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In two weeks Mt. Zion Baptist Church of Seattle will decide if embattled Senior Pastor Rev. Dr. Leslie David Braxton will be asked by the Church’s members to vacate the pulpit. With a church that is pretty evenly split, if one believes the recent Annual Business Meeting votes are any indication, with membership soundly rejecting the church leadership and Senior Pastor’s annual budget, only to have that budget resubmitted three weeks later pass with a very small margin of votes (that included the votes of paid staff members approving their own pay raises). As the vacate the pulpit reality and vote get nearer, the Senior Pastor in efforts to save his nearly two hundred thousand dollars annual compensation package from Mt. Zion has full court pressed ahead these past few weeks, with many high profile spin doctor tactics, including untrue by omission and mean spirited mass psychology via his sermons and threatening prayers. One of those untrue by omissions was in an 11-page booklet mailed to many Mt Zion members over the weekend pertaining to the elimination of Mt. Zion’s Prime-Time Broadcast from Washington State’s only Black-owned broadcasting company – Kris Bennett Broadcasting, Inc. (KBB, Inc.). This twenty-one (21) year business partnership, with the first 10 years FREE, began on one of our smallest frequencies (1000 watts), but our most highly rated community profit center, as a non-written gentlemen’s agreement between the then Senior Pastor (Rev. Dr. Samuel B. McKinney) and KBB, Inc. chairperson. The last 11 years were given to Mt. Zion at a huge discount, as they were only charged to broadcast on one station, yet Mt. Zion worship services were simulcast on all three KBB, Inc. radio stations (1420 Am KRIZ, 1560 AM KZIZ, & 1620 AM KYIZ). The latter two profit centers are our 5,000 watts non directional all day gospel format located in the Tacoma area and our 10,000 watts urban mainstream profit center located in the Renton/Seattle area. The total added value of commercial airtime for just ONE of our broadcast facilities was over $338,000 in savings to the church and played a major role in both alleged claims of increase membership and financial growth by church leadership. This fact was omitted in the booklet and laid the blame for taking the church off KBB, Inc. air waves on the station owner, which was not only untrue by omission but was indeed a LIE. It was pretty widely known through the local broadcast industry, as well as in the church’s trustee board, advisory council and the deacon board that the Senior Pastor stated he wanted to look at other broadcasting opportunities after a series of advertorials appeared in The Seattle Medium Newspaper from the “Concerned Members Of Mt. Zion.” According to our internal sources, the Senior Pastor instructed his leadership to shop for a new church broadcast home. This pastoral request took place long before KBB, Inc. requested a signed written agreement. The current chair of the deacon board, Joel Hobbs, in his pleas for KBB, Inc. to broadcast Mt. Zion’s Palm Sunday worship service, acknowledged the pastor’s new broadcast home request. The immediate past chair of the trustee board during the first few days of our discussion of the proposed agreement acknowledged it. In an earlier ‘holding Mt. Zion hostage’ e-mail to KBB, Inc. from another trustee board member – we are told the sister-in-law of the new trustee chair’s mother – implied it (by) via requesting the status of the search from the church’s business administrator of a new broadcast facility. Her e-mail to KBB, Inc. was cc’d heavily, apparently to the church’s leadership and spiritual leader- the Senior Pastor. So apparently everyone who needed to know knew about the pastor’s new broadcast home request and search but KBB, Inc. This desperate attempt even went as far as to inquire about the opportunity to broadcast on high school broadcasting stations. The search team, according to sources, reported back to church leadership that no avails for the live prime-time broadcast were available. The pastor entered the meeting and stated he thought that he had just possibly secured a 90-day month to month contract with the white conservative Edmond, WA. FCC licensed station. So he did apparently get involved with the White ownership but wouldn’t bother to either get involved with or negotiate with the Black ownership. Most of his huge comp package came from KBB, Inc.’s audience – THE BLACK COMMUNITY! Another omission of truth is the unsigned confidential standard industry-wide proposed broadcast agreement between Mt. Zion and KBB, Inc. Before sending and preparing this agreement, we asked the former chair of the trustee board, an attorney, if he could prepare a contract, however, before he could even possibly prepare an agreement he was replaced by Braxton supporter Robert Nellams. This all happened in less than a week (his replacing) after the immediate past chair of the trustee board assured me, and I agreed that we could work the agreement out. He did, however, have some concerns with some of the items in the industry-wide standard broadcast agreement, including the tapes and CD property rights of the church but he was willing to try to negotiate a good win-win contract that we both could live with. Since this was a live unedited primetime broadcast, unlike other church which have delayed broadcasts with submitted tapes and CDs, our main objective in using the industry-wide standard broadcasting agreement was to protect