Meeting of the KBOO Board of Directors, 2009/01/05
MEETING OF THE KBOO BOARD OF DIRECTORS—final approved as amended 1/26
Monday January 5, 2009
Present:
Becky Chiao
Anthony Petchel
Louis Sowa
Erin Brand
Judy Fiestal
Eric Robinson
Genevieve Mathews
Mark Allyn
Scott Forrester
Ivonne Rivero
Absent:
Joe Azevedo
Judy facilitated
Anthony brought food
Public/Staff:
Arthur Davis
Andrew Geller
Ruth Kovach
Meeting Called to Order at 6:05
Introductions/Check-in—Happy New Year, Judy shared some Cuban pesos, we talked about how we fared in last month’s snow.
Ruth K. made a comment that she thinks we should do whatever we can to contact with prisoners. Judy said that Michael told us that the signal wouldn’t reach into the prison. John M. disagreed.
Capital Campaign update: Eric said he hasn’t done anything. The auxiliary budget expects that we’ll raise $50K. Is sort of handing it off to Eric and Anthony. Andrew said that he is focusing on the winter drive that is coming up later this month. But he has lots of ideas and plans for the capital campaign and plans to put some materials together, possibly using someone who is a graphic designer. Arthur said that we did raise money for a new transmitter in a prior campaign. We need someone to commit to taking a leadership role. We hired a membership assistant with the idea that it would free up the membership assistant to do more development-grant writing. A capital campaign might merge into a major donor campaign.
Scott asked about the auxiliary budget. Eric said it is mostly one-time funding—maybe ½ equipment and ½ training and advertising expenses. Scott said that he would like to help with the Capital Campaign and that he is hoping to raise money as part of the Pendleton thing that will be discussed later in the meeting.
Andrew said that he thinks it is a bad move to try to launch a capital campaign and major donor campaign at the same time and we are facing a recession. Anthony said that there are staff capacity and staffing/salary issues.
Arthur agrees that we can’t do both (capital and major donor campaigns) but we have to start somewhere. Eric said that he is happy to start working. Becky said she’d remembered that Joe and Genevieve were interested in working on this too.
Board fundraising—challenge to get new members. Andrew saw 3 people say that they joined because of contact with Arthur. Anthony said that we all need to commit to bringing in one new member per board meeting. Louis said what about giving out free memberships for one year? Andrew said that it will be harder to fundraise if we are giving out free memberships. Andrew’s been thinking about providing some incentive for new donors. But he isn’t sure how it would work with the bylaws to provide a longer membership period for new members.
Becky said that she got one person to up their membership via the WW Give Guide and has tried to encourage other people to listen to KBOO, if they don’t already.
Ivonne said that she recalls that people need to be members to participate in KBOO. Becky said no, you can be a member by paying or by volunteering.
Mark said that some people he approached are already members. Some said that they had a bad opinion of KBOO because of past board/staff relations.
Arthur gave us a pep talk about how to ask people to donate money. He said: people like to be asked, make it personal—say we need your help to go a good thing, put your leadership and credibility on the line, ask for a specific amount—either $5 a month or a $40 one time, use silence, options, genuine appreciation—follow up, people like to be asked.
Becky said that she wouldn’t be pleased if we put too much emphasis on individual fundraising for board members. Another suggestion would be to make sure board members participate in the membership drive and work on individual events.
Station Goals—Genevieve, Scott, Joe and Anthony worked on new Goals and Objectives. She is going to go to the staff and hopes that we’ll have something to vote on next month. Judy said that this is a lot to work on. She would like to get our guidelines set quickly without having this worked on for too long.
Becky said she would like to see a bullet point under strategic planning that would set out an objective of having the mission and values to be implemented by the different departments through a consistent message.
Judy suggested that the committee work on simplifying things so that it would be something that can be worked on in the next year.
Scott worked on the document, agreed with some things and not with others. He is concerned about more underwriting and organizational change. The first bullet point says develop a mission and vision statement—he thinks that we have one and that to change it we need all of the members to agree.
We had a discussion about the mission statement vs. program charter.
