WBAI is in the worst condition of its life, but the WBAI Local Station Board (LSB) majority (aligned with “ACE”—Alliance for Community Elections) asserts that there is no business to which they should attend, and so they’ve cancelled the July 10 pre-scheduled monthly board meeting.
The Pacifica Bylaws state that an “LSB shall meet as often as required to accomplish its duties, but not less than every other month.”
However:
- in the 10 years or so since the bylaws were revised, although there have been approximately 6 months when the board did not meet, there were more months when there were 2 or 3 meetings.
- while the Pacifica Bylaws, California state law (Pacifica is incorporated in California), and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting all require adequate public notice of meetings, for years, the board majority has flouted this as much as they’ve observed it, so if that is the reason for the cancellation of the meeting – none was given – the timing of their suddenly-found religion is curious.
- board officers can call an emergency meeting but they have no right to cancel one agreed to by the body.
With all paid staff holding layoff notices effective July 15th and union members expecting that more than 70% of them will lose their jobs, the alternate-month requirement is a technicality to which the ACE board majority is cynically retreating in order to evade public scrutiny and to avoid taking a position on a difficult issue.
In the meantime, the board majority has chosen to not inform the listeners of the real direction in which they are moving the station.
They:
- offered a completely useless report of the June 12 executive session using boilerplate language about “personnel matters”
- have refused to include the listenership in preparing a 2 to 3-year plan to make WBAI sustainable by rejecting a Justice and Unity motion for a public meeting to gather input
- set up a counter meeting on the station’s future (to which the public was not invited, and for which only last-minute notice was provided) opposite the Harlem meeting last week by the Coalition to Save WBAI, and gave neither announcement nor location of their subsequent meeting – not even to the full LSB on its private listserv.
On the other hand, Justice and Unity (J&U) believes that listeners are not walking checkbooks but are people with varied experience in community service, business and the arts whose ideas for the station warrant a hearing.
Together, those who love the station can mobilize to save it, not sell or lease its frequency, or convert it into an outlet for Pacifica’s west coast stations.
Join us! We welcome your ideas and questions.
WBAI Justice & Unity Campaign
savewbai@gmail.com
(212) 591-2111
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Join the Coalition to Save WBAI (of which J&U is the initiator) at the second in a series of meetings being held around the listening area, on Saturday, July 13, 2013, 1-4pm at the WISOMMM Cultural Center, 15 James Street, Newark, New Jersey. Learn how we got to this point and help make the way out.
Very important: Please sign (and forward to your friends) our petition to stop the mass layoffs at WBAI: http://www.change.org/petitions/pacifica-national-board-stop-mass-layoffs-at-wbai
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