Minutes of the KPFK Local Station Board Meeting of January 8, 2011

The regular monthly meeting of the KPFK Local Station Board was held on Saturday, January 8, 2011 at 3:49 PM, at the Faculty/Staff Center of Los Angeles City College, 855 North Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90029-3516. Dutch Merrick served as Chair. John P. Garry III served as Secretary. The minutes of the previous meeting (December 1, 2010) were approved as corrected.

Twenty-three members were present, constituting a quorum: Ken Aaron, Chuck Anderson, Rodrigo Argueta, Fred Blair, Lydia Brazon, Omar Burdet, John Cromshow (arrived 2:15), Aryana Gladney, Leonard Isenberg, Kim Kaufman, Fred Klunder, Jim Lafferty, Ali Lexa, Brenda Medina, Sequoia Olivia Mercier, Dutch Merrick, Margie Murray, Michael Novick, John Parker, Summer Reese, Martina Steiner, John Wenger, Lamont Yeakey.

Also present: Terry Goodman (Audio Recordist, Election Teller), Jennifer Kiser (KPFK Development Director).

One member was absent due to suspension: Ian Johnston.

Authority and Notice: This meeting was authorized by the LSB by a motion approved at its meeting of December 1, 2010. Specific notice for this meeting was posted on the KPFK.org and other websites beginning on Saturday, January 1, 2011 (see Appendix A).

Audio Recording: The audio of the meeting is available for a limited time at the following sites:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/yhrmka
http://www.filefactory.com/file/b4hch35/n/klsb110108.mp3
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=C7XTM92P

The meeting was preceded by an Orientation and Training Session and a KPFK Delegates Meeting at the same location.

The meeting was called to order by the Chair at 3:49.

Sign-in sheets for committees were passed around during the meeting (see Appendix B).

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Minutes of the December 1, 2010 meeting were distributed via email prior to the meeting. Cromshow made one correction to the minutes, duly noted. Corrected minutes were approved by voice vote.

AGENDA (approved during Delegates Meeting, see Appendix D)

Call to Order
Roll Call
Approve Agenda
Notes and Welcome from the Chair
Approval of Minutes 5 min.
Election of PNB Delegates PNB 30 min.
Chair Report 5 min.
Treasurer’s Report 5 min.
Outreach Committee Report 10 min.
General Manager Search Committee Report 15 min.
Program Director Search Committee Report 1-2 min.
Unfinished/Deferred Business
Populating LSB Committees 5 min.
Public LSB Messaging 5 min.
Comment on Dialogue Session 2 min.
Public Comment 30 min.

TREASURER’S REPORT (3:53)

Kaufman (LSB Treasurer) gave an oral report. Reese moved to accept the report. Passed by voice vote.

OUTREACH COMMITTEE REPORT (3:54)

Burdet distributed a paper report (see Appendix E) and gave an oral report, followed by discussion.

Reese moved to extend the meeting 15 minutes. Passed by voice vote.

Argueta delivered $111.88 in cash (profits from the Resistance and Liberation Town Hall Meeting) to the Chair for donation to the station.

The Chair called on Jennifer Kiser to respond to a board member comment. Kiser commented.

The meeting was adjourned by the Chair at 4:05.
The Delegates Meeting was reconvened in the interim in the same location.
The meeting was reconvened by the Chair at 4:07.

OUTREACH COMMITTEE REPORT (continued)

Lafferty moved to accept the Outreach Committee Report. Passed by unanimous consent.
Murray moved to extend meeting 15 minutes. Passed by hand vote: Yes-12, No-8.

GENERAL MANAGER SEARCH COMMITTEE REPORT (4:11)

Reese gave an oral report, followed by questions. A written report was distributed by email prior to the meeting (see Appendix C).

Lafferty moved to extend the meeting 15 minutes. Passed by hand vote: Yes-13, No-6.

Brazon moved (as amended by Lafferty) that there be an LSB executive session with Pacifica Executive Director Arlene Engelhardt, at her earliest convenience, and (possibly) the HR Director in which the names of all 19 KPFK GM candidates, including the four finalists, will be revealed, and that the ED not hire a new GM until then.

Wenger moved to amend: obtain releases from the finalists. Amendment not accepted by Brazon.

Reese directed the Secretary to note that Lafferty breached decorum by telling her to “shut up.” Lafferty objected.

Aaron moved to table Brazon’s amended motion. The amended motion was tabled by a hand vote: Yes-10, No-9.

Cromshow moved to set a March meeting date. Passed by voice vote.

Saturday, March 12, 2011 was set by the Chair.