Break for food—thanks to Anthony
Board Staff Retreat –Sat or Sun Feb. 21 or 22. Carri Mun will facilitate. There is a work group—Arthur, Judy, Erin, Ani and Toni that can meet again to plan ahead of time.
We need an alternative meeting place for the January 26 meeting. Judy said we can use Havurah Shalom for $19. Anthony’s office is also available for free. We just need a list of who is coming to let people in after 6 pm. It is a little more convenient location than Havurah. People who come after 6 pm will have to be let in by the security guard—Anthony will give the guard his cell phone and they can call up.
Scott wants to ensure that members have access to board meetings and the retreat. He would rather see us err on the side of openness and transparency.
Judy said that there is a reason for retreats. Anthony agreed that it wouldn’t be appropriate to have members there. Becky said she agrees with Scott that if someone shows up, we shouldn’t turn them away, but that we shouldn’t publicize it as an open meeting. Erin said if you are in couple’s counseling you don’t invite everyone and the purpose is for board and staff not members. Louis said that he wouldn’t encourage members to come, but wouldn’t put them out. Ivonne said that although we should have an open door policy, there are times to have a closed door to keep energy and focus. Eric says don’t promote it, if someone comes let them in, but don’t let them participate. Judy says keep it closed. Mark says the mathematic probably of someone coming to not participate on a sunny weekend is unlikely he wouldn’t throw someone out. Genevieve would keep it closed. Arthur said it is important to have a board staff retreat and the practice is that they aren’t open. He thinks that it is worst to let someone in who has heard about it, but not have it publicized because then being able to come depends on being told about it.
Motion—Erin moved that the board staff retreat in Feb. 2009 be limited to board, staff and the facilitator. Someone seconded it. 6 in favor 3 opposed and 1 abstention. MOTION PASSED
Volunteer Board Appreciation Party this Saturday at Liberty Hall—board members are invited and can bring family/friends.
Frequency update—Becky said her memory of what Mike Brown said was that a cheap radio wouldn’t pick up the signal, but that people might be able to pick it up with a good antenna. Scott called people in Pendleton. He eventually got a lot of support from individuals and organizations. He’s identified some 4-5 leaders who are willing to work on this to raise money to reimburse KBOO for the money we’ve put into this already. An elected official has identified an abandoned transmitter in the area. There is a petition people have signed. The community is willing to do a lot. So Scott doesn’t think there is a big downside. Ivonne would like the board to consider approving this because of the ownership, we are alternative media. She has seen a community organize at the PCUN low-power station KPCN. This would be a transmitter that can play local programming, not just a transmitter.
Judy said that we need the Pendleton to step up quickly with the money. Arthur said some people may be disappointed because the signal won’t reach very far. John said that the coverage will depend on what happens with the other applicants as potential licensees. Arthur is worried about financial and engineering capacity—since the translators aren’t functional yet.
Becky said she is concerned about the engineering capacity, not so much the financial capacity. She is impressed by Scott’s work and doesn’t see a huge downside to investing the additional $5K. Anthony is concerned about finances. Erin doesn’t want to spend more money on this project. Louis is neutral. Eric sent an email summarizing thought already, doesn’t support the additional expense based on the current budget deficit. There is only one up front application expense being talked about here and there would be additional expenses. He thinks we would need an additional staff person to take on this project properly.
Mark asked if we do nothing, the application is still there, correct? Scott says we have little chance of getting the frequency because the competition is local. Mark is concerned about the money because of the budget deficit.
Genevieve agrees with Anthony is for quality vs. quantity. She thinks we will only get a small number of members in Pendleton. She appreciates what Scott is doing.
Judy said that if people in Pendleton can come up with the money she would support going forward.
Corvallis got the money for their translator.
The estimate is $5500 to buy out the competition.
Motion by Scott F—KBOO Board supports getting FCC license in Pendleton if they raise $5500 before the FCC makes a decision. Scott will include information about the engineering reports for all people interested and will make sure that people in Pendleton realize that this is just an initial amount of money that needs to be raised and that they will have to take the lead on creating the new station. The total costs could be about $50K.
