Friday, June 14, 2013

Comrade Hadrian: Loyal Cadre or Corporate Gatekeeping Stooge?

This missive was rushed though our secure sekrit Inner Party channels (aka blog comments) and gives us some intelligence on the activities of those who would undermine our goal of a Radio Worker's Paradise:


From: mark sherman
Wednesday, June 12th, 4:16 PM

to Jill

Hi folks,

I would like to hear from all of you.

Jill Severson and I attend the governance committee meeting. There are five board members that sit on this committee: Matthew, Jeff, Rabia, Michael, and Hadrian (chair). As there was no quorum, there was no meeting. Hadrian was kind enough to discuss our concerns. Hadrian was the only board member to show up for this meeting--a committee he helped create in which members have no potential vote. It went down hill from here.

Hadrian spoke to us for over two hours, explaining his interpretation of how the board functions and how the bylaws and the new board policy manual are used to guide the board.

These are the most unsettling issues that Hadrian brought up

KBOO is not a member organization, but a public benefit corporation. The members pay their dues for a better Portland. Once we elect our board members they are under no obligation, legal or otherwise, to listen to any member. Our only option for input at board meetings, are two 10 minute public comment slots and through committees.

All of the current members who are concerned about KBOO's problems are organized by a select few programmers who are opposed to any change. None of us have valid concerns because we are manipulated by the few. He called us all "friends of the [kboo] staff", "incestuous", and "the kboo club". Hadrian: "Really what you have is a MOB."

The staff is unmanageable. At least 3 need to be fired. He said repeatedly that all staff need to be fired, when he stated, "Get me a new staff"... although when asked, it was clear he did not mean the Executive Director.

Hadrian will NOT support any effort where members ask the board to rescind the corporate oriented board policy manual. He sees himself as Gatekeeper and Knower of correct board policy as chair of the recently created governance committee, offering to educate us at his own [future] training.

 The membership votes for board members and can recall board members. This is one of our few forms of participation in governance at KBOO. Hadrian invited us to recall him. This is a good idea. Thanks Hadrian.

Even though Ms. Fitch said she would not make any programming changes, Hadrian stated this was incorrect, and he would work to correct that misconception.

He believes KBOO needs to recruit board members and advisory committee members from outside the organization. These people would be ethnically diverse leaders already established in the greater community, with a following. They would then advise KBOO as to who to put on the air. What would happen to the current, active programming committee is unclear. These outsider leaders can simply send in their membership dues just before they are appointed.

It is unacceptable to have anyone sit as a board member who has no respect for the KBOO membership or staff. I would call him hostile to the membership. All criticism is discounted as being controlled by a select few, "friends of (long-term) staff".

Now for the good news. Hadrian is running for another term on the board in September. We can do one of 3 things:

Ask the board to vote him off the island

Take up his kind offer to recall him immediately

Recall him at the next annual meeting

Please consider: If you want to recall Hadrian, it will take 20 - 30 volunteers working a few hours a day to gain sufficient signatures to call for a special meeting. Then we'll need to get 300 members show up and vote. It takes 2/3 of the members voting to recall a board member. Depending on how the next board meeting goes, we may need to ask more board members to step down.


See what you are missing by not going to committee meetings 8-)

Mark Sherman


p.s.

I would never have believed anyone could say these things and be on a KBOO board. I am glad that Jill was there as well. The non-committee meeting was worse than this. These are simply the highlights.

 We would never believe it either!  Actually we'd believe almost anything!  The lack of Critical Thinking Skills explains our unwavering support of Our Glorious Leader! 

But that's beside the point.  The point is Hadrian is undermining The Cause by:

-Being the only board member willing to speak at length with lunatics who don't know how a not for profit corporation is run or even that it is a corporation.(Not sure this is the best choice of words for The Struggle....get lower cadre to edit.)

- Explaining exactly how The Inner Party, in spite of having members who have worked at KBOO from it's inception, HAS NO IDEA what business model KBOO was/is or how it legally operates.  Clearly this is all Hadrian's fault...for giving us information that may lower the morals, er, morale of the Outer Party.

