and we go ahead and allow for twenty minutes of public comment as well i want to ask members of the public to please limit your comments as well the one minute so please come up to the mikes and we'll call on you my name is carol browner just the expenses that are is the station meeting their expenses it would seem so it and therefore it's really hard to imagine you know why or why that some of the members here it doesn't make any sense and if they needed for some reason to spin it off i'd consider you know w s u with their northwest public radio that be much more friendly source from my point of view i think lol calling our engineer lol i can comment about our budget the audit capabilities audit will be completed very soon it's a public document and what you will see is that our fiscal year that ended may thirty first will show they keep aliu was in the black approximately three hundred eighty nine thousand dollars and that's our best fiscal year as stephen said outside of a capital campaign year that's our our best fiscal year in our history everybody christy lynn how milton here thank you everybody and thank you to all the council members all fifteen of you voted no they were against the sale and i would just recommend that in the letter that you want to write steve in the drafted credible forceful letter that we asked the four hundred thirty eight thousand weekly listeners to sign that i'd like to just summarize what i heard from everybody is that this public due diligence i think is a huge issue that needs to be addressed in that letter as well that nobody was given the opportunity to hear about this sale and that that's our right and so i really appreciate you bringing that up that this is part of our local community these people are family we are we are family this is home for most of us growing our future here this listener supported listener supported community radio and the commitment to our northwest resources and all of like to say also is that john kessler can him i want to make sure nic robertson as name gets mentioned my name is bill wilson and i just want to say what a privilege it is to stand here in my community supporting cape hill you and with all of you this this is what life is about keep you is the world not just to me and my family and all of us but it's the world of jazz a blues of on a state of relationships a values of everything the pacific lutheran university really stands for and i think that's why it's been a good marriage up to this point it's clear to me that the university is having some difficulties at least at the regents level in that at the presidential level and  to such an outrageous and really dire procedure eight million dollars is that really the problem because if it is i'm sure that we as a community can can come up with that solutions which will more than fill that need that's the first thing second of all i think people you in the regions really need to understand the damage that this action this potential choice that they're making will bring to the university itself it will last forever and for generations the university really needs to understand maybe they didn't think this through quite so clearly i could go on and on but i just want to say to reiterate how much of what we did doesn't bring us the world that they're the world to us you hanson live in ballard now used to be greener and when i was a greener i used to wake up in the morning and listen to joey cope on the morning and drink my coffee and i've been a member ever since and i'm going to miss  dreadfully and i don't know what to do i have no idea where to go to complain i don't know what to say who to say it to has or has peele you regions voted i heard no from a professor i don't know what do i do how do i help please help us help you thank combinations for the best both organizations for one hundred dollars a year i can put sirius on my radio in my car at my home and get all the n p r jazz and blues playlists that i won't that's not what i paid multiples of that support these communities if this was a transition joey cohen wanted to be involved in the front and with brenda mary erin and the entire professional staff involved with stable and isis with offers to make the programming switch to truly build local programming on all these a lot of else and it's not apparent what we have as a matter of stations and towers and that's a disservice to this intelligent committed community that's raised millions for the university for the station and for local interests and news and music thank you you both the president and vice president of pacific lutheran university have said selling keep eal you is not about the financial state of the university that it's in good shape yet if you look up the university's bond rating p l use finances look bleak and i read now that p l u is at risk of defaulting on the fifty five million dollar loan so what can you tell us about this this related to the sale that's really our question for peel you to answer so you would just have to direct that towards them my name is ginny employ a lock and i consider myself like a u a w refugee thank god met with a couple of producers a k o w and i tried to meet with the news director i've been a longtime supporter volunteered cheerleader for that station i loved it and then it betrayed me and my pleas fell on deaf ears  i feel totally betrayed the sum of the money that i poured into that station is being used to buy my new favorite station thank you and so i think i'm hoping that that this this room is going to build and that we build the groundswell that's necessary to save our station it belongs to us it's a public good it's a public treasure it may be that we have to go to the f c c we should go to every single level in this decision making process and let people know that we're not going to give this  hi my name is dorothy boss that or i've