Mark seconded. All in favor except Eric who voted against the motion. MOTION PASSED
Arthur suggested talking to Mike to get an explanation in layman’s terms what the coverage issues are.
Judy moved to approve the minutes from November. Someone seconded.
7 people were in favor of approving the minutes. Ivonne and Scott abstained. Eric was out of the room. MOTION PASSED
Commitment Review—Genevieve, Scott, Andrew, Eric will work on the capital campaign. Board fundraising—we’ll let people share their experiences at the next meeting and encourage people to sign up for pledge drive shifts. Goals document will come back to the board at the next meeting. Hopefully, we’ll have a date for the retreat next week. Erin will start drafting an agenda. Scott will be working on the Pendleton and is inviting two people to go out there with him in his wife’s Prius. Judy will ask Jamilah to do a cart about the meeting location change it is at 5th and Taylor.
Next month’s meeting: we’ll have Marc give a presentation on web issues, Judy would like a projector, either Louis will bring one or Anthony will get one from his workplace. We should have a report on the Meyer grant, a finance report and there is a motion from the finance committee on staffing.
Public Meeting Adjourned at 8:32 pm.
Meeting of the KBOO Board of Directors, 2008/10/21
MEETING OF THE KBOO BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Tuesday October 21, 2008
Present:
Becky Chiao
Anthony Petchel
Joe Azevedo
Erin Brand
Judy Fiestal
Eric Robinson
Jamilah Bourdon
Genevieve Mathews
Ivonne Rivero, late
Judy facilitated
Judy brought food
Meeting Called to Order at 6:16--we started with a check in.
Absent: Jay Thiemeyer, Scott Forrester, Mark Allyn
Public/Staff:
Arthur Davis
John Mackey
Cheri Blackfeather
Louis Sowa
Yvette Maranowski
Bryan Stevens
Aleigha Cantuell
Tom Wendt
Conch
Chris Merrick
Public Comments:
Yvette said that she was here because she had a past and current experience where people who should be role models have a pattern of ignoring people which impedes progress. She says KBOO has a problem with people being ignored, maybe we should have a policy that says you can’t ignore people if they have a valid question.
Aleigha said that she came today because Erin Yanke helped with a school project and she came say that KBOO was very helpful.
John received a communication that he read regarding his 2006 employee evaluation which informed him that the Board upheld the decision of the CRC. He also feels ignored because he never got a communication from the CRC and feels that there were mistakes in the evaluation. He wants to grieve his 2007 evaluation.
Cheri wanted to welcome the new Board. She said that she appreciates having it in the minutes reflected whether people who aren’t here have told the Board president about why they aren’t coming.
Judy said Ivonne is usually late because of a Tuesday work conflict, Scott said he couldn’t come but we don’t know why, we know why Jay isn’t here, but haven’t heard from Mark A.
Agenda Review—no additional items
Bylaws Typos—Judy asked if everyone can read them on their computer or whether someone needs a hard copy. Is it OK if we all review it for the November meeting? If people have questions Zale might be a good person to address questions to. Erin said maybe we can compile all Board questions and then send them together to the Governance. Judy suggested just copying everyone on any emails with questions.
Program Changes Update—Chris Merrick—KBOO is losing membership in January 2008 the Board set the goal of increasing listenership. There was a plan to make programming changes in stages—starting first with the evening schedule then moving to days. There was a process of community meetings, convening a committee, surveying listeners and non-listener. The changes started in April. We’re a bit behind schedule but 6 pm-midnight Monday-Friday changes will go into effect in November 3. Saturday will stay the same. Sunday might be looked at in the future. Arbitrons tell us a bit about listenership, so do membership drives a bit—how many people call in. The goal was to create blocks in the evenings, like the afternoons. He explained blocks vertical each day vs. strips horizontal similarities across days. We’re also going to broadcast a nightly syndicated show by Davey D.