Lafferty moved to extend the meeting 15 minutes. So ordered, without objection. (4:54)

Public comment, with a one-minute time limit, was heard for 15 minutes until 5:13.

Brazon moved that an LSB dialogue meeting be held with Steve Goldsmith, Ken Cloke and Eric Stephens on January 30, 2011 for six hours. Passed by hand vote: Yes-13, No-1.

Reese committed to bringing the names of the four General Manager search finalists to the next LSB executive session.

Kaufman moved to adjourn. The meeting was adjourned by the Chair at 5:18 PM.

Respectfully submitted by John P. Garry III (KPFK LSB Secretary)

(These minutes were approved on February 9, 2011.)

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APPENDIX A—Meeting Notice

NOTICE - KPFK Delegates and Local Station Board, 1/08/2010, 2:00 pm

The KPFK Local Delegates will be meeting from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm on
Saturday, January 8th, 2010 at the Faculty/Staff Center of Los Angeles
City College, 855 North Vermont Av, Los Angeles, CA 90029-3516.  This
annual meeting of Delegates will elect KPFK's Directors to serve on
the Pacifica National Board in 2011.  The meeting is open to the
public, the venue is handicap-accessible, and plenty of street parking
is available.

In additional to the meeting of Delegates, the Local Station Board may
convene to conduct its public business. The meetings will follow a
board training and orientation scheduled for earlier in the day.

There is handicapped access to the LACC Faculty/Staff Center by
Tully's Coffee Shop and Clausen Hall.  Use MONROE STREET to find the
Faculty Center.  Parking on the top level of the faculty parking area
off of Heliotrope will be available for a charge of $6.00 per vehicle.
Bike riders might want to consider taking the metro to Sunset and
Vermont. There are also convenient bus stops along Vermont Avenue.
Free street parking may be found in the area across LACC and Vermont
Avenue.

See the area map at

http://www.lacitycollege.edu/public/cmap/map.html

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APPENDIX B--Committee Rosters filled out at the meeting.

Outreach

Fred Blair
Kim Kaufman
Aryana Gladney
Leonard Isenberg
Chuck Anderson
Rodrigo Argueta
Omar Burdet

Finance

Brenda Medina
John Wenger
Fred Blair
Martina Steiner
Fred Klunder
Ken Aaron
Leonard Isenberg
Summer Reese

Governance

Lydia Brazon
Brenda Medina
John Wenger
Fred Blair
Jim Lafferty
Fred Klunder
Kim Kaufman
Aryana Gladney
Leonard Isenberg
Lamont Yeakey

Programming Oversight

John Wenger
Fred Blair
Aryana Gladney
Michael Novick
Chuck Anderson
Sequoia Mercier
Rodrigo Argueta
Omar Burdet

Personnel

Fred Blair
Ali Lexa
Martina Steiner
Fred Klunder
John Cromshow
Kim Kaufman
Ken Aaron
Leonard Isenberg
Michael Novick
Chuck Anderson

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APPENDIX C—General Manager Search Committee Report (copied from Summer Reese email dated Saturday, January 8, 2011 5:21:44 AM)

Report of the General Manager Search Committee Co-Chair

The General Manager Search Committee was co-chaired by myself and Jonathan Alexander.  We shared duties, responsibilities and communications.  Certain tasks were handled by me and certain by him.  We also had assistance in placing ads from Committee members Kim Kaufman and Margie Murray, as well as staff, including Jennifer Kiser.  The creation of the job description was a collaborative process to which many people contributed, particularly Ali Lexa.  The whole Committee worked on crafting interview questions and tailoring ratings criteria.  Shawn Casey O'Brian, John Wenger and Lamont Yeakey showed tremendous dedication. Several different Committee members took part in conducting phone interviews with potential candidates, as we interviewed so many.

For all of this, I would like to thank my fellow Committee members for all of their hard work and dedication in what turned out to be more than a year's worth of exhaustive work, extensive reading and discussion and more meetings than any of us ever wants to do again.

The General Manager Search Committee developed an extensive and complete job description, which was fully vetted and approved by the Human Resources department.  The job description was then placed on the Pacifica Foundation and KPFK websites, as well as those of sister stations and affiliates, and a shorter version was developed and used extensively in a diverse range of job posting sites and listings, both on-line and in print.

The General Manager Search Committee met exhaustively throughout 2010.  It diligently pursued the placement of job postings in a wide range of  industry specific, yet demographically diverse listing sites, both on-line and in print, in full compliance with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines, and in fact exceeding all legal requirements for diversity and equal opportunity.

