Board Meeting Agenda May 20, 2025
Vision: Redwood Community Radio envisions a community of listeners who, guided by the example of RCR programming, work together to create better, more just and sustainable world systems to ensure that all humans and other living species on earth move toward a higher quality of life and are able to survive challenges in the time ahead.
Mission Statement: Redwood Community Radio will encourage a communication center of open airways (KMUD) for all voices to inform, educate, entertain and inspire the listening community through quality programming.
Ground Rules: Speak respectfully to one another. Focus on issues, not personalities. Support the facilitator. No interruption. Make criticism constructive, specific, substantiated and, ideally, when the person(s) are present. When required, a five-minute break shall be granted to attendees to encourage peaceful communication. Speakers during Open Time will be assigned an amount of time not to exceed five minutes. Any further discussions during the meeting will be between Board Members unless a guest is acknowledged by the Facilitator or is scheduled as part of the agenda.
Proposed Agenda
Redwood Community Radio Board of Directors
May 20, 2025 3:00 p.m.
Zoom Online Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85323411359?pwd=bythNWRlVGlyZm5aNFlBSEZ4S0VCdz09
Meeting ID: 853 2341 1359 Passcode: 766247
I.Call to order, and establish a quorum.
Opening comments from the President; meeting ground rules.
II.Roll Call
BOARD-APPOINTED MEMBERS: Interim secretary Matt Knight, Lelehnia DuBois
MEMBER REPS: Interim President George WinterSun, Correspondence Secretary Stephanie Thomas, Elise Sauer
PROGRAMMER REPS: Interim Vice-President Reid Reid, Michelle Vassel, Charley Custer
III. Approval of April 15, 2025 minutes.
IV. Statements (5 minutes maximum) by candidates for board-appointed seat, Q and A.
V. Election and seating of Board-Appointed member
VI. Revisit/Reappoint temporary officers and meeting facilitator
VII. Approval of Agenda
VIII. Open Time
IX. Consent Calendar
A. Remove Chestine Anderson and Flurina Niggli from Coast Central Credit Union and Vocality/Community First Credit Union accounts
X. New business
A. Schedule Board orientation session
B. Determine regular meeting date and time
C. Consider removal of Board member.
D. Determine new check signer
E. Review and approve budget adjustments
F. Fair access policy (policy section 6.11, first vote — attachment 1)
G. Personnel policy proposal (policy section 5, first vote)
See introductory note in attachment 2
Current policy in packet and at:
Proposed policy in packet and at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QIzjJk5-lIqZgvxlhFqkHq07S3E9Q_eu_aQ9rkQavPE/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.i5qfgec029at
XI. Management Reports – Station Manager Kara Randolph and Financial Manager Sarah Starck – in board packet
XII. Finance Committee Report – in board packet
• Review and approve Financial Statements submitted by Financial Manager
• Acknowledge receipt of draft informational returns
XIII. Committee Reports
- Programmer Representatives
- Member Representatives
- Community Advisory Board (CAB) – Siena Klein
- Correspondence Secretary – Thomas
- Development – WinterSun
- Membership Drive – Knight
- Policy –
- Mediation –
- Building and Grounds –
XIV. Committee Meeting Schedule
All meetings take place online until further notice. New board chairs may be changing meeting dates. Those interested in attending one should first check to ensure no changes have been made to this schedule. Zoom meeting IDs, passcodes, phone numbers, and links for the Board meeting can be found on the website and in the email distributed before the meeting. For access to other meetings, please contact the committee chair.
Board of Directors 3rd Tuesday, 3:00 p.m. June 17
Membership Drive 4th Tuesday, 4:00 p.m.(Matt Knight) May 27
Development 4th Thursday , 4:00 p.m.(George WinterSun) May 22
Policy 1st Monday, 11:00 a.m June 2
Executive 1st Monday, 12:00 p.m. June 2
Finance 1st Tuesday, 3:00 p.m. June 3
CAB Quarterly, Summer meeting at 5pm, (Siena Klein) TBA
XV. Closed session – personnel
XVI. Adjourn
Attachment 1 Policy 6.11 – FAIR ACCESS TO THE AIRWAVES AND
RESTRICTIONS
03/03/15, 03/18/25
Programmers can say (in decent language) what they think with some exceptions. These exceptions include initiating talk about RCR issues without first informing RCR Management, and personal messages. Paid staff members and board directors, when on-air or otherwise representing KMUD, are considered as “the voice of KMUD”, so they will refrain from endorsing political candidates or ballot measures.
