The Electron Pencil

Three New Board Members

A mixed bag at yesterday night’s meeting of the WFHB Board of Directors.

The crush of people that forced the meeting to be moved from a small room in City Hall to City Council chambers last month was missing this time. With no bête noire looming as the designated general manager as there was in November, the troops seem content in December to let the Board go about its merry way.

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On the other hand, seven people applied to fill the two open spots on the Board. Each of the last few Board appointment sessions have drawn either a single applicant or no one at all. So perhaps the wheat has been separated from the chaff over the course of a month.

And, by the end of the night, the number of open Board member spots had grown, officially, by one.

Board President Joe Estivill called me at 11:30pm, sounding chipper, I imagine, because he was getting the heck out of City Hall before Monday turned into Tuesday. He had news: the Board had selected three new members. As of this posting, the Board refuses to reveal the names of the select three until all parties have been notified personally.

I’ll bet any number of crisp $100 bills that one of the three is former GM Markus Lowe. As for the others, who knows?

Anyway, here’s the lineup of applicants, in the order they appeared before the board to state their cases:

◗ Anson (Andy) Shupe, Bloomington, retired. Andy was an academic sociologist. He published 30 books and numerous articles for professional journals, newspapers, and magazines. His specialties were deviance/criminology, social movements, and social psychology. A graduate of Indiana University, he ran the combined sociology and anthropology department at IUPU-Ft. Wayne. He was president of his neighborhood association when he lived in Ft. Wayne. He has volunteered as a desk jockey and in the news department for WFHB. He says: “We need donors but we need volunteers more. That’s where the rubber meets the road.” He also says WFHB is not a democracy but a “representative republic.” Otherwise, he asks, why have a Board of Directors at all?

◗ Helen Harrell, Spencer, Fiscal Officer/Budget Officer/Schedule Officer, IU African American Studies Program. Helen is the host of bloomingOUT, South Central Indiana’s only LGBTQ-oriented radio talk show. She was a Board member, filling out a term several years ago. She has served on the boards of Indiana Equality, Spencer PFLAG (as co-founder), Bloomington Pride at Work (as co-founder), and was a labor organizer with Communications Workers Local 4730. “I really love the station,” she said last night. “The station represents what Bloomington is about.” She says she offers the Board skills in communication and mediation and she calls for the Board to emphasize Spot Online and the website as resources for volunteers to connect more easily with WFHB. “Let people know as much as you can,” she says.

◗ Louis Malone, Bloomington, Administrator, Youth Services of Monroe County. Louis has volunteered in the News Department for three years. He helped Producer Laura Grover start The Porch Swing and has been involved with EcoReport. Currently, he serves as assistant producer, engineer, and host on Interchange. He told the Board his duties at YSMC include human resources tasks, including hiring, firing, training, discipline, and so on. He says he’ll be scaling back his program activities at WFHB because his wife is expecting the couple’s second child. He says his time commitment as a Board member will be more manageable than that of producer/host.

◗ Sheryl Mitchell, Bloomington, Founder, Scaly Tailz reptile education and rescue center. Sheryl has been involved in radio broadcasting since she was in high school, hosting music and interview programs on WQAX. She has served as the president of the Council of Involved Families for her local Head Start program. She says she was compelled to apply for the Board position during the Kevin Culbertson flap. “This whole thing has gotten crazy with the GM thing,” she told the Board. She says her experience in marketing and fundraising with Scaly Tailz would be an asset as a Board member.

◗ Maryll Jones, Bloomington, Reporting and Data Analyst, Pearson Education. Maryll founded the Friends of WFHB Facebook community in response to the Kevin Culbertson hiring. She has a long history of working in data and information management. She has volunteered as a desk jockey and has participated in fundraising events and has been a web stream monitor. She believes she can help the Board communicate with the volunteer base. ‘There’s cross talk,” she told the Board. “People aren’t listening to each other…. If I were on the Board, I’d open myself up to meeting with people who have concerns.”

