Library Defenders Are Running For The WBAI Local Station Board To Keep WBAI Independent, Accountable To The Listeners, A Free Speech Bulwark Against Censorship

 

Library Defenders, names you’ll probably recognize, are running for the WBAI local station board to keep the WBAI 99.5 FM radio station (“Radio for the 99.5%") independent, accountable to the listeners, a free speech bulwark against censorship.

We hope all WBAI listener members will vote for them and the rest of the Indy (Independent) slate that they are running on.

 Who To Vote For To Keep WBAI Independent, Accountable To The Listeners, A Free Speech Bulwark Against Censorship.

The WBAI Local Station Board election voting has begun.  You should have gotten your ballot.  Voting will continue until October 15th.   You must cast your ballot by 11:59 PM EST, October 15th, 2021, but you can make up your mind and vote now.  If you didn't get your ballot let us know.*

(* And remember that if you donated the qualifying amount-- $25 or more for each member voter-- your WBAI donating household is entitled to cast more than one vote and should.  If you're having any problems, see below about who to contact including us.)

Who to vote for?  We suggest you vote for everyone* on the Indy (independent) slate.    Vote for the Indy slate members to keep WBAI independent, accountable to the listeners, and a free speech bulwark against censorship (like the escalating censorship and sly manipulation the internet is increasingly subject).

(* It's tough to explain, but voting for every candidate on the Indy slate, because of ranked choice voting, helps every candidate on the slate.  So it actually helps me get elected personally if you vote for all the other Indy candidates as well.)

Here is who to vote for on the Indy slate.  This year we are not formally ranking our Indy candidates, but I certainly hope that you will place me high on your list.  You'll see some familiar faces here (including activist faces familiar from our fight against library sales and real estate takeovers), and you see some exciting new blood, some of it younger, bringing an infusion of energy and new ideas.

Here is our Indy listener candidate slate that you can vote for:

    •    Michael D. D. White
    •    Scottye Battle
    •    Katherine O’Sullivan
    •    Phil DePaolo
    •    M. Kay Williams

    •    Priscilla Cancar
    •    John Hoffman

    •    Jim Dingeman
    •    Matthew Reiss
    •    Bruce Greif

End of story if you want to vote now? Maybe, but here is more information to help you.

As background, also know that while the listeners will elect 9 listener Local Station Board members this election (with ranked choice voting you can vote for more candidates but only candidates you want) the WBAI staff will elect three staff Local Station Board members.   Here is our Indy staff candidate slate that staff can vote for:

    •    Shawn Rhodes
    •    R. Paul Martin
    •    Max Schmid

What about voting for others beside those on the Indy slate?  Maybe (one or two?).  There are two other slates of candidates running.--

. . .  We suggest that you do not vote for candidates on the JUC or "Justice and Unity" slate as they have an an agenda that is most different from ours in that several of their candidates have for a very long time been supporting a transfer or lease of WBAI (sometimes called a PSOA- Public Service Operating Agreement) that would end listener accountability and control- sometimes it is misleadingly referred to as some sort of "partnership").  In other words, it would end the democratic structure that protects WBAI from privatizing takeovers in very much the same way the two proposed bylaw referendums we had to fend off and defeat would have done.  Those bylaw referendums came from the same people who illegally and sneakily shut down WBAI for the month of October in 2019.

. .  There is another slate, the DSA, Democratic Socialists of America, slate that is running two listener candidates.  The DSA elected LSB members in the last election and they have often, but not always, voted with the Indys.  All of the DSA candidates oppose and sale, swap of signal or lease (PSOA) of WBAI, unlike the member of the JUC.  DSA members also have a good record of being cooperative and fair, where as some of the JUC have, we think, sometimes been negative in a way that's deleterious to the station's reputation, and unproductively disruptive.

Ranked choice voting is sufficiently mysterious in the way it works so we don't know for sure whether voting for the DSA candidates or other wild card candidates would push down Indy success in the election or would help them win over JUC candidates.  

Your call- you may want to vote for the two DSA listener candidates, but only after you have voted for all the INDY candidates first in your ranking.

Those two candidate are:

    •    Dylan Saba

    •    Nicodemus (Nick) Nicoludis

The additional wild card candidates who are not affiliated with any slate? If they are not on on our Indy slate, it's because they didn't join with us, even though we may have reached out to them to do so.

Want to know more about our Indy candidates, watch their videos, read their statements?  OK, but first we'll tell you some people endorsing our Indy slate

Our Indy Slate Is Endorsed BY:

   

•        Judy Gorman- The singer song-writer activist, mentored by Pete Seeger who wrote our Defending Libraries Song.
    •    Maxine Harrison-Gallmon- An Indy on the LSB intimately familiar with how the station works through her dedicated volunteer work there.
    •    Alicia Boyd- Activist who founded MTOPP to fight the aggressive real estate interests in Brooklyn, intent among other things, on over-shadowing the Brooklyn Botanical Garden with towers.
    •    Tracy Rosenberg- One of Pacifica’s best historians and analysts keeping facts straight.
    •    James Sagurton- Pacifica’s current Treasurer from the Indys’ who has done so much to put Pacifica’s financial house in order.
    •    Carolyn McIntyre- A Co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries and Chair from the Indys of the Local Station Board for the last three years.
    •    Alex Steinberg- Current Pacifica National Board chair expert at tactically navigating Pacifica through crises.
    •    Grace Aaron- Former Indy chair of the Pacifica National Board who had much to do with obtaining the loans that allowed WBAI and Pacifica to extricate from the financial drain of the exorbitant Empire State Building antenna lease.
    •    Lucy Koteen- prominent member of Human Scale New York, fought Atlantic Yards, Fighting destruction of Fort Green Park and fighting various other city environmental and community protection battles.
    •    DeeDee Halleck- Famed Indy film and documentary maker and another Indy on the LSB elected last election.     

