KPFT Local Station Board, Proposed Agenda
October 11, 2017, 7:00 PM
The Montrose Center
401 Branard, Houston,
TX 77006
I. Call to Order.
II. Staff Recognition.
III. Roll Call: The chair will distribute a spreadsheet
requesting confirmation of every member’s name, phone number and email address.
IV. Agenda Approval.
V. Minutes
Approval.
VI. Public Comments (Time Certain: 8pm) Each speaker up to 30 will be given two minutes.
VII. New
Business.
A. Motion from Adrienne LaViolette regarding the reinstatement of Dr. Obidike Kamau: Whereas the Pacifica
Bylaws, in Article 7, Section 3 (D), provide that a Local Station Board (LSB) and the Executive Director (ED) must agree
on the issue of discharging a General Manager or that, if necessary, the Pacifica National Board (PNB) shall serve as a
tiebreaker; and
Whereas the KPFT LSB unanimously supported Dr. Obidike Kamau as Interim General Manager on July 12,
2017 and,
Whereas the interim ED (Bill Crosier) harmed the LSB on July 14, 2017 by usurping its power in his
unilateral action to fire Dr. Obidike Kamau;
Be it hereby resolved, that the harmful and illegitimate personnel
action taken by the interim ED to fire Dr. Obidike Kamau be reversed immediately.
Article 7, Section 3: Specific
Powers and Duties
Both the Executive Director and/or an LSB may initiate the process to fire a station General
Manager. However, to effectuate it, both the Executive Director and the LSB must agree to fire said General Manager. If
the Executive Director and the LSB cannot agree, the decision to terminate or retain said General Manager shall be made
by the Board of Directors.
http://pacifica.org/indexed_bylaws/art7sec3.html
B. Investigative Committee Report
and Motion provided by P.K. McCary recommending the trial of Bill Crosier.
1. PK McCary, 10 minutes, a summary of the
Investigative Committee’s report. Each member of the LSB will be given the opportunity to ask one one-minute question;
PK will be given one minute to reply (Note, per RONR, all questions should be directed to the chair. Back and forth
discussion is out of order).
a. A motion to move to trial on a date at least 30 days from today to be determined at
this time and,
b. A motion to suspend Crosier as an LSB member, a member of the PNB and as an officer of the Pacifica
Foundation until the outcome of said trial.
C. Motion from Adrienne LaViolette to amend the motion concerning Robert
Mark’s trial:
Motion to amend the motion concerning Robert Mark’s Trial per his request
Whereas Robert Mark has
requested that his Trial be held in Public Session, before the entire LSB, be it hereby resolved that the motion
concerning Robert Mark’s trial be amended such that the trial be held in public session, before the entire Delegate
Assembly, and a trial date be chosen tonight by the LSB. This date should be at minimum 30 days and maximum 90 days
from today.
D. Program Council
1. Creation of a Special Committee to Recruit Candidates from KPFT
A.
Programmers
B. Members
Please note: The LSB has already selected board members who will serve.
Said candidates
shall appear for the LSB in November to state why they should be selected by this body to serve on this council. Each
candidate will receive up to two minutes to advocate for themselves and one minute to answer a one-minute question from
each LSB member prior to the vote.
VIII. Pacifica National Board Report.
A. Note: 4 minutes for each PNB member, 2
minutes each for each PNB committee. Also note: Some members of the board are particularly interested in the apparent
decision by PNB to weaken that said bodies power and the power by virtue of a motion that delegates to a committee of
five all financial decisions that exceed $10,000. An explanation is requested.
1. Adriana Casenave
2. Bill
Crosier
3. Rhonda Garner.
4. Robert Mark.
IX. Pacifica National Board Committee Reports (only those committees
who have met shall report).
A. Audit. (Elayne Duncan, P.K. McCary)
B. Inclusion. (P.K. McCary, Adriana Casenave,
Susie Moreno)
C. Development. (Jamie Rodriguez, Greg Audell)
D. Elections Committee. (Robert Gartner)
E.
Governance. (Elayne Duncan, P.K. McCary)
F. Programming. (Anisa Faruqi, Mike Lewis)
G. Affiliates Task Force.
(Nancy Saibara-Naritomi, Teresa Allen)
H. Archives Task Force. (Nancy Saibara-Naritomi, Anisa Faruqi)
X. . General
Managers Report.
