Approved WBAI LSB minutes for the April 15, 2004, meeting.

Note: The part below that says that we agreed to let a member participate by phone was plugged into these minute by an amendment on April 28, 2004. It makes it sound as if we agreed to let him vote; we didn't.. You will note that there was no motion made by which we could have agreed to this. He was allowed to listen in on the phone without objection. However, the faction currently in charge at WBAI tried to leverage that into his being able to vote via telephone, which is not allowed according to Article 6, Section 3, and Article 7, Section 9 of the Pacifica bylaws.

Minutes 4-15-04
Regular WBAI LSB Meeting
Musician’s Union
New York City.
Announced on-air
Chair and Secretary present

Board members present constituting a quorum:
Paul Surovell, Steve Brown, Luanne Pennesi, Carolyn Birden, Berthold Reimers, Miguel Maldonado, Alex Steinberg, Mariana Gaston, Bob Lederer, Michael Warren, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Shawn Rhodes, Patty Heffley, Alice Shields, Bob Owens, Kathy Goldman

Also present: Phil Botwinick – Elections Supervisor.
Absent: Lawrence Lucas, Paul DeRienzo,

Late Arrivals,
Ray Laforest 6:50PM
R.paul 6:50PM
Zara Khan 7:15PM
Cerene Roberts 7:15PM
Yvonne Liu 7:30P
Roger Manning 7:35PM
Don Rojas ex-officio General Manger 7:15PM

Meeting is brought to order
at 6:45 by Chair Berthold Reimers

Motion by Heffley to approve 3-18 minutes, seconded
Discussion
Vote - Unanimous - Approved

Motion by Maldonado to approve 4-01 minutes, seconded
Vote Unanimous - Approved

Motion by Goldman to approve agenda,
Discussion
Vote - Unanimous

Gaston proposes that Father Lucas participate by phone: he is in the hospital – agreed agreed that he could participate in this meeting and we would check the Pacifica Bylaws and make a decision at the next meeting.

PUBLIC COMMENT
#1 Suggest that next board meeting be held in Harlem at State Officebldg
#2 Suggest that part of public comment be attached to discussion topics.
#3 If intent is to limit participation by holding committee meetings at the same time, perhaps the secretary may coordinate. Amy Goodman at Cooper Union was great. The attendee passed out fliers. Wear a button!
#4 Before next fund drive more listeners can be drawn into volunteering. Have a box on pledge card to recruit volunteers. Air America Radio is an opportunity for WBAI to grow. First time there is a fighting response against the endless war, etc. it’s all good. Define a progressive agenda in relation to them. Listen to WLIB after midnight.
#5 Speaks to a lot of people about WBAI. Focus on fundraising, equipment problems. Ran into former Chairman of the board. Is presently helping to raise money from big donors. Doesn’t want people laid off.
#6 A lot of work has been done to get people involved. 13K was spent in anticipation that the event would raise money from Riverside 9-11 event. Asked the LSB to get information on finances from that event. 2 months later, you have been unable to get that information or has not shared it with us. Please get information on this. Please demonstrate transparency.
#7 – Concerned who listens knows Rashmi Mayur – a programmer on WBAI. Who reads the Goodlight board? He was a rep for WBAI at Rashmi service. Carry portable radios. Not too happy that Bernard White isn’t a little more dynamic.
#8 people ran on listener input and where is it? It’s almost a clever way of limiting listener involvement. Primary of the LSB responsibility is fiduciary and is about fundraising, fundraising, fundraising, not the job of the board to manage the station, etc. job is to stay on the mission, and fundraising.

[Zara Khan arrives 7:15PM]

#9 thanks for the democracy of listener comment. Brecht Forum relationship bothers him.Should have an opt out on receiving the Brecht literature.
#10 asked about agenda item 4-A, finance committee meeting. Can she be included in the report? Not part of the procedure to have back and forth with LSB. Dismissive process. Expects to speak. (speaks on finance committee report now) – Saturday 4-10 selected to be secretary- object the fact that one of the meetings was held before good Friday and before Easter. “No wonder Black people and POC don’t come”.

[Cerene Roberts arrives 7:15PM]

#11- Listener but not a member. Was on show with Bob Lederer and Kathy Davis. There is a land grab on the West side. Lots of political hacks out there. Troubled by some of the guests on WBAI.
#12 – Public comment should be diffused. Straw polls should be made. Having a participatory board. LSB meeting should be weekly. Never enough callers. All the staff should be involved. Each LSB member should be on the LSB show. Labor committee should be formed. Labor contracts should be reviewed when they come up in June. Little discussion and dialogue and debate is on the air. It should be on the air.

#13- Struck due to personal attacks

[Ivonne Liu arrives 7:30PM]

#14 Malika Lee Whitney used to have a children’s program. We need to train the next generation of progressives. End of Public Comment.

Motion by Rhodes to amend agenda to move to elections now, seconded
Vote - Passes

A discussion ensues as to whether Lucas can vote by phone. A suggestion is made that the Chair make a ruling.

Chair rules that it is not acceptable to vote by phone. Lucas is not allowed to vote.

