In this show, engineer Sandy Stone and board chair Rachel Anne Goodman reminisce about the circuitous route that KSQD’s founders took in getting on the air.
Here is something I wrote up trying to capture a lot of the milestones.
Our story:
Once upon a time back in the 1970’s there was a visionary writer and entrepreneur named Lorenzo Milam who had some money and an audacious dream that if you gave regular people access to a radio microphone, they would make their community a better place to live, or in his words, “to walk their walk, and talk their talk and know that they and the rest of the world are not irrevocably dead.”
Among the many community stations he founded throughout the U.S. was KUSP in Santa Cruz, California, run by the ‘Pataphysical Broadcasting Foundation. At first it was in a tiny space and run on a shoestring with mostly volunteers and a skeleton crew. Then it grew bigger, got CPB funding, had a full staff, five translators, and reached four counties.
At first, the programming was eclectic beyond belief. Programmed by mostly volunteers, characters like Corky Walsh, The Hamster of Love, Vicky Bolam, Tim Eagan, Paul Hostetter, Don Mussell, Leigh Hill, Lance Linares, Nikki Silva and more,, the programs ranged from Tibetan nose flute to Indian ragas to modern classical to bluegrass and beyond. There were public auctions at the Octogon Museum and Cajun Chomp and Stomp concerts and remotes from Kuumbwa and the Catalyst, Monterey Jazz and Bach Festivals.
The spirit that imbued the station then was to play music that was unknown to the audience. Because it was the only game in town, it could be a trend setter. This went on for almost two decades. And then KUSP began running NPR programs, just All Things Considered and Morning Edition at first. Nobody else had done that. It was popular. NPR audiences began asking for more NPR shows. They would pay good money for them. Soon, that was the majority of programming on the station. Names like Terry Gross, Noah Adams, Susan Stamberg and Garrison Keillor became better known than local djs. Eventually, as the station leadership grew more money-focused, they relied more heavily on NPR, and most of the volunteers were “fired” in favor of paid announcers who management could depend on to read exactly what they were told, no more, no less. So much for talking the talk, eh, Lorenzo?
Then in the late nineties, KAZU in Pacific Grove, a local community radio station, went bankrupt, giving its license to CSUMB, who commenced to run all NPR, too. The format wars between KAZU and KUSP, and the loss of exclusivity in NPR branding, left KUSP bankrupt and deeply in debt to NPR. In a last ditch effort to save its debt-ridden organization, the station went all “Triple A” format, fired its manager Terry Green, and brought in consultant Lee Ferraro from Minneapolis who said publicly he disliked Santa Cruz. It’s no wonder. He was hired to fire the rest of the local voices and put in a kind of bland indie “Triple -A” pop music that was supposed to attract a new, younger audience. This did not work to save KUSP financially and he soon packed up and (no doubt relieved) high-tailed it back to the mid-west.
As KUSP was heading toward bankruptcy, a group calling itself “KUSP Forward” was formed to try to persuade its board of directors to downsize and go all-volunteer as a bail out plan. Hundreds showed up to a public board meeting at Loudon Nelson Center pleading with the board to change course. Their proposal was rejected and the station went bankrupt in 2016 under a debt load of $850,000. The last broadcast was in August of that year. Many tears were shed and friendships lost over its demise, which many said was preventable. Others disagreed. Either way, it was over.
Late in the day on Christmas eve, I went down to the station where there was a bankruptcy liquidation sale underway. A guy whose name I think was Sharky or something looked miserable trying to sell a bunch of used, dusty radio equipment and looked anxious to get home to his dinner.
It was a sad sight, all this dust and old pieces of silent equipment sitting in piles and photos of musicians long gone. I could have bought all the remaining equipment for a small fee, if that night I had been able to hire a semi-sized moving truck and rent a storage unit. Instead, my son, Adam and I put on our old clothes and with screw drivers unwired and carried to my car a few choice pieces, a control board, microphones, computers, and monitors, thinking they might come in handy someday.
