the seizure of $305,000 from KPFA

How the seizure of a radio station in New York led to the seizure of $305,000 from KPFA


by Daniel Borgström
December 17, 2022


A few days ago federal marshals seized $305,000 from KPFA, a progressive radio station in the San Francisco Bay Area.

A court awarded this money to John Vernile, a former Executive Director (ED) of the Pacifica, the parent organization of KPFA and four other sister stations, along with over 200 affiliate stations. Although Vernile held that position for only a few months, he took part in a bizarre incident for which he was fired and became the object of unkind words. So he sued Pacifica for "defamation" of his character; an arbitrator and then a court ruled that he was legally fired for his extreme actions, but in favor of his defamation suit.

That incident happened three years ago. In the morning of October 7, 2019, John Vernile and his team -- which included two rent-a-cops -- raided the studio of WBAI 99.5 FM in New York. Vernile's people evicted the staff, changed the locks, shut down local programming, and turned WBAI into a repeater station.

"BAI," as it's affectionately called by its staff and listeners, is one of the five Pacifica sister-stations. Pacifica is a non-commercial listener-sponsored network where stations supposedly enjoy a certain amount of independence and democratic governance -- in theory at least. Staff and listeners occasionally demand to have a say in how their station is run. But John Vernile seems to have been remarkably unaware of Pacifica's traditions. The result was instant outrage. People at WBAI united in opposition to Vernile. Even feuding factions and longtime enemies who hadn't spoken to each other for years, suddenly found themselves embracing each other to fight a common enemy.

And it wasn't just the staff and listeners of BAI. New Yorkers who were by no means leftwing or related to WBAI saw the move as an intrusion into the city's cultural life. Even the city's mayor denounced it, and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams led a rally in support of the radio station.

An op-ed in the Amsterdam News read: "If it smells like a coup, walks like a coup, and looks like a coup . . . it's a coup!" Staff and listeners at BAI called Vernile a "coupster." Perhaps a lot of people saw it that way, but U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles recently ruled that as "defamation," even though he acknowledged that Vernile was not wrongfully terminated.

There is a saying that victory has a thousand fathers, but fiasco is an orphan. And so it was in this case. Nobody seems to have claimed credit for the idea. Vernile reportedly said he traveled around the country, consulting board members at several of Pacifica's stations. However, it appears that he only spoke with people who agreed with the plan. He did not speak with any of the Rescue Pacifica group here at KPFA, and he reportedly didn't speak with the folks at BAI either.

Was he a bullheaded guy who didn't listen to other opinions? Or was he just a puppet of his faction? I don't know. I never met John Vernile and don't have a first-hand, face to face impression of him. But I would say that his raid on BAI is a classic example of what can happen when only one side gets listened to.

Most of Vernile's team and backers were at KPFA in California. KPFA's power elite supported the takeover of WBAI. KPFA's then general manager Quincy McCoy became Consulting Programmer of a new entity called "Pacifica Across America." That turned out to be a fancy way of saying that Quincy was running WBAI as a relay station -- though not with KPFA's current line-up. He used old stale stuff. Later, when John Vernile needed funds to pay the lawyers that were defending him, Quincy McCoy sent him $80,000 of KPFA's money. The KPFA gatekeepers have claimed that Quincy was required to send that money. Maybe so, but didn't report the expense.

KPFA's LSB (Local Station Board) majority faction who speak for the gatekeepers at KPFA defended Vernile. They're the "SaveKPFA" group, which now goes by several names: "NewDay," the "KPFA Protectors," and "Safety Net," among others.

Of course not everyone at KPFA went along with that. And our affinity group, "Rescue Pacifica," supported the people at WBAI, as did many at other Pacifica stations.

Each of the five Pacifica stations has its own Local Station Board (LSB), and above these five local boards is the National Board, the PNB. A majority of the PNB voted to return WBAI to its own staff, but Vernile and his faction were reluctant to comply, so it was necessary to go through court proceedings and finally get a court order. The takeover lasted a month; then the New Yorkers got their station back, and John Vernile was fired.

The announced purpose of the takeover was to save money. WBAI was losing more money than Pacifica could afford, so Vernile and his team decided that Pacifica could save money by eliminating the managers and staff of WBAI and making it a relay station. The problem with that logic was that even running it as a relay station cost money. A major long standing expense was the antenna. Unlike KPFA which owns its own antenna, WBAI has to rent one, and it was through no fault of WBAI that some very unwise people running Pacifica two decades ago signed an incredibly bad and costly deal to rent an antenna for WBAI. So during the takeover the antenna costs continued. The difference being that the station's staff were no longer there to hold fund drives and raise money.

An email from Ken Gale on the day of the takeover, Oct 8, 2019, said: "Pacifica has taken down all WBAI archives. This seems to be an act of hostility, not a cost-saving measure. They also timed their move for the second week of a fund drive that was going well, replacing programs that were raising money with California programs that do not."

Being new to Pacifica, John Vernile may not have thought that through. But his NewDay/Protectors/SafetyNet team were long-time KPFA and Pacifica people who should've known.

