For more information and the ONLY non-censored listserve
open
to the ENTIRE KXCI community, please join the KXCIBulletinBoard discussion
group
by clicking on the "JOIN THE DISCUSSION GROUP" link
to the left of this page.
(or)
For
more information please contact:
(via snailmail)
Kali Holtschlag
PO BOX 297
Dragoon, AZ 85609
(or email)
kali@theriver.com
(or)
Send
emails to:
commrad2003@yahoo.com
(or)
kali@theriver.com
A brief History of the Movement to Save KXCI
(added 5/15/05)
At some undetermined point in the past the Bylaws of KXCI
were
changed from a membership–elected Board to
a majority
self-appointed
structure. The right to make bylaw changes was
changed
from exclusively membership controlled, to allow this
majority
self-appointed Board to make changes at will. The
Democracy
Initiative (DI) began as an internal group of programmers
who
were dissatisfied with the unfair and undemocratic actions
of management. When their concerns were ignored or worse,
retaliation
against some occurred they went public. The decision
was
made to do a membership bylaw election. Lifetime member
and
former Board member Bill Risner asked for and was refused the
list
of members so that petitions could be mailed to the membership.
The refusal by KXCI membership resulted in a court decision
against
KXCI. Beginning with The Amy Goodman visit in fall of 2003,
the
DI collected the needed 10% of membership signatures. These
were
turned into KXCI on January 12 2004. During the time from
January
to present, the DI has attempted to negotiate a fair election process and has been met with all manner of tricks, stalling,
and manipulation by KXCI management including an attack on the
profession
of Bill Risner.
Originally
the struggle was to gain fair treatment for the volunteers
at KXCI,
the heart of operations. During the growth of that process
it became
evident that Membership’s Democratic rights had been
stolen
as well. Our petition called for several changes to the bylaws.
A volunteer representative to sit on the board, some sort of
grievance
procedure for the volunteers, membership control of
bylaw
changes and a board structure of 10 elected, 5 appointed plus
the
one volunteer representative. KXCI has grudgingly adopted two
of our
provisions: the volunteer rep and the grievance procedure,
policy
that any normal ethical organization would have already
had. They have also now altered the Board structure to 9 elected,
9 appointed,
plus the volunteer representative. This does not give
the
Membership the supermajority control over the board that the DI
had
petitioned for. Nor does it restrict access to the bylaws from
the
Board. They can change back or to any structure they please
at any time.
The
new changes look almost reasonable and it would be difficult if
not
impossible to win a PR battle against the resources of KXCI and
this
appearance of “fairness”. Therefore the DI withdrew the petition
in November
2004. The decision was made to try to participate in
the
process from inside, by running a slate of candidates in the next election. As
usual with democracy, it takes citizen awareness and involvement. Clean, third
party supervised elections are a start. Educating and informing the membership
is another avenue. KXCI
has
operated in a hidden and secretive manner for so long that
most
members are not even aware of their rights, much less that
they
have been stolen!
We recognize
that KXCI is a precious resource in an ocean of
corporate
owned and controlled media. We also
strongly believe
that
the small struggle we are experiencing is a reflection
of the
bigger
national and even world picture. KXCI is owned by the membership; it should be
governed and controlled democratically
by its owners. Not by a group
of unrepresentative unelected, unaccountable, self-appointed cronies.
For
more information about elections please join the discussion group.
CORRESPONDENCE
regarding the Democracy Initiative
from
Oct 31 to date -- Click the first link on the left (edited 3-22-04)
FOR
PRINTABLE KXCI MEMBERS' DEMOCRACY INITIATIVE
CLICK
THE SECOND LINK ON THE LEFT