A subgroup of KUSP Forward folks organized an effort to buy KUSP’s licenses in bankruptcy auction. Although we raised several hundred thousand dollars, we were outbid by Christian broadcasting giant, EMF. They even outbid KCRW in Santa Monica, who had pretty deep pockets. Final sale price for all licenses, $603,000. Not to be discouraged, we tried to find a license to buy, and lo and behold, EMF had a “spare” frequency that was now redundant at 90.7 FM. They wanted $265,000 for the license and the equipment to run it.
A steering committee of volunteers worked tirelessly to fundraise to buy 90.7’s license for a community radio station from EMF. The community came through, and a few larger donors came on board to support the purchase. They are I.M Anonymous, Rowland Rebele, and Shel Kaphan. Appleton Foundation provided a grant, and other individuals gave between $7,000 and $2,000, many more smaller amounts.
The vision at its inception (and today) was to create an inclusive, “many voices-one station” model that would represent the region positively and proudly uphold the banner of localism that made radio great in the first place. Whatever subcultures be they surf, deadhead, mariachi, skate punk, or culinary/wine folk, they would have space to “walk their walk, and talk their talk.”
In December of 2017, Natural Bridges Media was created, a nonprofit chartered in Santa Cruz, California to operate a community radio station. The initial board was Ned Hearn, a local copyright attorney, Mathilde Rand, local media producer and retired school principal, Jean Kratzer, a retired UN interpreter, Rachel Anne Goodman, Radio Producer/Journalism Instructor, and Linda Burman-Hall, emeritus professor of music at UC Santa Cruz. Later, Omar Guzman, a student at San Jose State University in broadcasting, and Sandy Stone, a recording engineer, were added to the board.
Once the purchase agreement was finalized with EMF, more fundraising ensued until we reached our goal of $265,000. After holding a poll for the call-letters, the clear winner was KSQD! K-Squid. We then applied to the F.C.C. for and got our new call letters. How perfect for a seaside town.
Early events before going on air were Salsa dances, Scottish music concerts and singer songwriter shows, and parties to raise funds and used email and crowdfunding/social media to reach out to folks who supported community radio. The agreement for the sale of the 90.7 FM license was forged contingent on securing a long-term lease with UCSC to use their tower space for our antenna (which EMF had already been doing). As we awaited this approval, we engaged the design services of contractors and architects Tim Shea and David Rhodes respectively, who helped us figure out how to get the best use of the small space we intended to lease. The space for the studio is at 399 Encinal, in a building owned by the County Office of Education.
Sometimes it seemed like at every turn, some unexpected obstacle would rear its ugly head. Was it another condition we had to fulfill to move on to the next step, or another glitch in a contract or one of our volunteers getting sick? Or was it the guy who ended up buying KUSP’s equipment for a song trying to sell it back to us for five times what he paid for it?
Sometimes it felt like one of those fairy tales where the king keeps asking the innocent suitor to go back and get ten more jewels, fight ten more dragons, or find a secret potion to win the prize. Maybe that’s how all such ventures go, but it seemed like a video game with 100 bosses to beat, each one more gnarly than the next. Each time we’d come up with what we thought were the appropriate items, we would find out ten more were needed. But we pressed on.
Other times, a phone call would come in, seemingly randomly, offering help with funds, or equipment or expertise. So many gifts flowing in helped offset the feeling of uphill hiking.
While we may have lacked access to huge amounts of capital, we had perseverance, friends, and support of our many volunteers who kept offering help at the right moments, whether it was someone they knew who knew someone, or help with legal issues. You can’t imagine how complex a project like this can be, both legally and technically. It truly takes a village to create community radio. The UCSC tower lease approval took several months, and finally was approved on August 15, 2018. With conditions….that we provide insurance of a certain amount and secure a data connection, and oh, yes, provide the entire year’s lease amount ($18,000) up front. Another boulder in the road. Gratefully, EMF helped us by financing the first year and letting us pay them off monthly.
