The Truth About The Results of The Pacfiica Bylaw Proposals by "New Day”

The Truth About The Results of The Pacfiica Bylaw Proposals by "New Day”
By National Election Supervisor Renée Asteria-Peñaloza

Greetings. This is a brief report on the results of the 2021 Pacific a bylaws referendum and an update on the delegate election currently underway. In order for the referendum to pass and proposed bylaws to replace the current bylaws, both staff and listener members had to vote by majority Yes. This was established prior to the commencement of the 2021 referendum, and was agreed to by the proponents of the proposed bylaws and was the same for the 2020 referendum. Every ballot issued explicitly explained this requirement. The staff members voted no by a majority, with a turnout of 42% with 59% voting no. And the listener members voted yes by a majority with a 27% turnout with 56% voting yes. However, it would appear that the staff and listener member divide is actually not a real divide. When you segment the results by station staff and listener members were in alignment at all stations, with the majority of both classes voting yes at KPFA, KPFK and KPFT. Whereas the majority of both classes voted no. At WBAI and WPFW. The failure of the referendum to pass while it appears to be a staff versus listener issue is actually a reflection of the extreme differences nationwide amongst both classes of members and related to differences in size of the station membership base. This divide cannot be ignored, and demonstrates the need for any major bylaws proposal to have support from all stations members in order to have a chance at passing. The procedure for making changes to the Pacifica bylaws is described in Article 17 of the Pacifica bylaws which can be found on pacifica.org article 15, Section four of the Pacifica bylaws states. If the proposed amendment would impact one class of members differently from another class, the member shall vote in classes and the majority vote of the members of each class shall be required to approve the amendment provided that a quorum of each class must be established by written ballot. The proposed bylaws amendment would have split the staff member class into different classes, one of paid staff and the other of unpaid staff. while leaving the listener member class intact. The proponent signed an agreement with the Pacifica foundation, where they agreed that the 2021 bylaws referendum would be carried out in the same manner as the 2020 bylaws referendum. Please visit elections.pacifica.org to download the final report. Given that the referendum did not pass, the current bylaws are still in place. The delegate elections to elect new members to the local station board are underway.

During each election process, each of the stations five signal areas across the country holds an election to elect 12 delegates to its local board. This constitutes half of the local board, with the other half elected in alternate years. Nine of the delegates are listener sponsors and three of the delegates are staff members, and represent the employees and volunteer programmers at the stations. listener members and staff members vote in different classes. So each of these elections are separate, and a person can only vote in one of them not both the local boards or committees of the National Board of Directors and have specific responsibilities delegated to them, which include evaluating the stations General Manager and program director reviewing the station's local budget before forwarding it to national holding local town hall discussion sessions at least twice a year, assisting with OFF AIR fundraising for the stations reaching out to underrepresented communities, making sure program evaluation and selection processes are fair and collaborative, respectful and quality based. In addition, the local boards each annually select 1/5 of the makeup of the National Board of Directors for the Pacific foundation. By choosing three listener representatives and one staff representative to serve annual terms on the national board, listener and staff members will receive a ballot to vote for the local station board delegates starting on August 16. If eligible, listener member eligibility is based on having made a minimum donation of $25 between July 1 2020 and June 30 2021, or having completed three hours of approved volunteer work during that timeframe. staff member eligibility is determined by being on payroll as of June 30 2021, or having completed 30 hours of volunteer programming work in the prior three months on August 16. The balloting period opens and ballots must be cast before 11:59pm eastern standard time on October 15 2021. In order to be counted, members with valid emails will get an E ballot on August 16. From vote at simply voting.com. Please make sure to check your spam and promotions folders. Members without a valid email address or whose email bounced back or was undeliverable because the member unsubscribed will receive a bright blue postcard with your voter credentials beneath a scratch off soon after August 16. Members who voted by paper ballot in the previous election, we'll get a paper ballot by default. Please note that paper ballots are approximately 40 times more costly when compared to an E ballot, hence should be reserved to members who really need them. To request a ballot, visit elections.pacifica.org. ballot requests open August 16 and must be filed in the name of the member using their email address. If you do not have access to the internet, please leave a message on 510-993-0320 to request a paper ballot. Please note all requests take time as the election supervisor has to vet each request so please do not make multiple requests. If you already made a request, and 10 days have elapsed, you should email the national election supervisor at an s [at] pacifica.org there are many candidates running and you can find out more about them on elections.pacifica.org debates are in production. And you can submit questions to the candidates online and by leaving a voicemail on 510 99303 to zero. The debates will be aired and also posted on the elections YouTube channel. The elections website [at] elections.pacifica.org will be updated regularly with content. Thank you for your time