From the liberal New Republic to the conservative Wall Street Journal, I love reading. I have been a life-long subscriber to Newsweek, and have always--wherever I was living--looked forward to reading the local newspaper. As a moderate (fiscally conservative with moderate to liberal social issue views and an independent voting record), I find reading both enjoyable and educational. I am, therefore, troubled by my growing aversion to the locally published Community Alliance newspaper.
I have tried to cut the Community Alliance (which identifies itself as "The Voice of the Progressive Movement Since 1996") some slack. After all, the far-left position of this newspaper would find a more receptive audience in Santa Cruz; San Francisco; Boulder, CO; Madison, WI or similar bastions of liberal thought. Fresno is--no doubt about it--quite conservative. So I thought as I first started reading the Alliance some years back that it was healthy in a democracy to have a publication that takes a different approach to things happening in the community than, say, the main-line Fresno Bee.
Unfortunately, the Community Alliance is always against something. It is a newspaper with an axe to grind about just about everything. Rather than be for something, it chooses to criticize the community, particularly Fresno's elected officials. The most recent monthly publication, for example, tries to make the case that Fresno is on the verge of --horror of horrors--building a nuclear power plant. A meandering editorial worries about some chatter about a change in Fresno's name, criticizes Fresno's assault on the homeless, and expresses concern that the newly hired Independent Police Auditor is not cracking down on perceived widespread police brutality. Someone from out of town picking up the newspaper would conclude that Fresno must be the most God-awful place on the planet.
The Fresno City Council is a constant target of this newspaper. During the eight years I served as a council member, the only time I can remember the newspaper giving even grudging credit to the council was for its efforts to establish a community access channel for various public groups to use.
While Fresno still has the 'no' in its name and is not by any means a perfect community, I take strong issue with the Alliance's constant criticism, particularly of those city officials involved in the difficult task of providing decent housing for the homeless and the police-bashing. Few people take the newspaper seriously. It's sad. The Community Alliance could, with a less strident focus, be a force of constructive change.
Coming Soon...
1. The Fresno Philharmonic: We should be so fortunate.
2. College students, program reviews and jobs.
3. "Choice" for parents and students in our local schools.
4. "Auction" at Met. Taxpayers forgotten.
Comments are welcome. Click on "Comments" below or e-mail abriancalhoun@gmail.com
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5 comments:
Let's engage in some full disclosure here Mr. Calhoun: you've been very unhappy with the Community Alliance ever since one of the paper's columnists reported comments you made at a luncheon several years ago, such as, "no court in the world is going to stop us from kicking the homeless out of Fresno." Mike Rhodes said you angrily confronted him at the Labor Day breakfast that year, claiming you had been taken out of context and that you would never speak at another community organization event again.
Let's DO engage in some full disclosure, Mr. "Anonymous".
Mike Rhodes has an annoying habit of characterizing anybody who challenges his misdeeds as "angry". He will probably characterize this post as "angry".
No doubt Mr. Calhoun was taken out of context, given the lack of journalistic integrity demonstrated by the Community Alliance contributors.
I recently resigned from Peace Fresno, and a bogus, whitewashed reason was published in both the Community Alliance and on IndyBay despite the fact that the reporter had been in direct contact with me and had been given the full story in writing. I attempted to rebut this gross misinformation on IndyBay, and my posts were redacted- no doubt due to complaints from Rhodes and his cronies. Of course, my posts reflected poorly on Rhodes.
Rhodes sits on numerous local boards in a "gatekeeper" capacity. People are actually afraid to go up against him because of his predictable and devastating retaliations. One of my friends, a very well known and well respected activist, is being shunned and/or asked to step down from any group Rhodes is affiliated with, which as you know includes both the Community Alliance AND KFCF Radio. Since this person associates with someone Rhodes wants to silence, this person is being persecuted.
Rhodes SHOULD BE exposed for his bullying tactics of badjacketing and blackballing people who disagree with him. He is going further, he is blacklisting people who are friends and clients of those who disagree with him as well, which is just plainly bizarre. He is basically attempting to purge the voices and even the presence of people who disagree with him from the activist community.
This is not free speech, it is milieu control and spin doctoring. Rhodes' need to control the "voice of the Progressive Movement" accounts for some incredibly shoddy journalism.
If a person wants to get informed, they can do better than to pick up a non adjudicated vanity publication read mainly by it's own contributors (unless they have a parrot or gerbil whose cage could benefit).
This is the truth about my resignation from Peace Fresno that was not published on IndyBay in rebuttal to the reporter's whitewashed presentation, which also appeared in the Community Alliance. Perhaps Mr. Calhoun won't censor it.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/04/28/18646014.php
The Debate over Empire and the Feud It Caused
by Peace Fresno ex Board Member
Monday May 3rd, 2010 6:53 PM
I need to correct a misconception presented in the above article. I am one of the people who resigned from Peace Fresno that Catherine Campbell wrote about in her article. I should be heard because I was discussed in her article and she misrepresented my position.
Three of the most active, productive and professional members of the Peace Fresno Board (including a founding member- the TREASURER) resigned in protest over the issue of abusive and deceptive tactics and improprieties engaged in by the senior Peace Fresno officers- of which the Sunbird issue is an example. There are long standing systemic abuses of process and of good faith in the management at Peace Fresno that we have been noticing and attempting to correct, but find ourselves outnumbered and therefore ineffectual.
I am very glad that the author of this piece referred to the "vote of confidence" taken at the last Peace Fresno meeting. Three longstanding Board members who were actually privy to the inner workings voted with their feet. Another person, a young, competent, dedicated and productive intern whom I can document was abused by the President of Peace Fresno, will not be coming back either. Anybody who joins that organization or any of the organizations peopled by the Editor of the Community Alliance, the President of Peace Fresno, and the First Vice President of Peace Fresno will begin to see mismanagement and abuse, it's only a matter of time.