been a sustaining member of you for a few years and also worked in the office doing fund raising you know answering the calls years ago  i'm not going to repeat anything that's been said one thing that i noticed when i compare the programming to from between k p l u n k w besides all the local programming is i will miss my best best friend ever which is terry gross because they don't have fresh air on and i did not see it on the play on the schedule at all and i that would be devastating to me personally and so one thing that mention that i'm curious no way unless they maintain everything as it is with well i'm going to say that because that's not true i want the station to stay here it is part of my family these decisions behind closed doors and this happens and the school district operates on a very much the same kind of pattern that they make decisions and then they try to feed the public and that's disturbing to me on a personal note need good public education reporters like hal stokes and formally gabriel spitzer it means so much i'll just say the times ok every six months they have a new public education reporter and i got to try to help that person get up to speed kyle and i sat at a nearly five and a half six hour school board meeting the other night exhausting and he stayed there the whole time very carefully taking notes so i always say i want to keep the public  public education and i'd like to keep the public in public radio hold this my name's kurt milk and i know a lot of you people in this room personally i've been a supporter of k p l u for over twenty years they tell me and i was so angry the day i found out about this that i violated a longstanding rule about seeing my name in print and i volunteered to be quoted in the seattle times saying what i thought i was i had previously worked at the seattle p i for thirteen and a half years so i know what happens when the news sources last what really got me angry was the spokesperson for p l u attempting to turn this back on us by saying that this was our fault for not approaching the university years ago and asking that we buy them out nobody ever said anything and i think that's really what ticks me off about this that this was not done honorably the university so far as i know never indicated they were unhappy with the arrangement that there was any reason for us because i think we could have done it and i think we could still do it so i've just been thinking years ago in seattle there was a plan to tear down the pike place market people thought that it was said to be a losing battle but it wasn't they say there's nothing we can do about this that it's you know the letter of intent is signed i would hope somebody somewhere would find us a way to take this on or that the people you board or someone somewhere w no i know a lot of the people at p l u you are my friends and colleagues in ways in the past will be here for you thank you and thank you to this group i just want to speak out for jazz this is the only place you can get counseling northwest that i know of peggy my name's peggy jazz it is a unique and rich american art form this is art and we need to save it in the northwest and i think that i mean i've learned tales from listening to you for twenty years and new artists come up and i write it down and go buy the cd this is a way of improving in enriching our our community with an art form that is the root of america and it's worth saving you should sa my name is stephen wayne i moved to seattle in one nine hundred seventy five shortly thereafter heard a very faint signal with some great music on the end of it they were just starting a drive to get a bigger transmitter i think on the top of cougar somewhere on the  and since then it's been love at first sight i really am struck by the fact that a institution of higher learning is teaching these lessons around public trust teaching these lessons about public information teaching the lessons of higher learning accountability i don't see any of these factors present in the universities behavior to this point on this matter and i'd love to hear their defense doing open business and it just has the stink of the sonics about it i can't so seattle is a growing community we see the cranes everywhere those are two ears and every one of those boxes downtown there nuff community support individual wealth in this town to make sure that stays either the university of washington opens up a completely different branch they could do it they could they could wash and state could do it any way  resource can't be lost  there my name is jonathan richards representative of the blues foundation memphis tennessee is a board member and an active member here in the blues to beat any any blues fans in the house a lot lot has to be done here and it can't be solved in one meeting like this i understand blues jazz all the programming that keep tell us brought to this community is vital to keep up t gentleman up there to carry that message from this room and make it happen thank you my name's eric steiner i'm a volunteer with the washington blue society and i want to commend the council for their bold attempt at speaking truth to power i've been very fortunate to work with john kessler in two thousand and nine the watching blue society nominated mr we've received a number of awards but particularly proud of helping mr kessler my name is rock cush god i'd like to see you one seattle supersonics and remind people about the sale of a certain law school from tacoma to an organization in seattle and speak about losing another south sound asset but more importantly  think it's and we should also put fight pressure on the regents of the university because this money the eight million dollars sale where assets donated by the public in support of a specific thing and they ethically need to continue to use that money to support that