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History

Selected items from the history of the struggle:

Tried and failed to mediate with the board. Friends of KOOP met with members of KOOP's governing boards and an independent mediator in an attempt to negotiate in good faith in the Summer of 1998, but little progress was made. As per our agreement with the board, we cannot disclose the details of the mediation session. All we can say is that we feel we made a good faith effort which was not reciprocated.

We had always been willing to mediate with the board, but the ball has been in the board's court. At the 8/10/98 board meeting, Vickie Benitez of Friends of KOOP (FoK) invited the board to a mediation with 2 FoK members and 2 board of trustees members, within 10-15 days. After two compromises on our part, we agreed to a mediation with 2 FoK members, 2 from the boards (1 from board of trustees and 1 from community board), and 1 from a third group, Members for Mediation. The Board of Trustees spent over an hour discussing our invitation but adjourned promptly at 9:00pm without coming to a decision on our specific proposal. They did vote to agree to mediation, but did not vote on how many representatives from each side could attend.

Without specifying the representative terms of the mediation, their decision was meaningless. We could show up to the table with our two representatives and they could show up with 10 of their supporters. We felt the board was not making a good faith effort to mediate fairly.

At the 8/17 board meeting, the board agreed to our compromised offer (2 from boards, 2 from Friends of KOOP, 1 from Members for Mediation).

Notably, while Mac McKaskle blasted Friends of KOOP for supposedly not being willing to mediate, Mac himself voted AGAINST mediation at this board meeting! Mac stated his position clearly at an earlier board meeting, saying, "There's nothing to defend! We're a board. We're KOOP." During the bulk of the 8/10 meeting, Mac, board President Teresa Taylor, and board member Aida Franco seemed to avoid endorsing the idea of mediation. (Aida in particular said nearly nothing at all for the entire meeting.) One-third of the board, Carol Hayman and Gavino Fernandez, did not attend the 8/10 meeting.

Getting an Emergency Board Ready to Serve
(Oversight Committee). The membership met on 8/30/98 and voted to replace the Board of Trustees with an oversight committee who will, if necessary, act as a transitional board until a board of trustees can be elected pursuant to the KOOP bylaws. This oversight committee will assume authority only if a judge approves such action.

We decided to hold off on asking a judge to appoint the Oversight Committee right away, and instead continued working through normal station channels to effect change. By electing an oversight committee, but not engaging in the divisive conduct of trying to forcibly oust the current BoT from power, the membership chose to make its mandate known in a fair and cooperative manner. [We have recently decided that it is finally time to ask a court to appoint the Oversight Committee. See above.]

The vote to authorize the oversight committee was 442 For, 151 Against, 29 Abstaining. (Excluding proxies, the vote was 70 For, 49 Against, 14 Abstain.) Despite our clear majority, we wish to point out that even many of those voting Against the motion actually support KOOP having a new board of trustees, but simply disagreed that getting an oversight committee in reserve was the best way to go about doing so. Many of those who voted against the proposal actually spoke very critically about the board of trustees, and called for new station leadership.

Despite this overwhelming show of no-confidence in the board, the board refused to step down. Incidentally, only two of the six trustees bothered to even attend the membership meeting.

The oversight committee was elected unanimously when the meeting resumed on 9/20. Those elected were Carol Texeira, Elaine Wolff, John Duncan, Kara Sheldon, Moses Gonzales, Neal Tuttrup, Ricardo Guerrero, and Tina Hardin.


Continental Benefit. After paying the Continental Club doorman for his services we ended up clearing $428 at a benefit on 8/23/98. Not bad for a Sunday night. Thanks to every one who came and special thanks to Paul Borelli and Mike Buck, and of course the bands -- Herman the German, Tosca, Leroi Brothers, Toni Price and the Sir Finks.
Filing the Lawsuit

In December 1998, two members of Friends of KOOP (station engineer Jerry Chamkis and underwriter Michael Zakes) filed a suit against KOOP's trustees, individually and collectively. This action was taken only after all our efforts to demand accountability from the trustees through KOOP's normal channels failed. The suit asked the court to appoint the Oversight Committee elected unanimously at the special membership meeting held this summer, and asks for damages from the trustees for mismanaging station funds. The trustees have already racked up legal bills of over $20,000 --- wasting station money defending themselves instead of simply stepping down, which is what the membership has demanded all along.

