TRANSCRIPT
PACIFICA BOARD OF DIRECTORS |
| DOROTHY NASATIR | Just that, we had two-telephone conference calls. In the first week, outlined the process or processes to get approval from this board, to have input into already structured into documents that pertain to the board, for instance, the bylaws, and the strategic plan. There were people who thought that they wanted to make changes, but what is the process to do that? So that was what we worked on, and that was to be a presentation at this meeting. So we'll...I guess we'll just do it at the next meeting. That was one of the things that we were going to present. Also, just to give a quick history, that's exactly why this committee grew. Because there were concerns about various documents, and the question was, what's the procedure to make changes? That's our charge. |
| DR. BERRY | We thank you very much for that information and we expect to hear more from your subcommittee. So are there any questions about this? |
| ANDREA CISCO | I actually have the minutes from that first meeting, if you want to just review them, I'll certainly distribute them. |
| PETE BRAMSON | I have both sets, if the need is for both set, I have not a problem with distributing them. |
| CHERYL.F. BRADFORD | I think that in the minutes that grew up on the web-site, even if you've got a notation that the party that's going to formally do it isn't here, it would be good for us to know that there wasn't that conference committee. |
| DOROTHY NASATIR | I think, Cheryl that is so accurate. Because it's one of the issues most of concern in our LAB. |
| CHERYL F. BRADFORD | Yeah. |
| DOROTHY NASATIR | That there is this process. And that even the fact that this committee existed was very gratifying. |
| PETE BRAMSON | So the request is to go over what? I mean before . . . |
| DOROTHY NASATIR | To go over the process. Our recommendation is to go over the processes to make changes in the strategic plan by . . . |
| PETE BRAMSON | Okay. |
| DOROTHY NASATIR | And to propose the responsibilities of LAB, those are the three documents. |
| PETE BRAMSON | First on our agenda, and I'll read again from the document in front of me which was processed through the subcommittee minutes from the 22nd. The first agenda item was how to insure that the input at the LABs is communicated with every board. The primary consideration was insuring that a democratic process was followed at every step. There are at least three pathways for LAB input at the governing board. 1) through their LAB representative on the governing board; 2) through the LAB council chairs; and 3) through the community assessment process, communicating to the general manager. It was decided that the following steps would be recommended: a) any member of an LAB may propose an issue. This proposed issue must first be voted on at the LAB level; b) if the proposal receives a majority vote of the LAB, then it would be mandated that the LAB chair present the proposal to the LAB Council of Chairs; c) if the proposal receives a majority vote from the LAB Council of Chairs, then the Council of Chairs will submit the proposal to the governing board; d) the governing board chair will then delegate consideration of the proposal to the appropriate governing board committee; e) upon consideration of the proposal, it becomes the responsibility of the governing board to communicate its decision to the Council of Chairs which in turn informs all of the LABs of the decision of the consideration of the governing board. Did that answer the question? |
| GROUP | Yes. |
| CHERYL F. BRADFORD | And it seems to me that that speaks to the issue that created this committee. That maybe we wouldn't have been in that place if at the Council of Chairs, they had three proposals on the table, and if in that body they had decided which one should come forward to the governing board. That it stay there until some decision is made so that as a governing board, we don't come to a meeting and all of a sudden, there's three distinctly different proposals and no way of working through it. I mean that seems reasonable. |
| PETE BRAMSON | Well, the history of it, at it was about the LAB staff voting issue. That's where it came up from. And then one of the membership from the WBAI Council of Chairs had suggested if there were a by-law, the LAB by-law, in which a tremendous amount of work went into the document, be kind of re-looked at. |
| CHERYL F. BRADFORD | And the third was that absolutely nothing happened. |
| PETE BRAMSON | And that's the history of how the subcommittee came up. |
| VALERIE VAN ISLER | Madame Chair? |
| DR. BERRY | Yes. |
| VALERIE VAN ISLER | It's important, and this whole concept or process has been not where it should be. It's been missing. It's been a vacuum. And I know that you're trying to address that and it's terribly important. Given this new letter from CPB, we should not be putting ourselves through a lot of hoops that in fact, you know, may not be the actual structure. That's just to put all your work and your dedication into context. Some cautions. |
| DR. BERRY | Yes. Thank you for that caution. Yes. Pete. |
