The past few months have been an emotional roller coaster for fans of KMHD, Portland’s only jazz radio station. In January, the board of education at Mount Hood Community College (MHCC) voted to end its partnership with Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB)—which has operated the station from its Southwest Portland headquarters since 2009, though the school retains control of its broadcasting license—and return day-to-day operations to MHCC’s campus in Gresham. But last night, that motion was rescinded, and the board voted to renegotiate a five-year contract with OPB.
The evening began with impassioned testimonials from current and former KMHD employees and DJs, members of the Portland music community, and the station’s dedicated listeners, including a contractor named Tim Cook who “climbed out of a crawl space and drove 90 minutes” to advocate for KMHD, telling the board that for him and his family, “This station is medicine.”
Though most argued in favor of keeping KMHD at OPB, some of those who spoke said that the way it’s currently operated is not meeting the needs of MHCC students who would like to be involved with the station. That opinion was echoed by representatives from the school’s student government, who supported the idea of bringing KMHD back to MHCC’s campus and asked the board to “think of the students first.”
The only dissenting vote at tonight’s meeting came from board member and local jazz musician Kenney Polson, who explained that he’s “not a sore loser” and simply wants what’s best for the college.
MHCC board chair Diane McKeel said that the decision to rescind January’s motion and renegotiate a five-year contract with OPB was largely due to the unbearable financial strain moving KMHD would have on the school, especially since it would mean eliminating teaching faculty in order to hire DJs and a program director. Though McKeel emphasized that now is simply not the right time to bring the station back to the MHCC campus, it appears that, at least for the next five years, KMHD will live on at OPB.
Thank goodness they’re staying with OPB. I understand MHCC wanting to have better opportunities for their students to learn about the broadcasting business, on-air communications, producing, production, engineering and a slew of other things that go into making a world-class jazz station.
From what I’ve read, in the Mercury and reported elsewhere since this whole move back to MHCC campus process started, there have been only a small handful of students who interned since OPB took over daily operations. This I find disturbing for a number of reasons. First, it seems like there is little student interest in the station if in the years since OPB took over daily operations in 2009. Second, if there is interest, is the location of the studio on SW Macadams Avenue a hardship for students to get to? Given the multiple opportunities for transportation in the metro area, I find this to be a poor excuse. Third, if there is interest and transport options, then the only other explanation is OPB makes it nearly impossible through vetting or other obstacles which discourage students from interning at the station. To me, this seems the most logical explanation for poor student turnout at the station.