thing that includes the money donated for every capital campaign the university needs to go to the going or get the approval for this sale or return the money and the money for the sale should be put in an down went to support the jazz programming that they said that they were going to use the sale for if the sale goes through thank you of university or what what  there's when yes when we have well you know see the reason i'm hesitating to answer that is because there's exceptions to rules and i just don't know all the details so i'm going to say it's best to address that with with helio ok so the border regions i tried to contact the office of the board of regents but to my surprise i found out that the board of regents everything runs to the president so the administration that they are supposed to be overseen they receive all that receives all their information through the president's office the president that's been here for years it has no it has no prior association with university to preserve but that's just something for us to recognise i mean when i was out approached about joining this council and serving as its chair was in the back of my mind that you know the station like this ought to have its own governing body and it's unfortunate that it does not and i think it's one of the reasons that we're here today my name is john walsh or i actually came all the way up here from tacoma i've been i've been listening to k hundred four and it is like most of the people here it is a part of my every day seven days a week it's just a huge thing it's something we pay for we support tremendously and i wrote a letter to  cree's the night that i found out about the sale of peel you and interestingly within five minutes he emailed me back i think it was on a friday or saturday night but it was all boilerplate we're not doing this for money it was it was just something that was scripted to kind of send people away and my my feeling about this whole thing at the level of both you and peel you is that this is been disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst this is what what cale k u o w would essentially do tick a p l u is to me just a smaller version of what clear channel has done to commercial radio they spread it out wider they dumb it down at any rate what i want to say i do have one quick question is it still possible that we can stop this because that's my goal and if that means we asked p l u to give us a year to find alternative funding or whatever that can we stop this and reverse it we ok so because peel you as a private institution it has no legal obligation to seek competing offers no obligation under law so i think the best we can do is to act individually in the council acting as as a body to appeal to the board regents and the president to reconsider that is the first step as i said there's only been a letter of intent signed the deal has not been finalized that will happen in the next month though so i encourage everyone to speak out in any way that you can to president price to the board of regents to your neighbors to get involved as well online if anyone's not seen the comments on the peel your website i mean it's amazing both the volume of them but the consistency of them in terms of content so that's something to do they are in very very much involved on the on the web doing those things so ok barring that there is a review period for the f c c to approve this transaction i'm getting educated myself on what the evaluation criteria are for that if we have to get there i'm sure the council will be engaged on that level as well if we get to that point thank you and lastly last night i called john  taj mahal and he did we cannot lose that my name is carol mackinnon and i agree that we need to focus on specific things that are either breaches of law contract standards or the f c c and so f with regard to the notice that was that was not given that the radio station was going to be discussed by the p l u board my understanding is that that is a contract requirement in the contract might be between this committee and the university but i'm not sure about that but it's something that i hope the committee will look into exactly where that requirement comes from and furthermore a board of directors of a college does not just take up something in vote on it it's brought to them they study it considerate usually there's a subcommittee of a board approved appointed to investigate so i think there may be will information that might be helpful if people could investigate that a little bit more and then it might be useful to look into whether there were any breaches of the capital campaign associated with raising the money to build the martin center and that building is now being left with the college of course the college could say well that's part of that why the price is you know what it is but if the university is complaining that they give that building for free to the radio station and therefore it's sort of a drain on their finances and they can better use it other ways you may be able to shoot some holes in that particular argument because that building was specifically paid for by the k p l u listeners  know i mean who knows about the i don't know anything about the capital campaigns associated with buying repeaters but i know paul's in the audience and i know he negotiated many of those deals so he's a resource to us i would hope and then with respect to the possibility of the community pursuing this and having a community on station i really would encourage serious consideration of that because if there are four hundred thousand listeners and everybody gave ten bucks that's four million if every listener gave one hundred dollars you'd have a pot big enough to get people use attention certainly my name is david marr when for many years i was a day sponsor to you o w and a big fan of the station