Letters to the editor

KCTS on the firing line

As a public trust, station should have been a better steward

Editor, The Times:

As a consultant to nonprofits, I am sad to see the KCTS situation ("Head of Seattle's public-TV outlet to step down amid devastating debt," Times front page, April 18). When auditors, consultants and staff are giving the board of directors any information of this magnitude and they do not respond, the responsibility for this situation lies with the board members. Legally, they are responsible since KCTS president Burnill "Burnie" Clark is an employee they hired, did not review well and failed to fire. Whether he was giving them full information or not, they still saw the bottom-line numbers on the financial statements telling them their manager wasn't managing well.

Morally, they have an obligation to the public, which places its trust most fully in the board as stewards of public funds. All boards are legally, financially and morally responsible. When the KCTS board did not immediately take charge, fully review Clark's work and respond accordingly, they gave him too much power and they failed the public. Culture is very hard to change once these practices become the norm.

I hope all board members reading your report will review their level of participation, accountability practices and remember that they also hold the public trust as well. How sad for all of us who love KCTS!
- Karen Bertroch, Seattle

Don't just sit there, ask

The news of KCTS' financial troubles is the third story I've read about a local institution lacking a strong board of directors. The Times' coverage of KCTS, ACT (A Contemporary Theatre) and the Seattle School Board all includes a reference that better oversight or action by their respective boards could have helped avoid substantial financial troubles.

I'm amazed that such high-profile organizations, with access to talented and experienced people to join the boards, are experiencing headline-making failures.

I served four years on the board of a small nonprofit Kirkland-based organization aimed at helping women overcome alcohol or drug dependency. During that time, the organization completed a multimillion-dollar capital campaign, moved into a new, wholly owned facility and built a reserve fund to ensure financial security for the organization. And even with those successes, the board agreed on a need to improve board development.

So what happened at KCTS, ACT and the Seattle School Board? I can't believe that smart people didn't have some inclination of what was taking place. If you sit on a board, ask questions, learn the details and take action.
- Cherylynne Crowther, Seattle

Trends worth watching

The head of our local public TV station is leaving because of his mismanagement, as is our superintendent of schools, and as did the head of our public energy utility (Gary Zarker of Seattle City Light). Before leaving, each of these people held their jobs long enough to cause great damage.

There could be a pattern here. Seattle could be one of the best places in the U.S. to hold important, high-paying jobs of trust while being incompetent.

This could also explain how after years of talk we get both Sound Transit and the monorail as high-priced solutions to a traffic problem that neither will even begin to solve, and how my taxes and electric bills go up at an alarming rate, while the quality of my children's public education goes down at an equally alarming rate.

It may be time to drop the Seattle "nice" and take a hard look at how things get done around here.
- Howard Rodkin, Seattle

In other news

Not 'the most trusted'?

"CNN executive defends decision to withhold information" (News, April 16), and Eason Jordan's brief account in the New York Times of his and CNN's decade of shame and subversion are chilling at several levels. The worst of which is not Saddam's wickedness, which we knew, but what it says of personal and institutional cowardice and greed residing in our own TV broadcast media.

Jordan's self-pity, explaining repeatedly how awful cooperating in evil and brutality made him feel, was beyond repugnant. CNN's literally Faustian "arrangement" was meticulously kept by this malign organization for years, presumably with CNN management complicit over this long period. Did it never occur to them to do the decent thing, consult with the State Department, make arrangements to abandon Saddam, and then denounce him to the world with their very loud voice?

This explains (former CNN reporter) Peter Arnett's refusal to be debriefed by the U.S. after the first Gulf War and his recent shilling for Saddam. They were (are?) consciously in league with the devil. All this, merely for commercial success, at the horrendous expense and suffering of the Iraqis, their employees, the rest of humanity and their own country.

Apologies and resignations are in order, but insufficient. Can they be stripped of their citizenship or their membership in the human race? I'm thankful that CNN has just declared itself a non-American company.
- Don Vandervelde, Gig Harbor

Lost treasure

Art of persuasion

I see from the letters in Friday's Times that the Bush-bashers are already trying to "liberalize" the Iraqi people ("Hammurabi's Lawless," April 18).

While destruction/looting of the ancient artifacts in the Iraq National Museum is certainly tragic, it seems like there could have been a word or two in at least one of the letters condemning the looters and destroyers, not just the U.S. military. I guess I wasn't in the Army long enough to be an expert in military tactics like the letter-writers apparently are.

Hopefully, Iraqis will recognize freedom comes with a price, and part of that price is taking responsibility for one's actions. Come to think of it, it would be nice if more Americans realized it.
- Gary McGavran, Bellevue

Provenance of blame

It's obvious the "Blame the U.S." crowd will seize every opportunity to undermine the efforts to bring freedom to Iraq. Now it is the looting of the Iraq Museum.

I have a question for the "Blame the U.S." crowd: Who had the keys to the vaults where the valuables were kept for safety? Here's a clue, it wasn't the U.S. The U.S. Marines did not steal the museum artifacts and they would have prevented the theft, if at all possible.

The FBI and other international groups are currently seeking to recover the items, as they would in any museum theft. Why not place the blame on the professional thieves who actually stole the items? Well, that would rob the anti-war crowd of another opportunity to blame the U.S.
- Michael Newman, Edmonds

Carved in stone

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and the U.S. military have been blamed for the looting and destruction of priceless and irreplaceable artifacts in Iraq. How unfair!

Every thinking person knows that it was totally the fault of Bill Clinton.
- Noel French, Mukilteo