XI. . Standing Committee Reports. INCLUDED IN EACH REPORT SHOULD BE THE NAME OF THE PERSON THE
COMMITTEE IS RECOMMENDING AS ITS CHAIR AS WELL AS INDIVIDUALS WHO WISH TO BECOME VOTING MEMBERS (SEE STANDING AND
SPECIAL RULES, ARTICLE THREE, COMMITTEES).
NOTE: 3 minutes per report.
A. Anti-Racism and Diversity. (Georgia
Provost)
B. Development. (Jamie Rodriguez)
C. Facilities Management and Planning. (Robert Gartner, Bobby
Modad)
D. Governance. (Joseph Davis)
E. Management Selection and Review. (Jamie Rodriguez)
F. Outreach.
(Vaniecia Williams)
G. Technology. (No chair)
XI. Special Committee Reports.
A. Community Advisory
Board.
B. Website Development.
XII. New Business continued.
A. Weisgal: Motion to encourage congress to support
a budget that addresses human needs (text to be provided).
B. Motion from Robert Mark: The KPFT LSB shall create a
committee to investigate and make recommendations for a sanction if warranted, regarding the conduct of LSB Chair Ted
Weisgal wherein he: 1. Inappropriately directed non KPFT assignments to minor high school interns in violation of the
terms and conditions wherein such interns were made available to KPFT; 2. Acted in an oppressive manner to KPFT staff
and volunteer programmers to interfere with their duties; 3. Threatened to kill a longstanding KPFT programmer at a
programmers meeting; 4. Participated in a public media crusade to hold KPFT and Pacifica in a negative light for the
purposes of furthering his Pacifica political agenda, thus creating a negative public view of Pacifica; 5. Acting as LSB
Chair outside the authority as set forth in the bylaws for the LSB or any delegated authority by the PNB to the LSB; 6.
Acted outside the scope of his authority wherein following the creation of an executive committee of the LSB, he acted
on a recommendation of said committee without returning the matter to the LSB for ratification as was specifically
required under the motion passed creating said committee; All detrimental to the best interests of the Pacifica
Foundation. After a full investigation of these allegations, the committee shall report to the full LSB their findings
and conclusions and recommendations for sanction if any.
C. Motion by PK McCary regarding censorship:
Whereas,
while censorship is not a new phenomenon for the Pacifica Network, having fought the good fight about indecent or
profane language (and losing), and Whereas censorship tampers with the mission of being "listener-sponsored free speech
radio," and Whereas KPFT's current gag order is censorship and the antithesis of "free speech radio," and Whereas,
listeners are being kept in the dark, Therefore, be it Resolved that the current gag order be lifted immediately as it
goes against the mission and principles of KPFT.
D. Motion by Susie Moreno regarding diversity in programming:
In
2000 and again in 2013, KPFT was given court orders to diversify its programming to better represent the diverse makeup
of the City of Houston and listenership area.
Currently, programming disproportionately favors white audiences with
65% of the programs geared towards European-American listeners.
During Dr. Kamau’s tenure, a process was started to
address the court orders and better represent the greater Houston community.
I move that the programming changes made
by Interim Director Larry Winters aka Jerry Sumrall, illegitimately hired on July 14, 2017, be stopped.
I further
move that a diverse programming council representative of the Houston area demographics be created to continue the
efforts to diversify KPFT initiated by Dr. Kamau in order to comply with its mission to provide diverse
programming.
E. Motion by Bob Gartner: I move that bumper stickers and other KPFT paraphernalia be purchased. I also
move that that two blanks are created so that we can determine
1. How many bumper stickers we want and,
2. By
what date they should be delivered to KPFT.
NOTE: As far as paraphernalia, should this motion pass, it will be the
job of the IGM and staff to determine what we need for the next fund drive but the amount spent should not exceed the
amount in the 2017 budget.
F. Motion by Bob Gartner: I move that the volunteer sign-up sheets be placed in the hands
of the KPFT LSB chair and that copies be made available for distribution to any board member who has a use for them in
the carrying out of their duties as a committee member.
XIV. Adjournment