it just seemed like it really began to deteriorate about five years ago right about the same time that i believe there was an article in the stranger revealing that they had over a million dollars in a reserve fund and they were just piling up more every six months with us and less fund drives and the constant noxious pandering for more money i became outraged at the idea of what was supposed to be a nonprofit public station piling more money than you need when it's a nonprofit so let's raise the money publicly and keep people keep you know you which we all love as the young people would say because kessler you my name is kathy cummings and i like you sit on as a volunteer on the community advisory board but if this time of k c ts i also serve on the national board of the association for public television stations the lobbying and communication arm for all of public television i rise to remind everybody that their first two types of licenses there's the community license and the university license this of course falls under the university license but they still have the same mission and the three tiered stool of public television's mission is education civic leadership and public safety we're watching things happen in our community with our public television and our public radio the voice is disappearing we need their voices every other television station it least in the puget sound i believe in washington at this point is corporate owned we need service we need to continue especially the public safety it's on the airwaves you know this is a conduit to all the people civic education like do we need that this in the news that's produced by these people is unbelievable and i'm really proud of the community that showed up here today in the middle of the day on a monday you know but i know i do hope that all our voices help you all and help you understand that we need this in our community all you guys obviously the community as we can feel it right now there's a lot of outrage and there's a lot of anger as well we're all feeling in this room and those folks couldn't be there because it's our job now to support you through turning that outrage an anger into some form of you know positive energy that we can do whatever you need to communicate to us what we need on behalf of the music community this is a huge huge blow it could be a huge blow to us you know with the real estate boom that's been going on in seattle the cost of living it's become very difficult for musicians to work and live in the city it's going very difficult for music venues are at risk you know we were almost there a minute ago but that's not what i'm talking about but the music venues are and are not continuing to open and expand and you know we talk about the fiber of the community you know all of us music fans in the various forms of music specifically for this room we're talking about jazz american music jazz and blues we go to your station and your station has been the station has tied our whole community together and it's just because of the because of the d j s is because if you're on air personalities and i'd not to put any one of your or any one of your deejays or staff in front of the other john kessler i mean i think that that's emotional and personal but the fact is that because he's won so many award just because you talk about community he's on the air he's connecting with his audience he's doing the most he can with what he's allowed to do on that station in the air but he's in the neighborhoods he's in the clubs he's supporting the music is talking to the his listeners and his fans in the venues and he's on a stage in the venue and he's playing music and he's pouring that music off the stage and then he's back in the studio to do it again all week long and that is one example of what makes keep your you so important to the community so we hope that we can all take our anger our rage in our frustration and turn into some sort of part of positive energy for you guys and i think we all want to thank you and wish you the best as you go through this because we couldn't for one minute imagine the emotion and the passion that you guys are feeling if we're feeling this on this side of the room so they as as i mentioned at the at the outset of the meeting we have some business conduct here i want to take three more comments please limit your comments to one minute i'm getting some e mails from people who apparently were not able to dial and i've got one here i'll summarize that person wrote and comments when we're when we're done with public comments and for all those members of the public who are on the phone as well we've gotten a lot of online comments all of those will be forwarded to us as a counsel and they will summer i witnessed eleven people be a score to darfur he had an empty now studio we do not have a production at all in our studio and these people had been to at the station doing productions for thirty eight thirty nine forty years and you walk into their space it was all in nice ok at the very same time that i had my first contact daughter's wedding we were connected then it's interesting though that i just graduate from p l u at the time and so i've always felt that when it comes to kid people you are part of my family i know nic i know different connections my niece was an intern there for years but now back to casey t s this is where i have to say what i have to say and that is that a lot of change everything's digital no education department o reach is limited to the major donors you really need to concentrate on this that this is your public organization you are involved with that do not be complacent because that's what we have had a lot of complacency i don't know anybody at the station in new york really very many anyway everything is digital so much as digital things like the golden apple award is now you'll be direct