The deceptive presentation the Peace Fresno Board was given of the Sunbird Conservatives Conference is only one in a long stream of such abuses. When we realized that we had been misinformed, four members asked the President for a revote. Our President IGNORED these repeated requests while continuing to hard sell tickets throughout the community. Knowing that the Board was in fact misinformed, the sales of tickets should have halted, and a new vote should have been immediately taken based on correct assumptions by one and all members. Instead, the President refused to even answer any of our repeated communications and waited until the next Peace Fresno meeting weeks away to address the issue, all the while hawking the contested tickets. A President dealing in good faith would be appalled that the Board or Membership were misinformed, and would have called a special meeting so that we could all properly represent the membership of Peace Fresno. Instead, she got the ball in her hands and ran for the goalposts, flanked by the Editor of the Community Alliance and the First Vice President of Peace Fresno who is also on the Board of the Fresno Center for NonViolence and the Sales Rep for the Community Alliance. This triumvirate approached a number of other groups with the same lack of full disclosure.
So, the fact is that we did not disagree with the Sunbird Conference, we disagreed with the way it was marketed to our Board by our senior officers who had reason to believe that Peace Fresno Board and Membership would vote against ticket sales and sponsorship had they been fully informed. We also objected to the President and Vice President offering tickets for sale for $10 & $15 when Peace Fresno specifically voted to sell them for $10. This is another example in a long list of similar instances of the senior officers disregarding the will of the Board and Membership whilst they "do their own thing".
(continued)
The cultish "vote of confidence" sideshow cannot erase these kinds of abuses. It is tantamount to abusers and their enablers "circling the wagons" when anybody raises any kind of objection to their mismanagement. It is important for the readers to understand who all is present at these "vote of confidence" meetings. At this last "vote of confidence", most of those present were not privy to the issues at hand, most of those present had not come to meetings in the prior year, most of those present did NOT know anything about the members who resigned and why. They also did not know that the members who resigned represented the bulk of the volunteer workforce in regards to expenditures of time, money, effort, and effectiveness.
This is the second "vote of confidence" I have been privy to at Peace Fresno. The first involved an issue that we had with the Community Alliance shortchanging paid ad size. We were volunteering at that time, we were not on the Board, but we wrote to the Board about our ads being changed and shorted. I have saved all the correspondence and will publish it on http://www.ciafront.com in the upcoming weeks so you can see the abuse of authority for yourselves.
The Editor of the Community Alliance at first denied that any ad copy was shortchanged, then admitted that Peace Fresno's ads had been shortchanged but no others. Finally, when presented with incontrovertible evidence that shortchanging ad size was a constant longstanding and systemic problem at the Community Alliance, he did not thank us for pointing out this serious problem as he stated in a recent email distribution to his friends and clients. He responded by having a snit and refusing to take any ad copy directly from us (which he is also doing now). In reviewing the correspondence, it is clear that the Editor of the Community Alliance didn't see anything wrong with shortchanging paid ad size, saying something to the effect that "nobody complains when I make the ads BIGGER". Well, they actually do not like their ads to run larger either, especially if they get a phone call from the Sales Rep asking for more money for a bigger ad they did not order.
In any event, this occurred in May of 2009. The Community Alliance Editor would not accept our ad copy. Peace Fresno members (except the Vice President of Membership who was also the Sales Rep for the CA) wanted me to continue to prepare the ads, so the decision was that I would hand the ads to the Treasurer who would then hand the ads to the Editor. HOW BIZARRE IS THAT?
(continued)
Because I proved beyond any shadow of any doubt that the Community Alliance was in the LONGSTANDING HABIT of shortchanging ad size, the friends of the Editor had do do some kind of DAMAGE CONTROL. The same members who called for a "vote of confidence" at the last Peace Fresno meeting called for a "vote of confidence" at that time. As happened this time, a bunch of people who never came to meetings showed up to vote their confidence in the Editor of the Community Alliance. Nobody cared that volunteers were being bullied and marginalized because they expressed a legitimate concern regarding the way ads run in the Community Alliance. They cared that the Editor was unhappy because someone noticed that he was engaging in bad faith dealings with his clientele. Those who arrived to vote were not privy to the situation. There was an effective cover up of the situation, and an effective marginalizing of those who noticed and spoke up about a problem which had to be corrected.
It should also be noted under the heading of "CULTLIKE" that friends, clients and associates of the three Board members who resigned are ALSO being SHUNNED in the community, and frozen out of groups that the Editor of the Community Alliance, the President of Peace Fresno, and the First Vice President of Peace Fresno influence. The Editor of the Community Alliance who also sits on the Central Valley Progressive PAC Board blackballed our membership. He is refusing to take ad copy we prepare (for free) from our clients who save money by using our service. Friends of ours who sit on the same boards at the Editor of the Community Alliance are being targeted by bizarre mind games designed to cause them to step down. In other words, whatever his gripe is with us, he is spreading it around to innocent parties, and attempting to eliminate our voice from groups who could benefit from our inclusion.
This isn't the same as saying that the Fresno Area Activist Community is big enough for everyone to find a place. It is saying that there are a few influential individuals who are engaged in gatekeeping and deflections to draw attention away from their misdeeds. They will continue to engage in this destructive and divisive behaviour until they themselves are marginalized . In the meantime, I intend to document each and every misdeed that I have been privy to and report certain activities I have noticed to the proper authorities.
http://www.ciafront.com
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