CdP Hosts "Meet the Candidates" Night

By Jeff Chan

(422 words)

A "Meet the LAB Candidates" night was organized by CdP Monday evening, October 23^rd,at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Berkeley. Over twenty of the twenty-six candidates aspiring to be elected to the first democratically formed Pacifica Local Area Board were in attendance, as well as over eighty KPFA members, eager to meet their prospective local board members.

The evening started with an informal buffet dinner. Co-hosts Nicole Milner and Tomas Moran then began the informational portion of the meeting with a short presentation of the procedure for the remainder of the meeting by Nicole, followed by a brief update of the situation vis-à-vis KPFA and the Pacifica Foundation by Tomas.

After short introductions to allow the audience to put faces to names, the candidates formed groups of four or five candidates which each met with small groups of voters. The candidate groups circulated among the voter groups so that each voter group had an opportunity to meet all of the candidates, hear their views and platforms, and pose questions to the candidates. Each group of voters was assigned a facilitator to help maintain a good information flow, and Nicole and Tomas also circulated among the groups to gather information about the overall sense of the evening.

The organized portion of the evening ended with a brief explanation of the proportional voting process and a summary from Tomas of what he had heard during the voter/candidate interactions. Even though the voter audience had been broken up into five groups, Tomas indicated that all of the groups seemed to be asking the same types of questions :

Would you advocate stopping the solicitation of CPB funds?

What is the role of a LAB member?

How would you increase community outreach?

How would you increase outlying area representation in KPFA programming?

How can we expand the nature of the debate of ideas on the air?

Afterwards, those who wished stayed to talk with candidates and each other. This opportunity for people to actually meet, ask questions and hear the candidates was warm, enlightening, engaging and important in the process of fleshing out the names and statements which became real people by the evening's end. A number of the people who attended took the opportunity to cast their ballot in the ballot boxes provided.

An editorial note to all of you who have not yet cast your ballot - It is very important that you vote. A ballot that is not cast is a vote FOR the present Pacifica National Board. VOTE.