◗ Mark R. (Markus) Lowe, Bloomington, Information Technology Coordinator, Cook Inc. Markus served as General Manager of WFHB last decade. “I want to help,” he told the Board. His term as GM came during a period of financial crisis for the station. “I was Dr. No for about eight months,” he said, meanning he kept a tight lid on expenses. “I have trust and respect among the volunteers…. I’ve been a listener, a donor, a volunteer, and being on the Board would complete the cycle.” Reflecting on his term as GM, he said, “Challenges breed opportunity.” He calls for regular volunteer meetings to be attended by selected staff and Board members as a way to demonstrate that the volunteers’ voices are being heard.

◗ Charles R. (Rich) Reardon III, Bloomington, Local radio producer. Rich produces of In Search of a Song, with Jason Wilber. He has extensive experience producing radio programming for a wide variety of commercial outlets as well as fundraising for an equally diverse cross-section of organizations. He says he’d bring a wealth of donor and supporter contacts to the Board. He told the Board WFHB should concentrate more on talk shows. Through them, he said, “You can involve other parts of the community that don’t see WFHB as part of the lives [now].”

After the applicants made their presentations, Board member Kevin Jones asked for and received the go-ahead to quit the Board, leading to the third opening. Jones, professor of management at IUPU-Columbus, was an outgoing member, sure to quiz anybody speaking before the board. Sadly, his departure leaves the Board with no Black members, unless Louis Malone has been tabbed. I hope this dearth of color doesn’t last too terribly long.

Many thanks to Joe Estivill for keeping The Pencil up to date on Board doings. And a special thanks to Board Secretary Maria McKinley for provided me with the applicants’ curriculum vitae packages.

That’s all for today. Peace, love and soul.

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[A caveat: Although The Electron Pencil occasionally brings you news, you should not consider it a straight news site. Everything I present here is colored by my opinions and slants. As a good consumer of information, you should look upon all news sources in that light. One of my idols, Studs Terkel, once said there is no such thing as pure objectivity and I agree with him. I’m not terribly interested in false platitudes like “fair and balanced” nor do I consider a journalist someone who has some mystical access to a higher truth. That said, this is a reminder: I didn’t like the WFHB Board of Directors’ selection of Kevin Culbertson as the new general manager one bit. I also think the Board is in danger of becoming a kind of regal power, divorced from the everyday concerns of the station, its staff, and the volunteers. The fact that some members of the Board are not actual volunteers at the station concerns me. The added fact that they selected an out-of-stater indicates that they no longer understand the simple concept of community radio. Savvy? Okay, read on.]

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The Mob Has Its Say

The WFHB Board of Directors met last night at City Hall. Their normal meeting room was deemed too small to accommodate the unusually large turnout of volunteers and interested parties who came to talk and hear about the Kevin Culbertson affair.

Board boss Joe Estivill swiftly corralled a janitor and convinced him to let the whole gang meet in City Council chambers. The Board members arranged their seats under the great seal of Bloomington and the lower gallery was filled with onlookers. It was an exciting moment in the history of the non-profit, community radio station.

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To borrow and mangle a line from some poet/playwright you may have heard of, they came not to praise Kevin Culbertson, but to bury him.

Well, not him, exactly, but the whole fiasco that led to his withdrawing from the job at the eleventh hour.

All seven regular Board members plus the ex-officio member, acting GM Cleveland Dietz, were in attendance. Joe Estivill opened the meeting by allowing the public to make its statements before the Board would conduct its regular business. Here are the highlights from the public comments:

◗ Maryll Jones was first up. Jones started the Facebook group Friends of WFHB in response to a growing firestorm over the Culbertson selection. Last night, she decried the “lack of transparency with the hiring process, the lack of communication with the volunteers and the overall sense that the opinions of the volunteers did not matter in Board or station business.” She said she worried that the unusual length of time without a GM might adversely affect station funding.

