1. Why do you wish to serve on the Local Station Board?

I was elected to the WBAI Local Station Board in 2004 after I had been a member of its predecessor, the WBAI Local Advisory Board, from 1998-2004, on which I had served as vice chair, co-chair and acting chair. My main rationale for serving on both boards has been to provide support to preserve the viability and integrity of our station and to help guarantee its long-term presence and operation. I am also strongly committed to ensuring that WBAI remains a voice for historically disenfranchised communities, especially people of color. I believe that the Justice and Unity Campaign, which has the current board majority, is the best vehicle to accomplish those goals. I urge you to vote for the entire slate, which you can find (as well as much more information) at www.justiceunity.org .

You can contact me at marian@justiceunity.org, leave a message at 212-591-2111.

2. What skills, qualifications and experience would you bring to the board?

I believe that I am able to bring to the board and WBAI many years of experience and activities in support of organizations and communities in both my professional life as an educator and administrator, and in assisting communities in their struggles to achieve social justice and economic equity within our society. In particular, I have been involved in various capacities with the struggle to preserve WBAI and Pacifica for three decades, including attending several National Board meetings in several cities as a Local Advisory Board member.

I have advanced degrees in early childhood and elementary education and a doctoral course of study in urban education.  I also possess certification in supervision and administration in early childhood and elementary education.  My work history includes roles as a teacher, educational and administrative director, agency director, school district consultant, project director and most recently as a member of a program development and policy formulation unit in the City’s Agency for Children’s Services.  My college teaching experience includes the CUNY system, the Research Foundation, Antioch College and Bank St. College of Education.  I have worked with school complexes as a consultant in Philadelphia, PA, Wilmington, DE, and Tuskegee, AL, as well as school districts in New York City. In my work with the City, I have been a shop steward, union delegate and union negotiating representative.

Other skills, interests, and areas of expertise include politics and local, national and international affairs.  My organizational skills and experiences include organizing and coordinating a NYC school district’s early and elementary school components into a cohesive educational entity and the development of a plan to address issues of school improvement according to U.S. federal grant outlines and requirements.  Most recently I have presented workshops and acted as a facilitator on various aspects of child development for a number of educational organizations.  When I was an organization’s treasurer, I oversaw and accounted for receipts and expenditures from fundraising and grants and participated in planning for the financial needs of the organization to insure continuity of activities and service.

3. What can be done to improve the dynamics and effectiveness of the Local Station Board?

I believe our board’s effectiveness within the Pacifica mission can be vastly improved by directly addressing the most critical issues and problems facing the station, and identifying and implementing solutions to these specific concerns in conjunction with our station’s management. These areas of concern include economic, technical and programmatic concerns where viable solutions have not been achieved to date.

4. What LSB committees would you like to join? What Pacifica National Board committees?

I am already on the Finance Committee, Programming Committee, and the Pacifica National Board’s WBAI Committee of Inclusion, and would like to continue serving on those bodies, as they are very important to our station’s future. I am quite hopeful that the General Manager Search Subcommittee on which I now serve will have accomplished its task by the beginning of the next term.

5. Would you be interested in serving on the Pacifica National Board, and why?

I have quite a few local community commitments that would make it extremely difficult for me to take the time to attend National Board meetings.

6. How do you view the dynamics between the Pacifica network and local station autonomy?

Although the Pacifica bylaws state that the Foundation possesses the authority to manage the constituent stations of the network, I believe that it is in the best interests of the foundation to grant each station the greatest degree of autonomy possible. For example, in the selection and hiring of a station manager, as we are in the process of doing now, our bylaws state that the final choice of that person is decided by the Pacifica Executive Director – but only from a list submitted by the local board or its special subcommittee.

7. How should the Pacifica Foundation find a wider audience?

The Pacifica network’s leadership could probably find a wider audience overall if it reached out as an entity in public forums and venues nationally with information concerning the foundation’s goals and objectives and invited others to participate actively in its mission.

8. What can be done to preserve and share the treasures of the Pacifica Archives?

These tapes are indeed priceless pieces of U.S. progressive policy and cultural history. I would suggest that the 5 Local Station Boards and the Pacifica National Board put out a broad call to find additional democracy-oriented foundations and cooperating university sponsors that could assist Pacifica in both its technical and its economic needs regarding the archives.

