My opinion of the current Pacifica elections
Shawn Casey O'Brien
Quite simply, from the beginning to the end, our recent elections may qualify as the worst run in the history of Pacifica.
We hired an NES who was, from the start, compromised and incompetent and who then, went on to hire five raw, green LES' who did not have a lick of practical experience when it came to running an election. I am also of the opinion that, that is exactly what management wanted. (Out of fairness to the Texas LES -- at least she had the right temperament and did her homework, so we MAY have come close to having one election fairly run.)
In order to ensure basic incompetents - that could be easily manipulated - we twisted and/or conflated our Bylaws in order to knock out the running any qualified person(s). The vetting process was so poor and unprofessional, that the person first picked to be the LES at KPFK quite in one day. The second LES quit the job on Sept 3 -- weeks before the end of the election and still got paid. (I have heard it was $17 grand, but am double checking this.) The third LES was the former NES for the pervious election cycle -- he was also the person who failed to fulfill his contractual obligation to Pacifica to produce a written report for that cycle.
Had he given us such a report, we may have avoided some of the problems this year. In spite of this gross violation of his contract, we paid him.
We ran only 1/6 of the mandated promotional carts in order to inform our listeners of their right to run for the LSB and bring fresh, unaligned people into the mix. We extended the nominating deadline, but not the membership deadline. These two things guaranteed that this election was to be solely an 'insider's game". Which again, I am of the opinion, is exactly what management and their JUC handlers wanted.
We violated our Bylaws by sending out ballots without including the "candidates booklet". Once again, guaranteeing that well known insiders had a distinct advantage. The candidate booklet would have never been sent out had it not been for the insistence of the PNB. These two separate mailings also cost us much more money. These failures to follow the Bylaws or proper election procedure, could, and probably will, have dire legal ramifications for us.
Additionally, it appears that scores, if not thousands of listeners did not receive ballots, and under our STV system of voting, this really skewered the results, again, most probably to the insider's benefit. (For the record, KPFK's LSB has ONE new member, who is not an insider.)
It looks like 2 or 3 stations had their Staff lists padded and few if any were properly vetted. It also appears that the Staff "collectives" blossomed -- as they always do -- just before the election, with all kind of volunteer producers.
This, of course, allowed insiders and their JUC allies to steal those elections at more than one station.
For this study in incompetence and what the reasonable person could believe was rigging, we have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and are already facing the threat of a lawsuit. All to have "elections" that 90% of eligible votes don't participate in.
To top it off, we had misuse of the airways at KPFA, in violation of our "fair campaign" policy and nothing was done to the slate or their supporters who repeatedly violated these rules -- to say nothing of the fact that our D.C. station failed to make quorum, coming up with just 6 of the 10% of the votes necessary to achieve quorum. Again, because of the failure to do proper outreach, the insiders benefited.
This flawed and failed electoral system of ours is costing us dearly in time, energy and money, and all, just so a small group of obstructionists and ideologues will have a place at the table in order to undermine and/or sink the network.
The ED was warned about all this by myself and others, but as far as I can tell, she was convinced that her JUC/CL handlers were her ticket to success. That is why it is both ironic and sad to see them now eating her alive over the cuts at Berkeley.
Suffice to say: Be careful what you wish for...
Shawn