Robert Gold Candidate Statement
I have been a WBAI listener and supporter for the past twenty years. I worked for NYC as a social worker for thirty years and have been retired for the last eleven years. Since I retired I have devoted much of my time to Latin American solidarity movements. In recent years I have been involved with School of the Americas Watch, the Colombia Support Network, Cuba Solidarity NY, and the Bolivarian Circle of NY. WBAI has been an invaluable resource for the promotion of my activism.
When the, "Christmas Coup", took place I was one of many listeners who demonstrated outside of 120 Wall St. and attended many meetings to reclaim station. I was overjoyed when programs like, "Wake Up Call", featuring Bernard White, Amy Goodman and Robert Knight, were restored to the air. I was very happy after that to see the growth of, "Democracy Now", and the way it has grown nationally. I have also been happy to see the development of new programs reaching out to the Haitian and Latin American communities, as well as the development of feminist programming. I think that the new, "Law and Disorder", program is vitally important in understanding the current political situation.
However, in recent years I have been perplexed over why the station has had so many financial problems, and the need for so many fundraisers. The station has appeared to be in a perpetual state of financial crisis, and whenever I attended a Local Station Board meeting there seemed to be so much divisiveness that nothing was ever done to resolve the crisis. There have been allegations of fiscal irresponsibility that I never saw fully addressed. I would like to become a member of the local board so that I could play a positive role in helping to resolve the funding problems of the station and provide the listeners a more transparent account of the problems facing the station and their solutions.
One of the ways I would like to improve the financial problem at WBAI would be to make better use of the Pacifica Archives. I would like to see a daily program on the air to make use of the vast storage of interviews that have been done over the years, and make them available to listeners on a regular basis at a reasonable cost. Another suggestion I would make would be to have people maintain monthly sustainer memberships which would bring in a steady source of revenue. This is done at the Brecht Forum very successfully, and I see no reason why it can't be done at WBAI. We need to develop innovative plans to make sure that WBAI survives. These are very tough times for progressives and we need to assure that the station survives all of the reactionary pressures that we are facing.
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Show/Hide commentsSpooner made sure, in a nasty offensive, that bylaws at Pacifica would not include affirmative action remedies in election results, which opened the foundation to control by whites majorities.
Spooner is angry that WBAI is not controlled by whites yet, so she is sticking her nose in at WBAI.
Her husband, Gregory Wonderwheel, regularly attacked many African Americans at WBAI in various attempts to force them out using lies, hyperbole and standard Republican-style put-downs. Make no mistake about it, Carol Spooner and her California cohorts want to control WBAI.
I'm endorsing --
#1 - James Ross
#2 - Seth Goldberg
and, in alphabetical order,
Carla Cubit, Robert Gold, Jennifer Jager, Ken Laufer, Pat Logan, Don Mathiesen,
Lee McClure, Stefan Neustatder, Bernardo Palombo.
I hope you will rank James #1 and Seth #2 on your ballot, and then go on to rank the others listed above in order of your preference. James Ross is the only encumbent who deserves re-election this year. He has worked diligently to uncover and understand the station finances and to make recommendations to deal with the problems. Unfortunately, his efforts have been blocked by the current majority on the LSB (the "Justice & Unity" faction). Seth Goldberg has the financial and business skills that WBAI so desperately needs at this time. All of the above-named candidates are sincerely committed to helping to right the station by hiring station management that will strengthen & revitalize programming, restore the listener-base and rebuild financial stability. They can be the seeds of sanity at a very troubled institution if you elect them to serve this very important community resource.
This is a critical election for WBAI. I believe it is absolutely essential that NON "Justice & Unity" slate candidates take a majority of the seats on the Local Board if WBAI is to survive, and perhaps even Pacifica itself. As I wrote to you a few weeks ago, WBAI is bankrupt. It is paying its bills by borrowing money from the Pacifica National Office which is borrowing the money from other Pacifica stations. This whole house of cards could come down if the problems at WBAI are not solved quickly. There have been very serious financial irregularities at WBAI, including use of "restricted" grant monies for unauthorized purposes. In addition, when WBAI terminated Gary Null's program it also terminated a major source of listener-support for the station. Regardless of what you think of Gary Null's program, the station needed a realistic plan to replace that income or to reduce its expenses to live within its reduced income. It did neither, and that is one of the causes of the current bankruptcy. Other causes are overall mis-management, waste, poor staff morale, not enough good programming, and competition from other alternative media sources, both on the radio and on the internet.
The "Justice & Unity" faction has held the majority on the LSB for the past three years and has been blocking necessary management changes and other changes at the station. In addition, the LSB majority elects 3 of the 4 WBAI seats on the Pacifica National Board and they have been blocking necessary action by the Pacifica Executive Director and National Board. For this to change, at least 5 of the 9 listener seats , and 2 of the 3 staff seats on the LSB must be won by independents who are not part of the "Justice & Unity" slate. I honestly don't know why the "Justice & Unity" slate has been so destructive to WBAI, they have good "political" credentials and you would think they would want the station to grow and thrive. However, they have not acted that way, and if they are permitted to continue to control the Local board and to confuse and mislead the national board, then I am very very pessimistic about the future of WBAI and Pacifica. This is tragic in a time of national crisis where EVERY form of alternative media
Again, please vote -- Every vote matters. With "ranked choice" voting just one vote can determine who wins the last seat on the board.
Thanks, and best regards,
Carol Spooner
Pacifica National Board Member - Jan 2002-Jan 2005
Lead Plaintiff - Listeners' Lawsuit to remove the old Pacifica Board - 1999-Dec 2001
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