will be little spots not an evening dedicated to it so i probably now have just lost my job please don't say this but anyway i have let you know i'm retiring anyway i just think it's really important for you to know that there is a change in the air and bigger is better pres mission powers selling a spectrum i've heard a variety of different things and i really think that if you want something to happen your going to have to get behind it make a big huge noise and by the way john  hi my name is kate will i really just have a question and it goes to what she just said it feels like there's a lot of organizing to be done and my question is is the station in any way constrained on what you guys can say on the air about this deal and if so how can we go around  i'll speak to that because i don't want to make joey answer an uncomfortable question joey and his team are our employees of pacific lutheran university so they're in a tough spot here today fielding comments you know to a certain extent providing information but we all have to be aware of the limitations they have place brian as to this longtime p p o you listener i just want to mention if some of you have not yet seen cliff mouses blog today he's a very much a and you listen never a very persuasive reasons why the shouldn't go through as well as a lot of contact information about the people you board so check that out and secondly i mean you know if you alumni i think we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that it's you know you regents who are proving the sale of this too and we as i don't know i'm not i plan on getting in touch with them cliff has a bunch of e mails there for the president of the reasons we should ask them to consider the impact on the alumni sponsorship and donations to the university if gift if they go through with this as well so i just want to throw throw things out for your consideration and thank you so much for having this session the news director know you has the twelfth largest public radio audience in the country and it has grown tremendously over the years joey also had the foresight to establish an online all jazz station and jazz twenty four's audience is growing under joey's leadership we've increased live performances from our seattle studios bringing in more local international and national acts the videos of our studio sessions have also had more than six million views on k p l use you tube channel under joey's  leadership school of jazz has grown and is now nationally recognized as a premier music education outreach program are all blues program is thriving it's one prestigious awards and has a strong fan base and kay p l u news has become an award winning leader in the public radio system filing local and national stories that add to  civic conversation joey has made it possible to develop an air cape p l u weekly features such as food for thought going places weather with cliff mass and bird no and under his leadership this year we added an hour of the ritual content with our new show sound effect sound effect is an audio tour of the place we live inspired by the people we live with so on behalf of myself and the entire k p l u staff thank you joey for your tireless efforts to help all of us make this station something to be down proud of tell people as what aaron's created in our news room is a healthy environment because i think there's a lot of places where you can work and the environment isn't such but that's the nice thing i think aaron has done such a tremendous job also i just want to again recognize the entire capability staff because honestly the saddest thing for me in all this is seen the team not continue because they are an exceptional group of people thank  you unfortunately i am getting some word that a couple people i don't know how many on the council were not able to dial in they were able to speak to each other but not to us i've heard from one to two rows enough want to register state of the art studios unparalleled jazz library international listening audience influence beyond the pacific northwest independent news source value of translators and repeaters ask how is the price and buyer selected well i don't want to now move to the discussion piece and this is going to be a little awkward since again this was intended to be a council meeting and we usually speak to each other and but  lot of opinions been expressed today and again i in my mind at least very consistent with what i've heard from others and opinion shared by the council as i mentioned i have started on a letter i want to hear from council and will call the roll of of council members on a vote to send a letter to president price and the board of regents expressing consternation about this proposal and requesting reconsideration i'm in support of that and also would like to understand what point we weigh in with i am in support of the preparation of the letter it would also like to look at some of the other options that have been raised here today i'm a supporter of the letter and i would like to request that we send it simultaneously to the board of regents at university of washington i'm in support of the letter of course i hope we can have perhaps another time another meeting on the schedule to to organize our forces since we only have limited abilit let me speak to that i don't believe that's going to be possible we've got a november i'm sorry december eighteenth deadline for the transactions and it's really imperative that we get a letter out as soon as possible i'm in support of the letter and would like to know is not an employee council precludes any of us from speaking individually either verbally or in writing to whoever we want i to support the letter and have a big mouth i definitely support the letter  and i'm also interested in exploring other options i mean favorite the letters the first step i agree with the