| PETE BRAMSON | I hope that there is still a feeling at the governing board level of the importance of this task. And that no matter what the changes are that come about, that there is a process whereby people can be heard, that there is a sense of accountability, and that there's a sense of the fairness of what we're doing here. And no matter what the changes are, I think if that's continuous at the board level, the governing board level, we can do our best to insure that. |
| CHERYL F. BRADFORD | I think this committee could just revisit that one place where it says that, you know, the conduit for the information...or something.... there's this connection between the LAB, the governing board member and getting information for it. So I think that you can just refine, the committee can just refine that. |
| PETE BRAMSON | Oh yeah. It is hopefully a simple process and commonsensical, fair, and something we can work with. |
| DR. BERRY | I think just make sure you leave it in light of the fact that these are informational exchanges for everyone who is involved. |
| DOROTHY NASATIR | I was just going to say the same thing. I think we're in flux in terms of CPB. But I think the fact that this committee exists to work on processes and procedures is really valuable because there's a missing link. |
| DR. BERRY | And we need the tons of documents you guys have come up with on organizational structure and various kinds of things that we don't have. Or if we have them, I don't know where they are. That is not a formal committee report so we will move on and ask Ken for the...but we thank you, and let me ask Ken for the report of the Technical Committee. |
| KEN FORD | The Technical Committee has made an attempt to get started. We have
not met physically but we did have a conference call last week. We're trying...the
purpose of the call primarily was somewhat of an organizational one whereby
we're trying to get started to identify our mission, to determine a charge,
and just exactly what services we can provide to the board and Pacifica
at large.
We pretty much have decided that we're going to pattern our mission charge basically on what's in the strategic plan, and at the same time trying to ascertain a process whereby we can get input from the stations and identify problems both short term and...as far as technical issues...trying to do some long range planning as to what direction we could offer the network as it pertains to new technologies coming about. Whether they're in the computer field or digital radio or global marketing through the Internet. So those are some of the broad concepts we were looking to address. Now one suggestion that we had and a method of trying to ascertain input was to, I should say two methods, was to try and do a survey of all the stations identifying what type of equipment they have, their range of a signal in their respective areas, their need for upgrades in the future, trying to solicit information from the station managers, and at the same time, contact the local boards and find out whether or not they have a Technical Committee locally that deals with these issues, and if there are problems locally, how we can filter that information up to our committee such that we can bring the issue forward to the board at large. Given the letter of the CPB and its implication, right now we're not sure as to how that's going to occur but we'll figure that out as time goes on. We do have two issues, one being the tower at KPFK and the other being self-assistance. We've gotten some literature, some reports, at this meeting here, that members of the committee have, and that we're going to start analyzing. That and trying to form that in our next conference call. The way we thought that we would try and carry forth our business is to do a monthly conference call on the various issues. Before we do that, we would like the staff to tell us what budgetary impact that would cause, because we definitely don't want to raise the deficit since there's pretty much no money budgeted for this. We would like to know if it's going to be a nominal fee, we would like the permission of the chair to go ahead and start doing these monthly conference calls. One, to organize our committee, and two, to start bringing forth issues and recommendations, you know, long term things we want to look at like digital radio, and being able to bring the whole network up on the Internet. So that we can stop thinking nationally and start thinking globally as far as giving the message out of Pacifica across the world to the Internet which would be a minimal cost. And so, what we want to do is to do great and wonderful things in the technical field, and put out guides and white papers. Feel free you guys to think about it and maybe give direction for staffing long term. Before we do that we will need to get some type of feel of what we have as far as financial resources that we can do some of these things for in investigation and research. So that's basically it, Madame Chair. |
| DR. BERRY | Yes, Ralph. |
| RALPH MCKNIGHT | Yeah, I just wanted to tell Ken that I have a fairly extensive list of things, some information from our station manager about KPFK. Things like that. But I'll reserve our next meeting. |