The evenings is a smaller part of the schedule. The daytime has more listeners—7 am-6 pm. They are now moving to the am schedule—drive time gets the most listeners. We are going to be a little behind the original schedule due to working within a committee structure and working around the membership drives. (We’re going to have another in January to raise money we didn’t make in the Fall drive—a shorter drive). The changes are planned for March 1 with final changes in June or July.
Chris reference the NFCB review we had last year. The program committee will look at the recommendations. Some of the suggestions were pretty radical. We’ve got about 50% of listeners who like music 50% who like public affairs. Staff will come back with a progress report to the Board next week.
Judy asked whether we know what the response has been to moving Democracy Now! to 7 am. Chris said it might take a couple of pledge drives to know. We are working on advertising for Democracy Now! and Davey D to let potential listeners know about the programs.
Anthony asked whether we are doing ongoing surveying. Arthur responded that doing more market research is part of the capacity building grant, if it gets funded.
Chris said many people said people who like public affairs said they want more news-based content, which takes more volunteers to produce. Improving programming also takes more resources.
Joe asked whether we have IRs to promote Democracy Now! Chris said it is sometimes difficult to get people to volunteer to produce those types of spots. There have been a couple of people who have done spots and it is part of the pm new script.
Judy asked whether the station is writing letters to people who lost their shows. Chris said generically we will send letters of appreciation. There are a few people who are upset. There have been about 9 people removed who have had shows for 15-20 years. Not all of the responses have been negative/angry, even if they are sad. Chris recommended that it is painful for people. We are welcoming people to continue to volunteer with the station.
Arthur said that one of the first exercises we did in starting into the program changes was to set out the core KBOO values we wanted to hold on to in the process of change—we didn’t just look at what would bring in the most listeners.
Joe pointed out that there were two different schedules sent out with different Friday night shows. Youth will still be on Friday nights the last week of the month.
State of the Station—Arthur Davis created a State of the Station report—something he does annually. Accomplishments: 1. Real change on the radio 2. We believe in treating people well. 3. We do a lot with a little. 4. We are a model for other community groups and media organizations.
Key trends to watch—Listenership down, funding going down, costs going up.
Strategic goals from last year—Improve Financial Stability, Improve Programming, Engage in Strategic Planning, Develop an effective decision-making process. Arthur submits that these should be our same goals now.
Questions:
Programming: The current mission of serving needs that are unmet is negative rather than positive. Can we shape a more positive mission—to reach across communities? What is our product, who are our listeners, our target listeners?
Financial: How do we balance the budget? How can the board get involved in fundraising?
Staffing: How can staff work more effectively, efficiently, what are the right staffing levels, staff mgt work? Staff wants to look at the whole staffing issue.
Decision making—how can we be inclusive but more effective?
Next steps—program changes complete this round, pending capacity building and quality improvement grant. Follow up on Budget, Staffing, Decision Making and Communications.
General Managers Report—moving Hood River translator is still ongoing. The Dalles relies on that. Fundraising, Sun is going to take over more volunteer supervision to free up Andrew for more fundraising. Grant for money for recording kits. Capacity Building Grant—we’re really looking at market analysis, mission development before doing targeted fundraising.
Anthony asked whether we’ve done calls for planned giving. Arthur said we’ve done that in the past. Eric mentioned that there is a Major Donor and Capital Campaign workgroup that met with Andrew and he talked to the Oregon Community Foundation about bequests.
Manager Evaluation: This is a Board responsibility. Judy described how we did it last year—by forming a group to work on it. Becky said she put up a survey last time on the bulletin board, asked people to return them to Chris M. Judy recalled that there were staff and volunteers who were interviewed about the Station Manager performance. Arthur said as of August 1, he will have been the manager for 2 years. We would look at the expectations for all employees and the job description. Becky said that she will get survey documents posted if Arthur emails them to her. We will ask for responses back by Monday the 10th. Erin will work with Becky to compile the responses which will be presented to the Board at the November meeting. We also asked Arthur to do a self-evaluations
Board Positions:
Eric moved to elect Judy as President, Becky as Vice-President, Eric as Treasurer and Erin as at large exec. Genevieve seconded the motion. Everyone voted in favor of the motion.