9. Do you have any ideas for new approaches to fundraising for Pacifica?

I would suggest the possibility of seeking funding sources internationally within collaborative efforts to achieve common goals around such issues as the global economy and human exploitation, global environment and initiatives for family support and stability, and the right of our children to grow and develop. I believe that outside donors and foundations with similar goals could be found to underwrite such an effort.

10. How do you view Pacifica’s potential in providing internet content?

I think there is tremendous potential for providing our programs over the Internet. The fact that WBAI receives over 6,000,000 hits a year to its archives from all over the world demonstrates the massive interest in our programming and the possibility for growth in listenership. I think WBAI should do more promotion of its website on the airwaves. See also my answer to #15 below.

11. What technologies should the Pacifica Foundation consider for the future?

See answer to #12 below.

12. What can be done to improve our signal strength?

A technical conference with persons possessing expertise in radio engineering, transmission, and computer technology could be helpful in assisting us in both our short-term and long-term planning and development needs. One focus could be on improving our signal strength and perhaps in the future obviating the economic burden of the Empire State Building transmission site.

13. Should the station consider relocating the studio to other facilities?  Where and Why? 

There is no doubt that we have to move the station out of Wall Street and into an owned facility, because the rental costs are bleeding us to death. No other station in Pacifica has the level of overhead expenses that we have—we’re in the most expensive real estate market in the country. There are several working class neighborhoods around the city that would be suitable homes for WBAI. As soon as management initiates a capital campaign for funds to finance a move and a mortgage, the Justice & Unity Campaign members of the board will fully join in a major effort to bring this about.

14. How can our station better serve under-represented communities?

I would like to see more Local Station Board meetings and town hall meetings in neighborhoods of underrepresented communities, which should be well-publicized. This is particularly true for the various immigrant communities and other working class communities that are under attack. It was a great loss when the station laid off the Outreach Coordinator, Bok-keem Nyerere (who is also running this year with the Justice and Unity Campaign), who did good outreach to many communities. We need to recruit volunteers to work with the board’s Outreach Committee on this type of promotion and dialogue with these communities.

15. How can our station better serve the many linguistic communities of the signal area?

In addition to doing strong outreach in various linguistic communities. I think the station should also seek input from educators in the field of linguistic studies and sociology. I believe that the Spanish-language news program that the network offers, Informativo Pacifica -- which was the result of efforts by Justice & Unity -- is an excellent way to broaden our audience with the Spanish-speaking community. I also think it would be great at times to offer programs in other languages as well. The station should also try to make use of the Internet to collaborate with some of the progressive radio stations that are geared toward various linguistic communities and link to some of their programming.

16. What do you see as our station’s strong and weak points?

I believe that our station’s greatest strengths lie in its programmatic resources in all their various forms of interest and expertise, which enhance WBAI’s ability to inform and clarify a variety of critical issues and concerns of our listeners and the community at-large. Our station’s weaknesses include its failure to garner the direct involvement and active fiscal support of a larger segment of its listening public, some of them long-time listeners.
17. Have you ever been party to, or provided support for, a lawsuit involving Pacifica or its employees?  When and Why? 

I have not been a party to any such lawsuit myself, but was very supportive of several colleagues on the Local Advisory Board when they sued the old Pacifica National Board (in the late 90s) for blatantly violating the bylaws, engaging in unwarranted secrecy, and removing the right of all 5 of our local boards to elect representatives to the National Board. The settlement of that and other lawsuits created the basis for taking back the network into progressive hands.

18. How do you think the election process for Local Station Board can be improved?

I believe the current election process for the WBAI Local Station Board is essentially a viable process, but perhaps it would be helpful if all the participants in a given election sequence held a brief post-election evaluation to bring out any areas of the process that could be improved.

19. What are your hobbies, interests, and other organizational affiliations?

I read a lot, and for years I have worked in community organizations around housing, education, early childhood education and care, and children’s health care. In the 1970s I was very involved in the movement for community control of schools. My past involvements have included Manhattan’s Strykers Bay Neighborhood Council (secretary), the Harlem Parents Committee (board member) and the Joint Schools Committee for Academic Excellence (member). Currently I am a member of the New York Association for Early Childhood Education, a professional organization, and on the board of the Black Radical Congress-NYC chapter.