Why you should vote:

CMS urges all ‘PFW staff (unpaid and paid), and listener-members, to VOTE to elect our representatives to our Local Station Board (LSB), the station’s governing body. Pacifica is unique in the nonprofit world by providing for an elected board. In many ways, the right to run as candidates for our governing body and to vote for these candidates, is the most important benefit of membership in ‘PFW/Pacifica, since it provides a mechanism for staff and listener-members to directly influence the decisions that are to be made at our station, and within the Pacifica Foundation.  At this time of financial crisis throughout the Foundation, the decisions made in the near future will determine whether or not ‘PFW and the Foundation will survive, and in what form; and what direction the organization will take. Each LSB elects 4 representatives to the Pacifica National Board (PNB), which is the organization’s highest decision-making body: the buck stops here ! If the organization is to truly represent its staff and listeners, we must ALL participate in determining who these representatives will be.  Finally, we need YOU to participate in order for the election to be declared valid ! A certain % of the eligible voters must participate in each separate election (staff and listener), and if we don’t meet that quorum, the election will be declared void, resulting in 2 negatives:  1) We will have wasted the approximately $16,ooo+ it will have cost ‘PFW to conduct the election at a time of dire financial crisis; and if the election is extended in order to reach quorum, the costs will go up further ! Worst yet, if the election period is extended and we still don’t reach quorum, we will have spent extra money we don’t have, and on top of that, the election will still be declared void, as has happened before !  2) The terms of the current occupants of the seats up for election will be extended another 2 years until the next election (2018); resulting in our having to live with some unelected “representatives”.  EVERYONE PLEASE !  Fill-out your ballot and put it in the mail by 9/24/16,  so as to insure that it is received in California by the 9/30/16 deadline !

AS OF 9/15/16 ONLY 1/3 BALLOTS HAVE BEEN RETURNED!

WHO To Vote For  STAFF ELECTION  (A) REGULAR CANDIDATES  Rob Simms – We encourage you to vote for Rob, a former LSB member.  (B) WRITE-IN CANDIDATES  Arthur McCloud – We encourage you to vote for Arthur as a WRITE-IN CANDIDATE. He currently serves on the LSB and has focused on programming issues. Due to a misunderstanding, he was unable to become a regular candidate.   WRITE-IN Arthur McCloud on your ballot

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CLARIFICATION- Our support for these candidates DOES NOT mean that they are members of CMS or support CMS’s positions in any way. In fact, neither of them know hardly anything about CMS. We support them simply because we feel they have made, and would continue to make, valuable contributions to the LSB and the survival of the station.

LISTENER ELECTION  Listener-members of ‘PFW are challenged in this election because we only have 6 certified candidates to fill 9 seats. Therefore, there’s no actual competition to speak of, and we need to elect 3 WRITE-IN CANDIDATES to fill the remaining seats !  (I) REGULAR CANDIDATES  Given that there’s no real competition, CMS encourages all listener-members to vote for ALL 6 regular candidates. Rank them as you like.  (A) Among these, 2 are active members of CMS and so we urge you to rank one of them as your #1 and the other as your #2:  1) Martha Peterson – Martha is a current member of the LSB and an active member of the Relocation and fundraising committees.  2) Benito Diaz – Benito is a former member of the LSB and the national board, and a current member of the Finance and Programming committees.  (B) Of the 4 remaining regular candidates, 3 agreed to be included in our list.   3) Eileen Rosen – Eileen served as the LSB’s Treasurer Pro Tem for part of this year, is an active member of the Finance Committee, and was recently elected to fill a vacancy on the LSB (until the end of this year when the newly elected board will be seated).  4) Meridith Cordisco – Meridith was recently elected to fill a vacancy on the LSB (until the end of the year).   5) Vicki McGill – Vicki is a current member of the LSB and has been working on social media issues.  (II) WRITE-IN CANDIDATES  CMS encourages all listener-members to vote for the following people as WRITE-IN CANDIDATES to fill the 3 remaining seats:  1) Christine Cutter – Christine was recently elected to fill a vacancy on the LSB (until the end of the year).   WRITE-IN Christine Cutter on your ballot.   2) Lonnie Hall – Lonnie started out as a regular candidate in this election but one of his documents got lost in cyberspace and so he was prevented from becoming a “certified candidate”.   WRITE-IN Lonnie Hall on your ballot.  3) Murray (“Cliff”) Smith – Cliff is a member of the LSB Programming Committee and was recently elected to fill a vacancy on the LSB (until the end of the year). He started out as a regular candidate in this election, but was prevented from completing the certification process due to a personal emergency.  WRITE-IN Murray (“Cliff”) Smith on your ballot.

CLARIFICATION  With the exception of Martha Peterson and Benito Diaz, both of whom we formally endorse since they are active members of CMS, none of the other remaining regular candidates, nor the 3 WRITE-IN Candidates we propose you vote for, are members of CMS. In fact, most of them know little if anything about CMS. We simply encourage you to vote for them because we feel they either already have, or could make, positive contributions to the LSB and the survival of the station