We are writing to enlist your support for some important changes that are in the works at WBAI, where Beyond the Pale, Asia Pacific Forum, and Behind the News have been broadcasting for many years.
If you are a dues-paying WBAI member, you should have likely just received a ballot in elections for the Local Station Board (LSB). We are asking for your help in electing some strong, independent candidates.
The LSB plays an important role at WBAI, by making recommendations to Pacifica's director for the hiring of the station's general manager; approving the station's annual budget; and electing four directors to the national board, which is responsible for the governance of the entire Pacifica network.
Why is this election so critical? For years, WBAI's LSB has been paralyzed by factional conflicts. In the meantime, day-to-day operations at the station have suffered from management neglect so grave --including nonpayment of rent on the studios and transmitter -- that the future of the station was put in genuine jeopardy.
Finally at this crisis point, the Pacifica national board stepped in, removed both the general manager and the program director, and with the help of an interim general manager and other staff on loan from other stations, are putting the station back on a positive track.
We now need a functioning, conscientious LSB to ensure that these promising developments don’t lose momentum.
We urge you to vote for the following three candidates, ranking them 1, 2, and 3, in this order. The candidates we recommend are:
CHUDE MONDLANE is a singer and community activist who is on the staff of Communications Workers of America Local 1180, one of New York City's most progressive labor unions, where among other duties she writes for the union newspaper. The daughter of Eduardo Mondlane, a leader of Mozambique's independence movement, and a long-time touring musician, she recently initiated a cultural exchange program between high school students from New York City and Mozambique.
DAVID BARREDA is a photographer, videographer, and multimedia producer who has worked for the Miami Herald, the Rocky Mountain News, and the San Jose Mercury News, among other publications.
His independent projects have treated such topics as immigrant agricultural workers and Andean religion. Born in Peru to a Peruvian father and an American Jewish mother, and raised on a farm in Vermont, he has a long-standing commitment to environmentalism and sustainable agriculture.
MANIJEH SABA is an educator and activist who has taught sociology and women's studies at Rutgers University and other educational institutions. She traces her lifelong commitment to human rights to her experience growing up under the Shah in Iran. Over the years, she has helped organize a union of part-time faculty at Rutgers and of freelance court interpreters in New Jersey. Her human rights work has included working at the office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights and traveling to Israel/Palestine with Code Pink.
After supporting these candidates, you can continue to rank additional candidates if you like, but we strongly discourage you from ranking anyone on the Justice & Unity or Take Back WBAI slates (they are identified as such in their ballot bios).
Candidates on those two slates support the return of the dysfunctional and destructive management -- and thus the return of the station to chaos.
Thanks for your support in helping move WBAI forward again.
Yours,
Doug Henwood, Andrew Hsiao, Esther Kaplan, Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark, Leyla Mei, Nan Rubin , Silky Shah for
Beyond the Pale http://beyondthepale.org
Asia Pacific Forum http://www.asiapacificforum.org/
Behind the News http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html