Indy Candidate Info, Statements and Videos

For a deeper dive, here is more about our Indy candidate listener slate:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael D. D. White- Needs to be re-elected! Activist lawyer, dynamic and productive on the LSB, skilled in public finance, urban planning & social policy. A writer-activist defending free speech & cofounder of Citizens Defending Libraries who helped beat back the city’s powerful real estate establishment.

 

    •   Statement
    •   Video

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scottye Battle- Veteran learning specialist and professor of English, she spent many years living in Japan and is an empowerment advocate for students with special needs. Her effervescent personality will bring needed positive energy to the board.

 

 

   •   Statement
    •   Video

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Katherine O’Sullivan-  Performance artist devoted to public advocacy. She helped form Moving Forward Unidos to fight privatization of the commons in NY, fought the radical upzoning of Inwood that will displace a lower income population while destroying the Inwood Library. She is also a bookkeeper whose skills the board will welco

 

    •   Statement
    •   Video

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phil DePaolo-  Seasoned political advisor and organizer for local activist groups fighting real estate and industry exploitation. Co-author with Professor Tom Angotti of “Zoned Out! Race Displacement and City Planning.”

    •   Statement
    •   Video

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

M. Kay Williams- Williams-An experienced Physician's Assistant with a Masters of Public Health from Columbia, she aided refugees in Thailand and health workers in Nicaragua. Former chair of the Free Speech Radio Alliance.

 

    •   Statement
    •   Video

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Priscilla Cancar- Product Manager at an EdTech company that supports the learning experiences and voices of youth. Creates activist videos and oversaw social media and website design for City Council candidate Victoria Cambranes. Born & raised in Brooklyn, Puerto Rican and Croatian – an ear for all the diverse voices of our city’s youth.

    •   Statement
    •   Video (done for Citizens Defending Libraries fight)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Hoffman- WWBAI listener for 50 years, grew up in Brooklyn. Skilled in finance, preparing and monitoring budgets, forecasting and deciphering balance sheets, he will help stabilize and solidify WBAI’s precarious cash flow.

    •   Statement
    •   Video

 

Jim Dingeman- Needs to be re-elected! WBAI and Pacifica historian, experienced print, radio and TV journalist and military analyst. Doing vital work to recover WBAI’s lost CPB grants worth more than $4 million. Also spearheading move to get WBAI its own HQ building. Focused and goal oriented, a dynamic organizer. Helped speed long delayed premiums to thousands of frustrated donors.

    •   Statement
    •   Video

 

 

Matthew Reiss- Award-winning investigative journalist (Village Voice, NY Times, The Nation, Mother Jones, Counterpunch). Has interviewed everyone from Noam Chomsky, Mort Sahl and Dick Gregory to Seymour Hersh, Woodward/Bernstein and Bernie Sanders. Also dodged bullets and bad guys as a war correspondent in Guatemala, North Korea, Kosovo and Yugoslavia. Currently professor of Journalism at Rutgers.

    •   Statement
    •   Video/Audio

 

 

Bruce Greif- A wizard at data tracking and project management in complex organizations, he will work hard to normalize the station’s often chaotic administrative issues.

    •   Statement
    •   Video

Faces of Our Endorsers

Endorsers of the Indy slate above, left to right: Judy Gorman, Maxine Harrison-Gallmon, Alicia Boyd, Tracy Rosenberg, James Sagurton, Carolyn McIntyre, Alex Steinberg, Grace Aaron, Lucy Koteen, DeeDee Halleck.

Here is another late entry endorser- Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan:

And here is another late entry endorser- Casper the Friendly Ghost- Why? because another slate of candidates running for office has decided to have dead people endorse their slate, so it seemed only fair to follow suit and figuring that Casper is friendly, we should have have him endorse us in the same not quite so meaningful way:

The candidates are having debates.  Visit the website: elections.pacifica.org for debates.  For the first debate that has already been held you can find audio in the WBAI Archive for Sunday, August 15, 2021 and Zoom Video is available here.  The first third of the debate has library defenders Michael D. D. White and Katherine Sullivan.  M. Kay William was in the second third.  Scottye Battle and John Hoffman are in the last third.

BALLOTS & VOTING

Ballots were sent on August 16th, 2 pm ET / 1 pm CT / 11 am PT.

For any ballot request you must file a ballot request form.

Emails are insufficient.

Ballot request form 2021

Please contact us Michael White or Carolyn McIntyre,cemac62@aol.com, if you are having problems voting or getting your ballot when you request if it has not already arrived.

Visit the website: elections.pacifica.org for candidate statements and debates.

Again- Please cast your ballot by 11:59 PM EST, (10:59 PM CST, 8:59 PM PST,) Oct 15th, 2021

MOREOVER, Please make sure you contact all your WBAI listener members and make sure they also vote.  Thank you.

Disclaimer: This is not an official communication of WBAI or Pacifica.

For even more information, background and views: Steve Brown sent out a mailer about the election and the candidates that you may have already received (yes we cribbed). 

 

Citizens Defending Libraries has also posted previous pages about how the fight to protect our libraries and the fight to keep WBAI strong are related fights, both opposing privatizing takeovers, both related to how we must fend off attempts by moneyed interest to own our information and control our narratives and thinking.  You can access those earlier posts by scrolling down from this link.  

Also, you will find the website for theCalifornia Pacifica station listeners saying what the Indy candidates ("The Good Governance Coalition") stand for.