New Orleans        Michael Kieschnick is a dear friend and colleague of mine over what may now be close to forty years.  I first met him when we both served on the board of the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation under Drummond Pike.  Our friendship was forged forever during a board retreat.  I was skeptical of this business guy, who I didn’t know well.  A question was posed to the foundation board at that meeting, which essentially went like this:  as board members, if there was a real movement for change in America, would we spend every dime the foundation had to assure its success, or would we punt and mind the store?  People took various positions, but when it came to Michael, he was all in, as was I.  I was surprised and delighted.  From that moment on, Michael was a friend that I knew would be a comrade through thick and thin.

He was a founder and director of Working Assets, the unique telephone service bundler that used a significant part of its profits to distribute to social change groups across the spectrum.  From that position he was also a key supporter of voter registration, including ACORN and Project Vote’s efforts for many years and similar projects to advance democracy, whether helping to elect secretaries of state, or other areas he could uniquely impact.  More recently, he has been a market maker for cutting edge efforts to pair electoral efforts with the fight to address climate change at the local and state level, from rural electric cooperative boards to members of public service commissions and more.  Though he operates behind the scenes and is famously close to the vest, it’s clear that under his leadership of Working Assets, now called Credo, he was perhaps the only telephone company that resisted federal government demands to surrender users’ data.  Michael doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and, as you can see, he’s not easily bullied, especially when he thinks, I should say knows, he’s right.

All of which made reading the front page, large spread in the New York Times about Facebook/Meta’ Mark Zuckerberg and his wife’s efforts to turn an upscale, quiet neighborhood in Palo Alto, California into his own private Idaho.  First, he bought a house fourteen years ago, invited twenty or so neighbors over, and claimed he would be a good neighbor to them as well.  That was then, but this is now.  He bought a bunch of other abutting properties for millions, often paying double and triple their value.  Then, as his riches became obscene, he built this and that with almost constant construction.  Private security tried to muscle neighbors off the sidewalk.  Surveillance grew.  He tried to get permission to do some of his plans through the city authorities, but was turned down, and then proceeded to go forward anyway, just more slowly with one property at a time on separate permits in order to get his way.

Michael is a rock in his road.  Seems three of the Zuckerberg-Chan properties abut Michael and Fran’s house.  Representatives have approached him to sell, but he’s not interested in moving.  Zuckerberg put cameras in his garden that looked into Michael’s garden, and Michael threatened to erect cameras in his yard to look into Zuckerberg’s. They removed them.  Zuckerberg was running a private school on his property for his children and some others without permission, and Michael and the neighbors busted him on that as well.  Michael is quoted over and over in the article.

Zuckerberg has found someone in Michael who can’t be bought, won’t be intimidated, and, as I have said, won’t hesitate to go all in, when he knows he’s right.  If this were one of those metaphoric cage fights that Zuckerberg and Musk puffed up about last year, put all your bets on Michael.

I sent him a note after reading the article, welcoming him to the honored tradition of community organizing now that he was so obviously a colleague in fighting for justice in the neighborhoods as well.  I told him if they ever want to affiliate with ACORN, we’re ready to welcome them with open arms and help them poke him in the eye as well.