◗ Marcus Lowe, a former WFHB GM followed. “We just want you to do something,” he said. He added, “Find a general manager to lead us,” and “Overall, I’m disappointed and looking for leadership and I’m not seeing it.”

◗ Volunteer Louis Malone was third. Referring to potential bad publicity from the botched GM search, he warned, “We need to be very careful about how we portray the image of WFHB.” Later he said, “Now we are sitting at a precipice,” and “Everything could have been done a little bit better.” He concluded by chiding the most virulent of Culbertson’s detractors who compared his past associations with Christian broadcasting companies to membership in the Ku Klux Klan.

◗ Anson Shute then took the microphone. “I’m going to put my name in nomination for the Board,” he said. Then, referring to online criticism of Culbertson, he said, “We could get sued!”

◗ Bring It On producer Clarence Boone told the crowd he was hurt by the reaction to Culbertson. “It was mean-spirited,” he said. Culbertson was run off by “bullying techniques.” He turned to the gallery and said, “I hope those irresponsible folks are proud of themselves.” He called for the Board to send an open letter of apology to Culbertson. “Mr. Culbertson,” he said, “has every right to retain an attorney and go for the jugular.”

◗ One of the founders of WFHB, Jeff Morris, came next. He felt the reaction to Culbertson could have been avoided. “I put the responsibility on the Board…. the secrecy breeds distrust,” he said. Morris called for the next general manager to be a member of the community. “I was appalled at Kevin being chosen…. Why are we hiring someone from out of state?” He also called for all Board members to be active volunteers at the station. He said, too, he had considered asking the entire Board to resign so it could be replaced. He did add, “We’re not in trouble.” He said Cleveland Dietz is “doing fine” as interim GM. “Let’s not panic,” he concluded.

◗ Music Director Jim Manion followed. ” I was never in favor of hiring a general manager with no experience with Bloomington,” he said. He also criticized the selection of someone who didn’t have a history of working with non-profit community radio. In response to those who feel Board members were bullied for their vote, he said they were, more accurately, scolded.

◗ Listener and financial contributor Peter Kaczmarczyk urged, “It’s important that the Board act quickly,” in finding a new GM. [Peter Kaczmarczyk has requested this correction: “…[W]hat I actually said was that I didn’t know if the board needed to rush to hire a new GM but that it was imperative that board act quickly to make clear to all concerned that the process was ongoing and that they were still actively engaged in looking for a new GM, to not put off restarting the process.”]

◗ Jeanne Smith, former GM of IU student radio WIUX radio station WQAX, predecessor of WFHB, said she’d contributed some $20,000 to the station over the years. She shook her head when she got to the topic of liability exposure to the station. “I didn’t see any liability,” she said.

After a few more speakers, Joe Estivill announced a five minute break, but few left the Chambers because a debate had broken out between volunteer Anthony Piatt and outgoing Board member Kevin Jones. Piatt had stood up to ask which way each of the Board members had voted on the Culbertson decision. Jones stood up and told him in no uncertain terms that the way he voted was nobody’s business. Piatt responded that he always wants to know how his senators and representatives vote. Jones asked why. Piatt told him that was the essence of transparent government. To which Jones again asked why he needed to know how the Board members voted. Piatt said, “So I can know enough to vote some of you out and not all of you.”

Jeff Morris got into the crossfire by telling Kevin Jones his stance was “not participatory democracy.”

[Later in the evening, Kevin Jones would tell me that the insults hurled against Culbertson online were insults against him, as well.]

After the break, the Board got down to regular business. Many in the gallery left and only a very few remained to the end. When it came time to talk about offering an extension to Cleveland Dietz to remain as acting GM until December 31st, Joe Estivill called for a closed session.

Later in the night, Estivill called me to say nothing had been decided regarding Dietz just yet.

So, there you have it. Feelings were hurt over the Kevin Culbertson hiring and withdrawal. Many volunteers feel the Board is too distant. No timetable has been set to hire a new GM. Cleveland Dietz’ contract runs out at the end of this month with no commitment for an extension.

The show goes on.

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