The community in and around community radio station KUSP-FM of Santa Cruz, California continues to debate its future. When last we visited this crisis KUSP management had posted a variety of possible new formats for the struggling signal, dubbed “Pine,” “Maple,” “Plum,” “Fig,” and “Walnut.” Some of these bucolic scenarios involve all news, or all music, or news from other sources besides NPR. They also juggle with possibly selling the operation’s license to reduce its debt. Now KUSP has proposed even more possibilities with cute tree names: “Elm,” “Spruce,” “Cedar,” and “Poplar” (they’re all outlined here).
One thing seems at least a bit more contested at this point: handing the whole shebang over to the Classical Public Radio Network, a group associated with classical station KDFC in San Francisco. “There are voices in the community strongly opposed” to moving in this direction, KUSP manager Terry Green recently acknowledged in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, “and we recognize that broaching the idea at all has hit a nerve.”
The station ran another public meeting on Monday night at the Loudon Nelson Community Center in Santa Cruz. “It is expected that a decision on a path forward will be made by the Board in early July, and a public announcement of the decision immediately thereafter,” the signal’s Participate page says. You can still weigh in on the various proposed scenarios at that site. There’s also the KUSP Forward group to join (if you like). More nervous news on this subject as we get it . . .