On the contested position, we asked Jamilah to leave the room and we did a vote by hands. Seven people voted in favor of electing Jamilah as Secretary. Zero voted in favor of electing Scott as secretary.
President: Judy
VP: Becky (will continue to take meeting notes)
Secretary: Jamilah (will post documents on the web)
Treasurer: Eric
At Large Exec: Erin
Committees:
We talked about the overlap of Nominating/Personnel/Governance Committees. Judy suggested putting all three together. Erin said that Governance and nominating overlap well. Becky suggested that the nominating committee be all of the Board members who are elected to 3 year terms and not meet monthly but be ready to work to replace Board Vacancies and work on elections.
John asked for an additional Board member on the Engineer Committee. Arthur suggested that maybe Louis Sowa a former board member would continue on the Engineering Committee. Louis said yes. Ivonne said that there are Engineering/Tech issues, some are the translator-type engineering/license things and some are web/computer things. John said that the tech stuff has to do with computers but not web. There are Tech meetings separate from Engineering committee meetings, that is working well. Arthur said that he would be willing to go back to staff to ask about whether it makes sense to reactivate a web group/committee.
Committee Assignments
Finance: Eric and Anthony
Development: Joe and Genevieve
Program: Ivonne, Jamilah
Governance: Scott
Nominating: Genevieve, Erin, Joe and Becky
Personnel: Becky
Engineering: Mark Allyn (Louis volunteer liaison)
Conflict Resolution: Erin
Judy moved that we accept this slate and approve Chris Merrick as the Conflict resolution committee staff rep. Genevieve seconded. 8 people voted in favor. Joe abstained.
Frequency update: John brought in Mike Brown of Brown Broadcast Services Inc. to talk about the new frequency application—a Pendleton station at Carney Butte. Mike has been working on lots of new applications. Of the 5 applications KBOO made, we have a chance of getting one. The potential frequency could reach 20,000 people, potentially 50,000 if we got into Umatilla/Hermiston which will depend on who gets the signals to the north. It is a low frequency 230W and won’t reach every radio at 1000W we could get more coverage. We are currently in an “MX” situation where we’re in an overlapping cluster with people who applied to the north. A station agreed to settle with us for their out of pocket expenses of $3,500 plus legal fees. If we do that and file a minor change application ($1000)/add a null which will have additional costs, we will be a singleton and will be granted permission to create a station. Mike estimates the total will be about $5000 to get to the point where we could build a station. We would have 3 years before we have to have the station built.
Anthony asked what is the potential listenership membership gain? Is there a reason for going into that area? John said that two years ago a frequencies work group studied where to apply when it was announced that there were new frequency applications being offered and the group recommended 5 applications. This is the only one of the 5 we have a chance of getting, but we would need to do the things described by Mike. The correctional institution, a community college and the Indian Reservation. Ivonne said that there is a large isolated Hispanic population there too.
John said if we are the singleton based on a voluntary settlement, we can sell the frequency with no waiting period. Mike said that there are PTFP grants that we can apply for in December. Judy asked is it just transmitting our signal from 90.7? Mike said we are asking for a full station waiver, and we could operate as a translator but a full-power station can’t be bumped where as translator permits can be.
Judy asked why other people didn’t apply for this. Mike said most of the interest was in the Tri-Cities this frequency isn’t a high power signal.
Early cost estimates--The monthly site costs would be $500/$600 per month including rent, electricity, phone. ($5000/year) To build the station would be $25K Antenna--$1,500. Transmitter $5,000. Install Feedline $3,500 ComRex $9000 Remote $2000 EAS $4000
Arthur said that he admires Mike and his work, but he recommends against this because it doesn’t fit within our strategic goals. Expanding geographically is not one of our goals. He’s worried about capacity. There are already criticisms that we aren’t serving the Corvallis, Hood River, Dalles areas where we have translators and we have a lot of technology requests for new equipment. Andrew estimated that we could get 2% of the population as listeners because that is what we currently have with a rough estimate of $4000 per year in membership income. At staff there was one yes some nos and some not voting.
Confederated tribes have their own low power fm station.