-leaking to the Outer Party their true place in the Struggle(patsies for the Inner Party)

 -wanting to fire incompetent unproductive staff.  The Iron Rice Bowl is the Key to the Revolution. It must be protected at all costs.

-refusing to support efforts to make changes by membership who have no idea what they're talking about.

-wanting  new blood in KBOO who would possibly be immune to established Inner Party propaganda

It is unacceptable to have anyone who sits on the board who has no respect for the delusions of grandeur the Inner Party as instilled in some Outer Party cadre.  Hadrian is clearly hostile to membership, wishing to inflict an opressive regime of FACTS and COMPETANCE and RESPONISBILITY.

Our only chance to fight this insidious force is to mobilize 30, er, 300 cadre to storm te barricades!  We need 20-30 patsies, er, volunteers to work the equivalent of a part time job without pay, to convince the Outer Party that membership needs a special meeting to REMOVE HADRIAN.

How we'll convince regular membership to reject Hadrian's FACT/COMPETENCE/RESPONSIBILITY platform, we don't know.   It looks like we might have to LIE again.    But no sacrifice it too great for The Cause!!


After all, who is this Hadrian to waste two hours of the Inner Party's time explaining complicated business facts in a good faith interview the Inner Party had no intention of respecting?  We suspect Hadrian may have even brought up MATH.  Horrors.

His implication the Inner Party needs to understand how things work before taking them over undermines years of Inner Party Propaganda we have no intention of abandoning at this late stage. 

Comrade Sherman's recommendation of voting Hadrian off the island is extreme however necessary to keep our Iron Grip on our Iron Rice Bowls.

Our Leader has shown us the way by example.  It is the Right of the People to make unworkable, disastrous plans to take over organisations they don't understand how to run.  Only then can there be fertile ground for the Radio Worker's Paradise to BLOOM!


Final note:  Cadre will remember Comrade Jill was presented the TinFoil Star of The Heroic Struggle not too long ago for bravely facing Fitch in public. She continues to prove her worthiness of the Inner Party's commendation.  We need more suggestible comrades who are ready to tag along and nod their heads to anything the Inner Party says.  There is no greater glory than being a patsy for the Inner Party.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE


-Meresa Titchell






10 comments:

  1. As part of the upcoming programming changes at fascist Zombie KBOO, we intend to move in a big way into talk radio.

    Talk radio is one of the most popular radio formats, and it is a key part of our plan to increase KBOO's listenership above its current undetectable level.

    While we intend to develop our own homegrown talent, we are pleased and honored to announce that Lars Larson has volunteered to host a weekly two-hour show, to jumpstart KBOO's move into talk radio.

    You won't want to miss Lars' first show on KBOO, with the topic: "Isn't it time we banned bicycling in Portland?"

    I know you won't want to miss a single second of Lars' show! See you then!

    ReplyDelete
  2. While Theresa and Save Kboo mave have gone quiet, their intentions and efforts are clear. They wan no change at KBOO, they want KBOO to continue serving their needs, not the needs of the community. They want the status-quo to remain, which Cascadia has loudly said (via listenership and membership) does not fulfill its needs.

    I hope everyone is working on getting more members and more voters for the next board election, because you know that's what Theresa is doing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Email from mark sherman
    markx@zeninternet.com
    Jun 5

    Hadrian,
    I am trying to hit the highlights of the board meeting. Though we spoke for a long time, does the following summarize your perspective correctly? I don't want to misrepresent you or misinterpret what you said.