The desire of the Committee to ensure a fair and diverse hiring process was so profound, that we insisted on additional advertisements being placed by KPFK locally, to exceed that which was deemed necessary by the National Office.

After extended advertising, the committee read and reviewed one hundred twenty nine (129) resumes submitted from all over the world.  We used a ratings criteria to evaluate skill sets in differing categories, with a numerical strength rating for each category.

Using this methodology, we winnowed the field to nineteen (19) potential candidates, with whom we conducted telephone interviews.  We developed a ten part interview questionnaire, focusing on objective skill-set criteria relevant to the particular position being filled, in this case, that of General Manager of the radio station.

We conducted all interviews utilizing the same set of questions, ensuring the opportunity for a fair and unbiased assessment of all interviewees based on the same set of objective criteria.  All interviews were fully reviewed by all members of the Committee.

The interviews, in conjunction with resumes, follow-up and discussion amongst the Committee members, resulted in a final pool of four (4) candidates being submitted to the Executive Director of the Pacifica Foundation for her consideration, interview and selection of a candidate to be hired as the new General Manager of KPFK.

Prior to submission to the Executive Director, I presented on more than one occasion the progress of the Committee to the Local Station Board.  At the meeting in Santa Monica in October, 2010 (which had quorum,) I presented the progress of the Committee to that point, which was the nineteen (19) telephone interviews which had been conducted from the one hundred twenty nine (129) resumes reviewed.

I presented that in all likelihood we would potentially submit the final pool of candidates directly to the Executive Director because of the severe breach of confidentiality that had occurred during the previous General Manager Search Committee of two years prior, when confidential candidate information was posted on Indy Media by a member who chose to violate confidentiality.  This subjected the Foundation to potential legal liability and caused the entire process to be removed from the LSB.

The only inquiry raised was from Leslie Radford, who did not pose an objection, but rather expressed a concern.  I stated that my co-chair and I would consult with the Human Resources Department and seek guidance.  We did, with my co-chair speaking to the HR Director no fewer than four times on the subject.  There was no legal reason not to submit it directly to the Executive Director, and in light of the previous breach of confidentiality, it was in fact more legally prudent to avoid any possibility of a potentially illegal breach again.

There was no objection raised by anyone on the Board to the proposed plan of action, so we proceeded accordingly and submitted the final pool of candidates to the Executive Director, in accordance with all applicable laws.

Why the Executive Director has not yet even interviewed the candidates or hired someone from the pool, when it was submitted two months ago, is a mystery to those of us who spent a year of our lives ensuring a fair and diligent process to produce a pool of well qualified potential candidates.  It is our sincere hope that all of our hard work will soon come to fruition in the hiring of a new General Manager for KPFK.

If there are any questions beyond what I have elaborated, I would direct further inquiries to my former co-chair Jonathan Alexander as well, who may be able to further elucidate any issues not fully exhausted here.  Jonathan may be reached at the station during normal business hours and via e-mail as well.

I hope this puts to rest this hopeless fishing expedition for members who choose to look backwards at other people's hard work instead of forward towards what they are going to do to contribute to the Foundation.

It is so much more productive to be constructive instead of destructive, so I sincerely hope those members choose to do something useful with their time, rather than dismantle a year's worth of diligent hard work that sought to be fairer and more broad in its outreach and scope than any other hiring process that can be identified throughout the network any time in the last three years, at least.

Sincerely,

Summer Reese
Co-Chair, General Manager Search Committee
Director, Pacifica National Board'
Chair, National Finance Committee

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APPENDIX D—Draft Agenda

Local Station Board Meeting                                                          January 8, 2011

Draft Agenda

 

1.       Meeting called to order (2:10)

2.       Roll Call

3.       Approve agenda

4.       Notes and welcome from the Chairperson

5.       Review & Approve December Board Meeting Minutes

6.       Election of Delegates to the Pacifica National Board (PNB)

7.       Treasurer's Report

8.       Committee Reports

a. Outreach committee- Town Hall meeting - Rodrigo Argueta

b. General Manager Search Committee - Summer Reese

c. Additional committee reports (if available)

9.       Unfinished/ Deferred Business

a. Populate LSB Committees- read list aloud, appoint "convening" committee Chairs

10.     New Business

a. Public LSB e-mail address/ method to contact/ inform the Board - Fred Klunder

11      Public Comment (bylaws state 30 min for public comment)

12. Adjournment (4:10pm)

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APPENDIX E--Outreach Committee Report

[image files submitted to Secretary]