Here's an article about the suit from the Austin Chronicle. Or you can read the suit itself.

A hearing on the suit was held Monday morning, 1/4/99, in District Court. At the hearing, Friends of KOOP sought to have the judge remove the board and assign operation of the station to the Oversight Committee. The judge declined to appoint the Oversight Committee, and urged the parties to compromise. Friends and the board agreed to this compromise, ordered by the court:

  • The board of trustees will allow Friends of KOOP to select two new interim board members immediately, joining the existing four trustees to make six total. [We selected John Duncan and Vickie Benitez. Vickie resigned soon afterward because of other commitments, and we selected Michael Zakes to replace her.]
  • A unanimous vote of the board is required to transact any major business, although routine business can continue to be passed with a majority vote.
  • A new community board election will be held within 45 days, administered by a mutually-agreed-upon independent third party, which will have absolute authority over the election.

See the next section to learn about that disastrous election.

Community Board Election. The Non-Profit Center (NPC) was chosen to run the election, but their methods violated KOOP's bylaws, and heavily skewed the ballot against us. They also didn't maintain control of the ballots, openly inviting voter fraud. Friends of KOOP failed to win a majority of seats in the election, and we believe that was a direct result of those irregularities. However, the NPC refuses to show us the complete election records, making an audit impossible. We have therefore requested a Contempt of Court hearing, and are waiting for a hearing date to be set. We'll post more about that here soon. In the meantime, here are the election results, which were announced on 2/19/99.

Court battle continues

In July 1999, most of the requests by the trustees to have parts of our lawsuit thrown out were denied, meaning that the lawsuit continues.

August 4, 1999, is our scheduled hearing for our motion for Contempt of Court. In January, the court ordered the trustees to have another Community Board election held, but the methods of the election were contrary to KOOP's bylaws. We hope to have the court order the election records be made available to us, giving us an opportunity to investigate suspected election fraud.

 

Update: Nov. 2004: Although we're not really updating this site any more, we wanted to at least mention that Eduardo Vera was finally removed from KOOP, reportedly for misappropriation of funds:

Date: November 24, 2004 5:56:34 PM CST

Subject: [KOOPlist] minutes of November 21st board meeting (unapproved)

Minutes of the November 21, 2004 meeting of the Board of Directors of KOOP Radio, Texas Educational Community Broadcasting Corporation, Inc.

  The meeting took place at the KOOP station, 304 E. 5th St., Austin, TX,

  President Andrew Dickens being in the chair, Treasurer Bob White and Secretary Lisa Rickenberg being present.

  The chair called the meeting to order at 6:15 pm.

  Board members Andrew Dickens, Robert White, Lisa Rickenberg, Scott Gardner, and Gin Daniel were in attendance. Ari Chagoya was in attendance after 6:21 pm. Absent: Roberto Plata.

  Also present were Ken Garson, Board Parliamentarian, Thomas Durnin, Gloria Perez-Walker, Curt Jones, Gary Dickerson, Carol Hayman, Katherine Tanney, and Matt Daley.

  Ari arrived at 6:21 pm.

...

  The Board discussed the situation regarding Eduardo Vera and Eugenio Onesco.

  Gin moved that Eduardo Vera and Eugenio Onesco be removed as members of KOOP, effective immediately as authorized by Section 2.8 of the bylaws.

  The motion was adopted by a vote of 5 in favor, 0 against (1 abstaining)

  Andrew moved that Eduardo Vera and Eugenio Onesco be banned from KOOP property and events, and that the corporation will enforce this action with appropriate legal notice and enforcement, effective immediately.

  The motion was adopted by a vote of 5 in favor, 0 against (1 abstaining)

 

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