    My interpretation is that Hadrian looks at all of PDX as the KBOO community. KBOO members make up 1% of that community. Thus our concerns are not representative of the entire KBOO community. He also stated that KBOO has had a high turnover of station managers and attributes this to a staff that is difficult to manage. He would like to see community leaders from various sectors of PDX participate in a community advisory committee and perhaps have seats on the board.
    -------------------

    Mark says that "I don't want to misrepresent you or misinterpret what you said." Therefore, Mark could not be the author of the missive sent to the "all of you" he wishes to hear from, that does misrepresent and misinterpret what I said. Right? It's the only reasonable conclusion. Because he would have checked with me first about all this other stuff he writes, and he didn't. :)

    Well, anyway, at least his email to me wasn't as far off the mark as his "all of you" missive.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mighty suspicious that. Removed huh? We can't let that stand. Here it is again. (Blogger: your text formatting options suck).

      -----------------------
      Email from mark sherman
      markx@zeninternet.com>
      Jun 11

      The bylaws specify a personnel/governance/community advisory committee be one entity.

      Is this not in conflict with the current committee structure either implemented by KBOO or specified in the BPM?

      -----------------------
      Reply from
      Hadrian Micciche
      Jun 11

      Mark: There is no conflict, as the bylaws do not specify a personnel/governance/community advisory committee be one entity. They specify that:

      ARTICLE VIII: COMMITTEES
      (a) Program Committee. The Program Committee shall conduct ongoing evaluations of programming and programmers; evaluate program proposals; make recommendations concerning programming changes to the Program Director; and advise the Board of Directors regarding programming goals and issues. The Program Committee shall also serve as the corporation's Community Advisory Board. In that capacity, it shall review the programming goals established by the corporation, the service provided by the corporation, and the significant policy decisions rendered by the corporation; advise the Board of Directors with respect to whether the programming and other policies of the corporation are meeting the specialized educational and cultural needs of the communities served by the corporation; and make such recommendations as it considers appropriate to meet such needs.
      (c) Personnel Committee. The personnel committee shall advise the board of directors regarding the corporation’s personnel policies and practices.

      The By-Laws do not call for a Governance Committee. However:
      Section 2. Standing Committees of Directors. Standing committees of Directors shall include but need not be limited to the following...

      The Board Policy Manual created the Governance Committee as a Standing Committee.

      Your understanding here of the By-Laws is entirely incorrect.
      ------------------------

      Comment: Oh dear. Who needs by-laws anyways? All KBOO needs do is whatever a small number of disaffected members want, and hope the Attorney General never finds out.

      OOPSIE!

      Delete
    2. Blogger only allows i, u and b tags. Use the preview to check.

      Thanks for your comments. Most of the action is on the latest news we'll probably keep up for most of the weekend. But who knows. the Inner Party may do something to change that.

      And welcome to the blog, comrade!

      Delete
  5. In an subsequent email, (to long to copy and too rambling to properly edit for length), Mark implores me to seek revisions to the Board Policy Manual. Why? Because the manual refers to a Standing Committee of Directors as a "board-level committee."

    He also uses some math to convince me that because the by-laws created more committees that allow KBOO members to serve on them than don't allow it, the new Governance Committee should not have been created as a Committee of Directors.

    My reply to follow

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My reply: (edited for clarity)

      -----------------------
      Hadrian Micciche

      Jun 12

      I only had limit[ed] time to respond to your last email. More about the board-level standing committee.

      It is absurd to decide what kind of committee any committee should be by the ratio of board-level standing committees to what are called "Other Committees" and "Other Standing Committees" in the by-laws [and] which permit membership to non-board members and voting rights to those who attend the required number of meetings.

      If you research the history, development and present practices of non-profit organization's (NPO) Governance Committees, you will find that Governance Committees grew out of Nominating Committees taking on additional and necessary responsibilities, and that many if not most NPOs do not have a nominating committee now.

      Reading from:
      ARTICLE VIII: COMMITTEES
      Section 2. Standing Committees of Directors. Standing committees of Directors shall include but need not be limited to the following:
      (b) Nominating Committee. The Nominating Committee shall...analyze regularly the attendance of Board members; consult with Board members who are not attending regularly; and make recommendations to the Board regarding inactive members of the Board.