Everyone hosting a show or otherwise representing KMUD on-air They not only needs to carefully choose their words, but must also be knowledgeable about relevant Federal Communications Commission, Corporation for Public Broadcasting and RCR policies and procedures.
Talk show hosts must give other sides a fair shake. This means that talk shows (other than regularly scheduled news programs) are encouraged to include and expose all sides of an issue. At least 25 per cent (ideally 50 per cent) of the time of each call-in talk show will be open to callers. (The Program Director may make exceptions to this, for example when a host needs to pre-record a show or produce a show with an alternate format.) Hosts of call-in shows shall make a statement early in the show that everyone is welcome to call in. Hosts must allow all callers to express themselves on the show, especially those with opposing views. However, talk show hosts may at the start broadcast a message describing another format, such as, “This show will take comments and questions, but will answer once the caller is off-air.” Opposing views are not required to receive equal airtime, only a reasonable amount of time.
Engineers will disconnect callers who use “the seven dirty words” (i.e., piss, shit, fuck, cunt, tits, cocksucker, motherfucker) or express obscene or indecent imagery, and then briefly explain to listeners what happened. Engineers generally need to refrain from adding their own content to the show and should generally remain neutral. However, a host may invite the engineer to contribute their thoughts, with clear parameters. Engineers should never deliver the last words of a show’s content. They should also not be expressing their views on-air while callers are on hold.
Attachment 2 Personnel Policy – Introductory Memo
Memo to the Board
From Policy Committee, May 9, 2025
Hello Board members. The proposed revisions to the entire Personnel Policies section of the Policy Manual are extensive, and is still a bit of a work in progress. It’s not possible to provide you with a document showing you what is changing in the text, as we usually do. Here is the current draft:
PROPOSED Personnel Policies for Redwood Community Radio Inc
These changes are largely the result of our Financial Manager Sarah Starck’s attendance at webinars on Human Resources issues. Once these policy changes are resolved, management says that they can create an Employee Handbook, which has been needed for some time.
Our existing Termination Policy in particular has things in it that muddy the waters of at-will employment in California. The proposed changes to that policy are extensive. Similarly, it is proposed that the Disciplinary Policy be replaced by a policy called Corrective Action Policy for Volunteers. Apparently, having a policy that says that an employee will receive an oral warning and then a written warning, in an attempt to address a problem, puts RCR at risk.
A significant change is that the Board will no longer be able to overturn a firing decision by management, or a Grievance Panel’s ruling. The idea is not to undermine management or the Grievance Panel. Please consider this carefully. Also, there is added wording about how the Board can fire a manager. Existing language didn’t specify anything, so for example, if only 5 board members were attending a board meeting, only 3 of them voting to fire a manager could take that action. The current proposal is “with a majority of the full Board of Directors and at least 5 votes..” Sarah has put a comment next to that language, asking you to consider it carefully.
Another change is that the phrase “community member,” which used to be understood to mean “someone not often involved in activities at the station,” but unfortunately was never defined, is in this draft being interpreted to mean “anyone,” including employees. The Policy Committee identified this issue at its May 5 meeting, and will be looking into whether further revisions need to be proposed to you. Some policies about volunteers and programmers are included in the “Applying to Everyone” section, because employees can be volunteers and programmers also. Let’s all consider whether any problems are created by these changes in interpretation.
New policies include:
— Non-Discrimination and Equal Opportunity, which includes a Pay Equity section. It starts in the middle of Page 6.
— one which clarifies that only the Board can edit management job descriptions. (We had situations at least twice in the past when Hiring Committees revised the Station Manager job description as they posted the position.)