Rather than stop working while we awaited our tower lease approval, we sent out a call for program proposals. A program committee of 7 was empaneled by the board to review what turned out to be 127 program ideas that came in during the first round of proposals. Susan Freeman was on board as the committee chair, helping set criteria for decisions and codes of conduct in meetings, including confidentiality, and giving weight to certain attributes, such as experience, adherence to the mission, and potential for community engagement,etc. Sifting through the dozens of proposals and communicating with over 100 people became a gargantuan task, but an exciting one as ideas began to take shape.
This is where the vision began to be realized. We then went back to those applicants who had experience, or a great idea, and we asked them for audio demo recordings. Then we listened to those, with great interest. Some were brilliant. We took a chance on “The Dream Journal” because it felt so Santa Cruz and was incredibly well-done. Heck, we even programmed a dog-training show!
As we narrowed down the program proposals and began talking with programmers, we started to plug in shows to timeslots, keeping in mind which would do the best in which time slots, and also reviewing some programs from elsewhere that fill a need, such as Thom Hartmann and Amy Goodman and Krista Tippett and Laura Flanders. We took a leap of faith in programming Thom Hartmann, as some felt he was too strident, but it has caught on and now has a loyal following, plus it’s exclusive to KSQD in our region. But the majority of the ensuing schedule was live and local! Some amazing people came out of the woodwork. Wallace Baine, the arts writer for the Sentinel. Dr. Dawn Motyka, host of “Ask Dr. Dawn”, Jimmie Grimes, who had a show on KVMR for 12 years, and on and on.
We wanted KSQD to be as creative, whacky, fun, and steeped in local color as our Santa Cruz is. While somewhat menacing in popular culture, squids are peaceful creatures who are both colorful and mysterious. And they only use ink when threatened. There was some debate about whether we should be a Santa Cruz-centric station and export that everywhere, or be a regional station and try embracing all that is central coast. The discussion continues, now that we reach much of Monterey County as well as a good bit of Santa Cruz County.
In December 2018 we got the green light from UCSC to rent their tower space, after much wrangling. Then it was hurry up and build the walls (thank you to donors) and paint (thank you to volunteers), and begin putting in the equipment (thank you Sandy Stone) we had bought (back) from Chris Ponsano who bought it from the bankruptcy auction. Sandy Stone did the heavy lifting (literally) with help from many other volunteers.
The ribbon-cutting was a historic moment. Donors, volunteers, and state dignitaries (Mark Stone, Michael Watkins) witnessed the ceremonial cutting of the ribbon and the flipping of the switch by Sandy Stone, and voila, what was once Christian pop music was replaced by KSQD’s Louise Salazar and her funky soul mix. KSQD was officially on the airwaves! Somehow that magic never ceases to give us goosebumps.
Here’s what I wrote the day we went on the air:
February 16, 2019. KSQD has been broadcasting for 16 hours without a hitch. We’re streaming live on the web. Life is good. Still some bugs to work out, but we’ll see where this goes…
First year:
Cons: P G and E outages, working out the bugs,
Pros: adding new shows like Family Sparks, Billie Harris, Thom Hartmann, etc
1st birthday party drew 300 people and we had hula dancers led by Lorraine Kinnamon’s crew
Second Year:
Cons: CZU Fire,
Pros: we coordinated and reported throughout the crisis and afterward, learned a lot about Calfire breifings.
Third year:
Cons: Covid, say no more,
Pros: we stayed on the air 24/7. Did a lot of disinfecting, we didn’t lose any of our volunteers, but had some close calls
Fourth year: Flooded studio! plus new frequencies!
Pros: Big capital campaign to expand our listening area, ribbon cutting to throw the switch
Fifth year:
Squid Fest West sells out, Monterey Jazz Fest and West End Celebrations,
Sixth year?
Another successful Squid Fest West…
Hmmm…where will we go from here? Workshops, more input and programs from our greater listening area, your ideas? Cakes by Freedom Bakery
That’s enough virtual and squid ink for now.
