L ast year, 5,538

on-line registration for ballot

listeners in Berkeley conducted an election of KPFA's local station board in the first demonstration of how to democratize the Pacifica Foundation. Why did they do this? Since the Pacifica Foundation's creation, the listeners have suffered an increasing loss of control over the station's finances, programming, and politics. Those of us who want to restore listener-sponsor control are working towards elections of the Local Advisory Board as the way to return the station to its roots.

Electing a Local Advisory Board (LAB) at WBAI is probably the best thing you could do for the station right now. Democratization will occur when you make it happen: we need you to support elections, the lawsuits, and those fighting to democratize the station. Listener empowerment cannot happen under the present structure of Pacifica or WBAI. Only by including every listener in the area in the voting process can we create community-based and listener-sponsored radio.

"Okay, how much money do you want?" we can hear you asking. It is true that the lawsuits are going to cost a great deal of money. However, right now, the Elections Committee of Concerned Friends is asking you for only one thing: your commitment to an election. Ask the Elections Committee for a ballot and we will send you information on the process. Every name counts: we cannot count on the station giving us the list of subscribers. Then you can decide who gets to guide the station into a democratic mode of governance, so that what has happened over the past few years can never happen again.

Elections Comittee contact info:
212-465-7562
Elections Committee
P.O. Box 250816
New York, NY 10025
email: WBAIelections@hotmail.com

To register for a ballot online go to:
http://www.wbai.net and click on "elections"

If you have signed onto the discussion list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WBAIelections and get email from the WBAIelections discussion board, we will write you there.

A common question is "What's wrong with the Local Area Board we have now? They work hard, they're diverse, and we know them. Shouldn't we just keep them in place?" The question is not who the LAB members are, but how they got there: we don't care who you vote for, frankly. If listeners of WBAI want to re-elect the current board, that would be fine: the point is to elect them, and by doing that, give them authority, legitimacy, and the status that belongs only to democratically elected representatives. Right now they, like the PNB, are self-selected. We need to change the structure of the station and the network: playing musical chairs is not the point, creating a structure for accountability is. Appointed members, whether of the PNB or the LAB, aren't accountable to anyone but the power that appointed them. Elected members, on the other hand, have power to stand up to the PNB, the courts, and the politicians who would control them with grants and threats.

Visioning Workshop for Leadership and "Followership" highlights and articulates the importance of those who "follow" the leader and understand the rules for engaging in active and productive followership. This workshop teaches the rules of productive hierarchy and creates an environment for leaders to elicit participation and ownership of the mission and vision. —Memo from Utrice Leid to WBAI Staff, May 2, 2001, detailing "Twenty-First Century Workshops" led by WBAI producer Carletta Joy Walker and strongly recommended to staff

"What's the point of an election? It's a lot of trouble," we hear. There are several points: Locally elected advisory boards accountable to the listeners would demonstrate to courts that the stations are, in fact, listener-sponsored, and viable entities capable of self-governance. We need to demonstrate that by January, when the lawsuits will be heard in California.

Elections would set a model of accountability for the National Board. An elected LAB would enable the courts to dissolve the present illegitimately seated national board, and to entrust the governance of Pacifica to a democratic structure in place and ready to ensure the network's stability. KPFA has done it, and KPFK and WBAI are in the works. (Go to www.wbai.net for links to information about the process.)

And finally, perhaps most important, the process of electing a board accountable to the listeners would engage diverse, grassroots voices from the community in the common effort to create community-based radio. "I'm tired of being told to pay up and sit down," said one listener. "I want some voices on the air who sound like me." An elected LAB could restore those long-lost voices. (See www.wbai.net for links to more information about the process.) There is always opposition to elections and to the election of the Local Advisory Board, of course: as Douglass predicted, there are "those who depreciate agitation…and…want crops with-out plowing up the ground…" But the present structure has to go: we have to end the cycle of firings and censorship, of threats and intimidation now being practiced by the present PNB members. Any autonomy that might seem to be restored if we went back to the pre-coup era would, once again, be subject to the whims of a PNB which might find it convenient to allow an LAB to function for the moment—or it might not. And as we have seen, a LAB as presently constituted has not had enough real power to effect structural change or prevent the destruction of WBAI.

• on-line registration for ballot
• http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WBAIelections -email discussion list