Chris said that we committed to applying for the frequencies and spent $16,000. Now we are close to getting one. He asked if we can wait until the next board meeting to look into a plan to develop this to determine whether it is economically feasible.
Becky said that she agrees with Chris that it would help to have someone look into the feasibility of this find out if there is a way to integrate a station there into our strategic plan and that we’ve already made an investment in getting a new frequency that we might not want to abandon at this stage.
Ivonne said that we might be able to use contacts and develop groups to work with and use the resource of community radio in this area.
Eric said that each application was $4000, so that is the sunk costs for Pendleton not $16,000. He would be opposed to building a station for $25,000K He doesn’t see that we have the capacity to staff a station there. The only thing that would make sense is just getting the permit and then trying to sell it to someone. He thinks even that is a long shot.
Mike said that he would be willing to be on a workgroup to help us locate potential buyers. Anthony asked what would the estimated sale price. Mike said it is hard to sell. He thinks we could get our costs back—engineering and atty cost.
Genevieve would like more time, she’d probably vote against it tonight. She is concerned about the coverage and capacity and wants to focus on the people who are already listeners.
Mike said that there is an expanding group of religious stations who frequently swap stations—that might be an option. Is there a place we’d like better coverage.
Erin would vote no, since there are other things KBOO could do better with the money.
Judy said it is so far away. We don’t seem to have much of a connection to that. She’d be happy to consider a new proposal at the next meeting.
Louis said that he recommends that we could wait for more information, understanding that there is a risk of losing it if we wait but that we could ask for more information.
Mike said he would be willing to look into whether there are any community groups who are potential buyers. Arthur asked if the signal will get into the prison. Mike said that with a good radio it should, but not with a cheap radio.
Anthony moved that we put this off until the November meeting. Jamilah seconded it. Eric said that he would like a report prior to the November meeting. Anthony accepted this addition to the motion. Becky and Ivonne will work with Mike. 8 people voted in favor, Eric voted no.
Finance Report—FY deficit was 28K which was good since the budgeted deficit was $200K. There was more income and less expenditure. There is a plan for a Capital Campaign to raise money for improved equipment and new equipment. We have to figure out how to track that—a meter on the website? He asked if other board members wanted to work on that. It isn’t clear whether the major donor group will be separate from the capital campaign or not. We have $200K in an endowment in the Oregon Community Foundation. The endowment has disbursements which are like interest on an account. Eric met with our OCF representative. We can take the disbursements which would be about $7000/8000. We would count it as interest income (which may go down in other areas). The endowment amount wouldn’t go down, we would just be taking half of the growth. Taking the disbursal now would decrease the deficit and we could end the acceptance of the disbursal in the future.
Becky pointed out that we’ve been budgeting additional contributions to the endowment, but we haven’t actually put money in. Arthur said it is common to put one time money is while also taking disbursements. Erin asked when we get a bequest does it automatically go to the endowment? The answer is no. Erin said why have the endowment if we don’t use it. Eric said that we can’t get the principle without the permission of OCF. They would look to whether or not there was an emergency or not.
Erin moves to approve the proposal to take the disbursal from the endowment. Judy seconded. 7 people voted in favor. Becky opposed Ivonne abstained.
Meeting time. Because of schedule conflicts we are setting the new board meeting time to the fourth Monday except December it will be the 15th. Next month’s meeting is November 24th 6pm. We need to publicize that. Genevieve will change the signs around the station. Jamilah will make a cart announcing who is new on the board and the date change.
Judy moved to approve the minutes—Anthony seconded. Jamilah has one correction. Minutes Approved by 8 with Eric abstaining
Final Public Comments—none.
Public Meeting Adjourned at 9:16 pm
Public Meeting Reconvened at 11:49
Devon LaCroix joined.
Judy said that she and Erin are going to draft a letter to Scott Forester on behalf of the Board in response to the false accusations he has made about another board member and other behaviors that have been harmful to the Foundation. The letter will ask for an apology to Anthony Petchel, ask Scott to attend an orientation meeting about expectations for Board members, and set out communication expectations.