipped, 'There's</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">a sucker born every minute.' Which was the U.S. birthrate when he</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">said it. Meaning that everybody's a sucker at one time or another.</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">But sooner or later, the show is over. </font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">It certainly is now, Mr. </font><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Arteaga. </span></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">Sincerely,</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">Scott M. Peterson</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">Mendocino</font></p>
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<p><font face="Courier New, monospace">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - </font></p>
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