KPFK Listener Candidate: Steve Kaiser
Steve Kaiser, MBA CFP CPA is running for the KPFK LSB. I have been a long time listener of all the Pacifica stations, which I have, pre-set on my internet radio. I have been involved with alternative, authentic information since high school, and I pursued my understanding of the written word with degrees in English & Comparative Literature. Recently, I collaborated in the brief resurrection of the Los Angeles Free Press. I want to help bring in better programming, so our listener contributors feel like they are getting another point of view worth paying for. We need to get our community to stop on 90.7 again when they are shuffling through the competition of KPCC & KCRW or post midnight on KFI & KEIB. Let them dabble in their niche truths, but we are the icon and beacon of truth in a world sorrowfully devoid of it.
Lately, I have become concerned about the future viability of the whole organization. Although I honestly don’t know what the exact financial problems are, I have been told that there have been various expenses that have not been reported in the right periods and disputes about what is owed to who. There also have been different and somewhat incompatible accounting systems used, and that there has been constant turnover of the personnel that had been maintaining the financial data. Without pointing fingers and contributing to the disharmony, I believe it is time to clear up this whole financial quagmire without paying scarce funds to outside accountants. I have been a financial professional for over 40 years, and I believe I can lend a detached, analytical perspective to structuring internal controls & outside reporting. We need to produce the information that the outside accountants need to finish all the financial statements required by the state and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to hopefully re-establish that flow of grant money. I believe that our most viable path to financial health is by reclaiming the nearly 5,000 contributors that we have lost over the last few years. We need to contact them to find out what we’ve been doing wrong and how we can improve our service. These resales should be our easiest if we are sincere about healing our rifts.
On a personal level, I am a former auto-worker from Indiana and a member of the UAW as well as a Buddhist, an astrologer and a member of the Green Party for 25 years. So brothers and sisters, I hope you find me to be the kind of homey that you’d like to see on the LSB. I assure you that I would be a voice that has no time or energy for infighting, posturing or bickering. I am an outsider that isn’t a part of any faction with perhaps a Pollyanna perspective of how things can be improved. I do know that the 99 % are depending on us to help build the more liveable world we all need.