BOD Minutes, January 28, 2020
MCPB Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
564 S. Dora St., Ukiah
January 28, 2020
Present on Board: Tom Dow, Dina Polkinghorne, Bob Bushansky, Len Tischler, John Azzaro, David Hulse-Stephens, Renee Vinyard, Jerry Karp
Also Present: GM Marty Durlin, Ed Keller, Catherine Rippey, Neal Roberts
A. Called to order at 5:16pm by Dir. Dow.
B. Agenda was approved
C. Minutes of the December 14, 2019 Bard meeting were approved.
D. Reports from Management and Staff
a. President’s Report
i. Dir. Dow postponed his remarks to give input at the appropriate parts of the agenda.
b. General Manager’s Report
i. Marty Durlin verbally went through the points of her written report (a copy is below these minutes) and allowed for questions and discussion.
E. Committee Reports
a. Finance Committee, Dir Bushansky
i. The December 31, 2019 financials and the revised budget were handed out and discussed. The station is operating with a surplus (for the first time in years) in the six months up to December 31, 2019, the station brought in more donations plus $100,000 than anticipated in the original budget, and spent a little less than was budgeted. We have a positive quick ration: 1.4. Last June 30 it was 0.7. Another good sign. The revised budget was discussed and approved.
b. Membership/ Fundraising Committee, Dir. Dow
i. We ha ve done a good job raising funds so far this fiscal year Membership has remained steady.
c. Planning Committee, Dir Hulse-Stephens
i. The committee hasn’t met since the October 19th 3oth anniversary celebration. It will now begin meeting again and will focus on the strategic plan. The March, 2019 approved plan was handed out and a discussion ensued. The committee wants direction as to where to go from here. With an almost all new staff, Marty will bring this to the staff for their ideas. With these suggestions in hand the Board will convene a separate meeting to make changes as they see fit. A discussion ensued about how detailed the strategic plan should be. It was agreed that the product should have two layers. One is a brief outline of three major focuses – aimed at big donors. The second is a 2-pager like the current plan for more detail.
d. Programming/Publicity Committee, Dir. Karp
i. Dir. Karp continues his willingness to write articles about the station for the local press. Programming is going well.
e. Citizen Advisory Board (CAB), Dir. Dow and Chair Stein
i. Andrew Stein will chair the CAB and will convene a first 2020 meeting in March. He would appreciate help finding more people to attend.
f. Bylaws and Policies Committee, Dir. Polkinghorne
g. Dir. Polkinghorne emailed to Board members the draft revised bylaws. The board will consider adoption at the March meeting. The committee will be reviewing policies next, beginning with a sick and vacation policy that should also be up for adoption in March.
h. Board Election Committee, Dir. Dow
i. There was a discussion about the election process. So far no one from the Ft. Bragg area has put their name in to run for that seat. The Board approved a delay until February 7 for applications because there was a glitch in our system that may have not counted some applications. The radio is announcing that people need to submit another application by February 7.
F. Conduct of Business
a. Extend the deadline for Board election applications to February 7. Approved.
b. Approve the revised Budget for 2019/2020. Approved.
c. Dir. Dow and Atty.Neal Roberts introduced Bestow Donor Advised Fund Proposal. A discussion ensued and the Board voted to re-consider this at the March meeting.
d. Station Relocation. The Board approved having a small committee to explore this. The core committee will include Len Tischler, Ed Keller, Marty Durlin, and Rich Culbertson.
G. Comments from Directors.
a. None
H. Public Expression.
a. One comment about how well the Board is functioning.
I. Closed Session
J. The board received information from the General Manager regarding confidential personnel information. No action was taken
K. Next Meeting: March 31, 2020, 5:15PM, at 564 S. Dora St., Ukiah.
L. Adjourned at 7:50pm.
Manager’s Report
January 2020
Marty Durlin
End of Year contributions: More than $33K. A nice outpouring of support with gifts large and small. Thanks to Renee for all her year-end work, coordinating so many mailings and keeping track of it all.
Changes in staff: With Jake’s departure, we are advertising for a new Production Director (deadline: Jan 31). Katharine Cole has taken over Underwriting, including creating KZYX logs and reviewing current contracts. She has also taken over inland underwriting sales. We are eliminating Morning Edition hosts, but we will maintain the local underwriting, weather and road reports, and the KZYX promotions that are currently run during that time. This requires new tasks and coordination with Katharine, Alicia, Rich and the new Production Director (Dan McDonnell has served in the interim position). More about the re-allocation of funds from the Finance Committee.
Impeachment, Elections and Preemptions: Alicia has planned a lot of local election coverage, but first: at least two weeks of impeachment coverage via NPR. The impeachment coverage presents challenges in providing IDs every hour and providing for possible surprises (someone needs to be there 8-12 hours), along with pre-emptions of so much local programming. Kind of a mini PSPS, but so far, so good.
Tuning 2020 budget after two quarters: More about this from the Finance Committee. We are trying to get a firm grip on actual expenses, so that when we create the 2021 budget we’ve got an accurate line item for everything.
Extended board application deadline: We’ve extended to February 7 because we had a glitch with elections@kzyx.org. If you sent your application before Thursday Jan 23, please resend.
Spring Membership Drive scheduled for March 27-April 5. Goal: $100K. We are going to try to limit the major drives to two per year, with a 3-day mini-drive in June. Thus we need bigger goals. It’s a risk worth taking because of the work each drive entails for staff and the toll it takes on producers and listener/members. If we’re able to come close in the Spring, I feel sure we can hit the goal in the Fall drive, which is scheduled for September 25-October 4.
Grants: We have submitted the generator grant ($10K for a 20 KW generator) to the Community Fund, and I’m also applying for a Community Foundation grant to pay for part of the salary of a reporter who will work for KZYX and the Mendo Voice starting in June.
Out of office: I will be gone from Wednesday, February 5th through Monday, February 10th. My sister will visit from Connecticut and we will travel to Paso Robles to see our Aunt. I will also take a bit more time off during my sister’s visit, which will go through February 23rd.
— Marty