      That, my friend, is a Governance task. However, it would require a By-Law change to evolve our NomCom into a fully operational GovCom, and named as such. So, as allowed by the By-Laws, we created a new Standing Committee of Directors, and properly so.

      The text you cited from the By-Laws do indeed point out we have the power to create Standing Other Committees. However, we did not. We created a Standing Committee of Directors. Governance, like the tasks of the Nomination Committee are Board-level tasks.

      How would it be to allow just anyone to wander into a Governance Committee and after three meetings, have a vote? Let's use you as an example. You say you admire my knowledge of KBOO's governing documents. Lets examine yours....

      To be continued.

      Delete
    2. Reply to Mark continued

      How would it be to allow just anyone to wander into a Governance Committee and after three meetings, have a vote? Let's use you as an example. You say you admire my knowledge of KBOO's governing documents. Lets examine yours.

      1. When asked, "Who owns KBOO?," You said "The members." You were wrong. KBOO is owned by the public. You have mistaken a marketing slogan (no longer authorized for use in pledge drives) as the legal reality about KBOO's ownership.

      2. You did not know that KBOO is a Public Benefit corporation in the State of Oregon, and not a Mutual Benefit corporation. Mutual benefit corporations are organized for the benefit of the organization's membership. Examples of mutual benefit nonprofit corporations include social clubs, business leagues, and veterans groups.

      3. You did not know that KBOO could not change our Public Benefit corporate status and still survive. The Oregon statures and the IRS require KBOO to give all of its assets to another 501(c)(3) organization. Mutual Benefit corporations would not be a 501(c)(3). Rather, they receive a 501(c)(7) classification from the IRS.

      4. You did not know that NPO's are a business and that a 501(c)(3) is a classification of a type of ownership of the corporation - one that is owned by the public.

      5. You said the By-Laws call for a Personnel/Governance/Community Advisory Board Committee. You were wrong.

      6. You persist on insisting that it is improper to refer to a Standing Committees of Directors as a board level committee, which it obviously is. What part of "Committee of Directors" don't you understand?

      I'd venture to guess that you did not know that:

      7. The IRS requires us to serve the public, not just our members.

      8. The State of Oregon requires us to serve the public, not just our members.

      9. The FCC granted us a license to broadcast over the publicly owned airwaves to serve the public, not just our members. Our license renewal requires us to state exactly how we do that.

      10. The FCC at one time required us to have a Community Advisory Board (CAB), and may still -- however our By-Laws require it. You didn't understand that a CAB needs to consist of community leaders.

      11. You don't recognize the need and benefit of including on the KBOO Board leaders of the communities we seek to serve. Progressives have largely deserted KBOO. We need to diversify our programming to include, for example, more of the voices of the Portland area's varied ethnic communities.

      In other words, you don't know the first thing about Governance issues, nor, I'd venture to say, do most members. It would be a disaster to allow you or others similarly uninformed or misinformed to serve on a Governance Committee. It was decided by the KBOO members that the historical predecessor of Governance Committees, the Nominating Committee, be a Board-level Committee of Directors. So should the GovCom.

      I hope all of this is a sufficient explanation of these matters. I won't be asking for revisions to the BPM, because you have not demonstrated yet that any revision is required.
      -----------------------

      Delete
    3. Comment: So, if Mark wants to try to communicate to his people what I actually think, here is ample evidence of it.

      But wait! There's more!

      The Board Policy Manual was crafted with the help of an attorney who literally wrote the book about governance for Oregon state non-profits, guided by workgroup consisting of a quarter of the Board, and approved by the entire board -- until the propaganda machine got busy and board members panicked. Now, we need to revise it to allow people without the first clue about governance, about who owns KBOO and about who KBOO needs to serve, to make governance recommendations to the Board?

      As these folks would have it, the Board is not to be trusted. After all, the Board:
      1. Are all KBOO members,
      2. Elected by KBOO members (or appointed in a process approved of by members)
      3. Guided by by-laws approved of by members.

      Wait. What?

      Delete