| PETE BRAMSON | As I do with KPFA, I would suggest that it's a good time to look back at each individual station's strategic plan. During that work, I know which one of the stations put a lot of work into the strategic plan and there were also some technical components within that. Maybe it'll work better |
| KEN FORD | Yes, we're going to try to consolidate these but, you know, I know at my station we don't have that, and that's something we're going to have to answer to. I'm not sure about KPFT or WBAI. And that's something we're going to ascertain and at the next meeting we'll have a full blown report, and hopefully a written report, to the members of the board as to what our whole process is going to be and our whole activity such that you can give us guidance as to where you think we ought to go. |
| DR. BERRY | Well, the short answer about conference calls is that the committee should utilize them to the extent they need to. Number one. Number two, if you have conference calls, keep in mind that committees are not given budgets for conference calls. |
| KEN FORD | That's correct. |
| DR. BERRY | You arrange them when you need to have them, but the most important thing about conference calls is to be organized before you start a call. These are not free form, consensus type discussions. The clock is running. |
| KEN FORD | Absolutely. We understand that. |
| DR. BERRY | So that one should be organized before the call begins and one should run the meeting in such a way as to elicit comments in an orderly fashion, if possible. Try to cut off debate in a polite way, here and there, and to disseminate as much information as possible before the meeting by e-mail or by other means, so as to keep in mind the reduction of calls. Otherwise, a conference call that's free form can go on for hours before anybody even notices that you've been on the phone for that long. |
| KEN FORD | Madam Chair. You set a time limit of thirty minutes. And that is going to be a hard and fast rule. All of the preliminary work such as letters and correspondence will be done well ahead of time, and there is an agenda, things will be kept tightly on time so we will not have that over. |
| DR. BERRY | Yes. |
| JUNE MAKELA | This sort of falls under technical. What dawns on me, and I'm not the best judge of this because I'm barely in the twentieth century when it comes to technology, is the use of e-mail and chat rooms and all this sort of stuff for these kinds of meetings. And it seems like, if you guys could investigate that for all of us, I'm struck by the inefficiency and the high cost of conference calls. And by how unpleasant they are, for me personally. And how many I seem to engage in. And that, I know other people, I've talked to other people casually about this, and that you, there are these things called chat rooms where you and I could have a discussion about an investment memo that got sent to us or something. |
| ROBERTA BROOKS | Everybody's not on the Net. |
| JUNE MAKELA | But I think everybody should be. And we're getting there, that people are getting there. Yeah, right, if everybody isn't on, it doesn't work but I'm saying that there might be ways for us to start utilizing that technology. |
| KEN FORD | That's a valid comment and we'll . . .. |
| DR. BERRY | The committee might investigate that for all of us. |
| KEN FORD | Yes, we will. |
| DR. BERRY | Because if it makes sense, then when people aren't on, it might be cheaper to put somebody on than to have conference calls all the time. |
| KEN FORD | We will investigate that. Right. |
| CHERYL F. BRADFORD | I just wanted to say that you know being on e-mail can be free. You just have to have a computer to get on. And you can get a used one. |
| DR. BERRY | Okay. We are deteriorating here. Let's see. Let's have a motion to move or accept hands. |
| FRANK MILLSPAUGH | So moved. |
| FEMALE SPEAKER | I second. |
| DR. BERRY | Okay. All in favor of the motion say aye. |
| GROUP | Aye. |
| DR. BERRY | Now I want to ask Shirley Adams, who is the chair of LAB here in Houston if she would mind coming up to greet us for . . . Why don't you sit down there if you don't mind. |
| SHIRLEY ADAMS | Down there. Okay. |
| DR. BERRY | No, as a matter of fact, sit over here where David's supposed to sit. And we had some confusion because we forgot to put this on the agenda. So please accept my apologies, and we very much appreciate your just saying a few words to us. |
| SHIRLEY ADAMS | Well, accept my apologies for not being prepared, so I came as a spectator this morning. I do want to thank you for coming to Houston, and welcome. And I'm glad that, I'm very happy to be a part of the Pacifica Foundation of KPFT, and I'm real honored that you are here. And I'm real happy that you got to visit our little station, which is in bad need of repair, or a new building. I hope you see the real hard work and the quality of programming that we're able to produce from there. And also I just wanted to say that as a board member of KPFT, we're also very proud and happy to have produced our community ascertainment report. |
| SEVERAL | Good work. Good work. Good work. [applause] |
| DOROTHY NASATIR | I wanted to ask a question, if you don't mind. |
| SHIRLEY ADAMS | No. |
| SHIRLEY ADAMS | You've had conference calls with the other chairs of the other LABs. |
| SHIRLEY ADAMS | Yes. |