letter but i also agree with the letter and incidentally i was late and i would like to be recorded as opposition to the sale thank you thank you i support any and all letters social media change dot org etc just checking to see if there are any votes online i'm just wondering exactly what action our letter is going to be requesting and what form it will take and we're asking them to reconsider do we have information to know how specific that can be it seems to me if we are writing a letter wanting some action that it would behoove us to be as specific as possible are we asking perhaps for a meeting with this council and the board of regents are we asking just to ask to reconsider i think is too vague that's my opinion ok you know we need to recognize our limited authority as an advisory council ok i think expressing it won't just be a letter simply requesting reconsideration it will be a statement much of what we've heard in the room today about the reasons for concern about the council's consensus opinion about why this seems like a bad idea or why we believe or have concluded it's a bad idea and asking for reconsideration i don't think we have much grounds to ask for much more than that you know what we've that's what ultimately we are seeking is for them to think again about whether this serves the cape heal you listenership the regional public radio audience and public media generally that's what i want them to think about  i think another thing we should ask them is this does this really is this really in the best interest of pacific lutheran university and does it fulfill their vision there what what what they look at is their mission in the community to do this but quite frankly financially is it in their best interest the other thing i i mean i've been wondering you know you look at this and when this happened is is it a coincidence that it happened just after the fun drive home i mean is there something else i just we were just blindsided so bad by this and i like us to consider the letter in to be nice be positive everything with the in the best interest of pacific lutheran university but also when we take the step we should also consider what are the alternatives if there's a downside what what kind of organisation can we build up to support joey and the staff and an alternative for this when it happens and do we need to get legal  counsel we can go enjoy what we can ask for time i have no reason based on what i've heard so far to think that that would be taken seriously you know and one thing we need to consider is some finality here is in the interests of joey and his staff you know this is a very uncertain time for them so any way you want to speak to that i mean i don't have anything to add at that time i at this time i think the sooner everyone makes their opinions known the better there's been a lot of talk in the room about alternative buyers crowdsourcing thing it's been one of them and owning the station outright independently or looking for another university or another parent organization i don't know how that could be addressed in the letter but have the regents considered other buyers including independent ownership of the station and would that be perhaps  interest because that might be more money in it or i make my point i do as as i said before you know one thing we need to recognize as a private institution p l u has no obligation to seek out competing offers what i ask for what i'm suggesting that we ask for reconsideration it is reconsideration as in consider other alternatives right what those are we can live up to them i think it's a little beyond our role and even our basis of knowledge to understand which ones of those alternatives actually make sense for the university ok i want to take one more comment but please we do have i wonder if anybody's here from cave w or from any of the news media that's left here it seems to me that you're in a perfect position to ask them not to reconsider the reverse this decision that takes care joey stafford takes care of things i don't know how they came to it i worked for a lot of governors in my career and i can't imagine being blindsided like this in the public sector private sector they screw you over surprised and i'm let's say significantly disappointed that this is the way this business got conducted this is an awful kick in the teeth to a good staff to a great station and to a community that's really i think much richer for having had the diversity of two good radio stations that's all i've got to say time to man up and tell him i think the bottom just think about this on do it and then get  all right let me open it up to the council again any other comments concerns about the plan going forward i am echoing this last speaker i really feel like a request to reconsider is they get and and doesn't require any part not that we can force any action i know we don't have the authority and all that sort but if we don't make a forceful request it will be forceful i will be forceful all right so maybe we all need to just see a draft and then we can commit to a draft letters now you address that as well you know one thing i do not want to do is get all tied up in word smithing a letter we have a short period of time i've taken a lot of notes like i said i started in a letter already i want our authorized one person to write that letter it can be me i've started it or it can be somebody else but i don't want to circulate it and get thirty red lines back and have to wordsmith this going to take two weeks and a decision might be made in the meantime i any other comments or concert i just wanted to say that it's been great having everyone out here but if you care about this is much as we do right to everyone e mails and physical letters everyone in this room should be striving to somebody and letting them know it's great that you've come and said here