Motion by Warren to overturn the Chair’s decision.to allow Lucas to vote.
Vote Yes- 9 No- 9 - Fails

Motion by Lederer to move to overturn Chair and allow Lucas to vote on normal business, not committee elections.
Vote: Yes- 11 No 11 – Fails Chair breaks tie.

[Don Rojas GM ex- officio arrives 7:15PM]

Zara Khan asked the minutes to reflect that because of the decision to exclude Father Lucas from voting,was made, that she would not participate in remainder of the meeting.

[Passed the hat to pay for the rental of the space -$136 was raised - $120 for space. $16 will be saved for the next rental – Kathy Goldman collects the money]

Motion by Birden to vote on Executive Review Committee first, seconded
No objection - Passes

Nominations to Executive Review Committee
Brown
Dirienzo
Goldman
Lederer

Vote Executive Review Committee
Steve Brown – 7
Kathy – 7

Bob Lederer – 6
Paul DiRienzo – 1
Abstain – 3

Public Comment: [during vote]
# 15- Oppose consolidation of media and support diversification of the media. Air America is an opportunity to support diversification. Congratulate WBAI for broadcasting the Town hall meeting concerning Air America on WLIB. Works with Bob Lederer on website and may have a poll there.
#16 – We escaped a sticky mess over vote about allowing people to participate by phone.
#17 – The white man came here with the bible and the white man ended up with the land and the people ended up with the Bible. Politicking and bureaucracy were displayed for 40 minutes. Others are angry.
#18 – Roberts Rules was written before we had telephones. Consider that business is done over the land through the telephone. This was an opportunity missed. We have to consider technology.
#19 – disappointed that Lucas was not allowed to vote. People use videotape. Everyone could see that it was political. Object to the way listener and staff comment time is allocated. Don’t appreciate it. Everyone campaigned on participatory democracy and transparency. Doesn’t blame that Black, Latino and Asians for not participating – to be subjected to “this”.
#20 – Unfortunate that DiRienzo and Lucas couldn’t vote. Would have voted differently. Thank Robert Knight for doing a great job around 911 and would like to see more The Lost Revolution – would like to see discussion more on history and theory of revolution.
#21- listener comments should be structured. Like the contiguous time. The agenda grows longer and the work is done in the committees. If you want to find out what the listeners feel they can do so in the committees. To make the process more cumbersome will hamstring this LSB.
#22 last advisory board allowed Jon Cohen to be on the phone (deceased former LAB member) and to vote. Board has to start updating itself through technology.
#23 – Comment struck due to personal attacks.



Nominations for
Election Review Committee

Birden
Brown
Roberts

Election for Election Review Committee Results
Carolyn Birden-8
Cerene Roberts-7.3333

Brown-5.667


COMMITTEE REPORTS
Finance Committee report
6 people will add comments to report. Held first meeting on 4-10 -04
Agenda was discussion on some financial documents with emphasis on one piece of financial data :First 5 months in fiscal year ‘04, and income of 2.1 million dollars. Exceeds budget by 433K.
how did this happen? Not actual numbers, only projected, no line items. Info will be forthcoming in the next week. Pacifica is installing new software to obtain financial information at each station.
National finance committee will be holding its first meeting on Tuesday, April 20th by phone for 2 hours. Meeting was structured via roundtable. Received 25-30 comments and questions by participants. Charts are available on Pacifica website.
Not at point where we have current information as to what we spent, etc.
Diversity of committee 19 people. 7 African Americans, 7 women, no Latino, no Asians
Meeting was held on Passover.Will do outreach by asking programmers who have constituencies to announce meetings. Next Finance committee will be held at 5PM-7PM on April 27th at station.
Cerene: helped Sharon create yahoo groups listserve..
Mike Beasley. – concerned that finances are importantt. Ask CFO for chart of accounts and actual data Sharon Davis: on topic of Affirmative action – need to take a wholistic approach to meetings. Only on air announcements are heard.
Must be careful how information is put out to the public.
Carolyn Birden- We need to work through Roberts Rules. More rather than less.
On affirmative action – so few people have so little information about accounting procedures will join committee. This is important too.
Steve Brown: committee is gathering information
Kathy Goldman: asking patience. It is a lot of work. Participate and help rather than knock the whole thing. This is not a fundraising board. Figures were ambiguous –

Nominations for Programming Committee
Brown
DiRienzo
Pennisi
Roberts
Steinberg
Surovell

Vote for Programming Committee
Alex Steinberg– 2nd round
Cerene Roberts – 4th round
REPORTS continued
Committee meeting announcements discussion

Discussion about committee meeting dates. and about how meetings are set and by who.

Motion by Manning to move Cerene’s Motion to an ad hoc committee.
Vote Yes 7 No 10 Fails

Motion by Roberts that LSB who has expressed interest in participating in a committee can propose an initial meeting on LSB listserve; no conflict with other meeting date; should stand for 24 hours then date should be posted 12 hours before being publicly announced, seconded.

Vote: Yes: 5 No: 11 fails

Nominations for Governance Committee
Lederer
R.Paul Martin
Kathy Goldman

Vote for Governance Committee Results.
R. Paul Martin
Kathy Goldman


Motion to adjourn


Meeting adjourned at 10PM


Respectfully submitted by
Patty Heffley
Secretary WBAI LSB


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