KBB, Inc. from any violation of industry music licensing requirements, FCC rules and to protect the integrity of our FCC licenses. Furthermore, KBB, Inc. certainly wanted to be held harmless in some of the, in our opinion, alleged problematic libel personal bully pulpit tactics the Senior Pastor was preaching and allowing from the church. Plus, we need to be in full FCC compliance regarding political candidates on those political Sunday live broadcasts orchestrated by a national lobbyist. They were becoming very troublesome based on the ‘Fairest Doctrine’.Proposed agreements are nothing unless they are signed. This proposed agreement was a first draft, never signed nor truly discussed or even negotiated with the or by the new church leadership, and therefore, not a final draft as the weekend booklet implied. From a business perspective, what is the purpose of sharing the non-negotiated, unsigned standard broadcast agreement with the church members by distributing it from the church office, unless it a is frivolous, diversionary tactic of mass psychology on church members designed to distract from the real issues at Mt. Zion. In the booklet to members from the church leadership, they alleged KBB, Inc. doubled the cost in the proposed broadcast agreement but they failed to mention even with the doubling of the cost, the church was still below the going market rates for a live prime-time broadcast heard over the air waves of any local broadcast station, including three Black-owned radio stations with coverage from nearly Vancouver to Vancouver plus live screening to approximately 1 million Internet visitors monthly. So, the Senior Pastor and his new leadership’s apparent selfishness really blew a tremendously great deal. Their inept handling of this simple business opportunity, sadly to say for Mt. Zion, backfired. It was indeed an economic windfall for KBB, Inc. by opening doors to other broadcast partners in the religious community that are honored with the blessed opportunities to expand their ministry. The church’s 11-page booklet stated that copies of our e-mails correspondents as well as the confidential, unsigned proposed standard broadcast agreement from KBB, Inc. to Mt. Zion are available at the church office. But the booklet never mentioned how much they (Mt. Zion) are paying the white conservative Christian station. Since the proposed standard broadcast agreement from KBB, Inc is available at the church office the big question everyone is asking is, why isn’t the current contract between Mt. Zion and the Edmond licensed white conservative Christian station available for members to review at the church office? Again, another classic case of untrue via omission. Lately coming from the Church there has been a lot of untruths, half truths, pointed blame toward other and lies, as the Senior Pastor often likes to preach. However, we believe the information about removing the live Prime-Time Worship Service of Mt. Zion Baptist Church of Seattle from KBB, Inc air waves are not only untrue but outrageous based on facts. Don’t take our word for it, unlike Mt. Zion Leadership and Senior Pastor tactics of half-truths and omissions we are including the e-mails in question in their entirety in this issue; please see page 4 for those e-mails and you be the judge. If the real truth be known, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure the apparent motivation factor behind the Senior Pastor’s action. Without fully realizing the invaluable service, strength and demand (Sundays ARE SOLD OUT) of our radio stations this was an apparent attempt of Mt. Zion leadership to unethically apply economic pressure tactics. Those tactics included the threat to remove the live Prime-Time broadcast if KBB, Inc would not reveal the names of the “Concerned Members of Mt. Zion,” and an attempt to keep the advertorials place by the “Concerned Members” out of The Seattle Medium newspaper.. He even got his member and Executive Minister of the Evergreen Association of the America Baptist Conferences, Marcia Patton, to apparently try, according to her e-mails to area ministers, bring legal pressure by using some misguided, ill-informed Black Caucus members of the Evergreen Association. Now most of those Black caucus preachers and friends that attended that infamous — anti- Black Press Willie lynch style attempted lynching — meeting at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Baptist Church in Renton live in spiritual uncertainty, disgrace and embarrassment to their church, their community and themselves. They are appear to be running like roaches with so called city-wide self-restoration prayer vigils and more than normal revival meetings looking for a place to hide, you don’t hear their names mentioned anymore with any degree of acceptance on most community issues. Although the weekend booklet denied that nearly a million dollars in reserve funds were on-hand (audited financial church statement we examined are pretty clear in those years with the stated reserve fund issue) when Braxton became Senior Pastor nearly five years ago they won’t say how much was in that fund. So as one can attest, certainly money was not a factor because the Senior Pastor and Church leadership boast and brag about the Church’s alleged un-audited $1.8 million in annual revenue. It (the proposed broadcast agreement with Mt. Zion) certainly wasn’t overpriced, because a smaller church than Mt. Zion immediately and gladly took the Prime-Time slot and signed a standard industry-wide broadcast agreement.