So the idea of turning WBAI into a relay station to save money doesn't seem very logical; some observers have suggested that there were other motives, that Vernile's crew simply wanted to trash WBAI and get rid of it, maybe sell it. Interestingly, this year the same people (NewDay/Protectors/Safety Net) petitioned the FCC (Federal Communication Commission) to deny renewal of WBAI's broadcast license. Not only that, but their majority faction at KPFA (on May 21, 2022) passed a resolution in support of the petitioners requesting the denial of the license renewal.

Is there more? Yes, there certainly is. On December 8, 2020, members of that same majority faction (NewDay et al) petitioned a court in Los Angeles to put Pacifica into receivership -- bankruptcy. Had the court approved that request, the entire network, including KPFA, would've gone into the hands of a corporate lawyer and who knows where from there? Fortunately, we do sometimes get justice in the court system, and that was one of those good days. But think of it: although the recent loss of $305,000 is certainly a disaster, the loss of the whole the network into receivership would've been far worse.

Considering that there are no other progressive networks in the US beside Pacifica, a loss of WBAI in New York, a major metropolitan media "market", would be an irreplaceable loss.

NewDay's lawyer for the receivership petition (Dec 2020) was Attorney Stephen Jaffe. And by some coincidence, Stephen Jaffe is also the attorney for John Vernile in his "defamation" suit. A coincidence? Some questions should be asked.

Three of the witnesses who testified in support of Vernile's defamation claim were NewDay people from KPFA.

Pacifica's attorney, Arthur Schwartz, is appealing the $305,000 seizure. But strangely, the chair and vice chair of KPFA's LSB, Christina Huggins and Fred Dodsworth, have demanded that Schwartz abandon the appeal. Huggins is one of the petitioners who asked a Los Angeles court to put Pacifica into receivership in 2020.

The seizure of the money is being reported on KPFA's airwaves, and it should be. But like other news, it needs to be covered accurately. Unfortunately, some programmers are blaming Pacifica, telling us that's where the problem is. In a way, that's true. But it misses the fact that people from KPFA's inner circle gatekeeper group -- the ones associated with SaveKPFA/NewDay/theProtectors/SafetyNet -- are the very ones who teamed up with John Vernile and promoted the events which led to this lawsuit. Although John Vernile was the face of the takeover at WBAI, it was the NewDay people who did the leg work. They have considerable influence on events at Pacifica.

Attorney Schwartz knows this appeal will be a steep hill to climb; he said so himself. But if this ruling stands, Pacifica could be hit with endless numbers of lawsuits. Every manager that KPFA ever had could probably make a case -- rightly or wrongly -- that he or she has been a victim of "defamation." At the same time, in any democratically run society or radio station there has to be transparency. Lawsuits and even just the threat of lawsuits can put an end to transparency, and the end of democracy at Pacifica.

If we lose this case, it could have a major negative impact on the future of our First Amendment rights -- which seem to be under constant attack these days.



DANIEL BORGSTRÖM
December 17, 2022

Peter Franck's Onion Paper

The Onion Paper
Pacifica Network History, 1999
by Peter Franck




Peter Franck did a regular commentary on legal issues on KPFA during the 1960s. He was a member of the KPFA Board, starting in 1973, a member of the Pacifica Board from 1975 to 1984, and President of Pacifica Foundation from 1980 to 1984. He continues to be involved in ongoing discussions. His website is culturelaw.com

This a paper by Peter Franck presented at a forum on Pacifica issues at "The Onion" in Los Angeles in 1999


PETER FRANCK:

“Radio should be converted from a Distribution System to a Communication System. Radio could be the most wonderful Public Communication System imaginable. A gigantic system of channels, could be, that is if it were capable not only of transmitting but of receiving; of making the listener not only hear but also speak, not of isolating him [I should add: or her] but of connecting them.” Bertold Brecht in 1931. That's a kind of vision that I think we should be fighting for and re-dedicating Pacifica to.

I came onto the KPFA Local Advisory Board in 1973, served on the Pacifica Board, starting about 1975 and was President of the Foundation for four years, early in the 1980's.

How many of you know what microradio is? A lot of us have been involved in the fight for Micro Radio, it's very low power radio, it's cheap, you can get it on the air for a couple of hundred dollars. The FCC is seriously considering legalizing it . There's a few more day's left to file your comments to the FCC, I'll tell you how to do that later in the day. We're not going to lose Pacifica, but even if we did, we will have 10,000 small KPFK's around the country with Micro Radio .

Nine or ten years ago when the microradio Movement was starting, a few of us in the Bay Area attended a workshop organized by Paper Tiger television, where a Professor, from the University of Kyoto, showed us how to assemble a microradio Transmitter with $15.00 worth of Radio Shack parts. As he did this he was telling how they did this in Japan and in 45 minutes he was on the air. We asked him how powerful the folks in Japan thought microradio should be, what the range should be. And he said it shouldn't be any greater then the distance somebody could bicycle to the studio to participate in the conversation. I think that's the spirit that we have to get back to. At the same time there's a challenge to integrate that vision with the countries’ need for a powerful, progressive voice on the air.

For awhile in the 1970s the Advisory Board had been very busy people; Ron Dellums, a congressperson from the bay area (for so many years) was on that. At one of those meetings Dellums said to us; "Look, you guys have got to decide whether you want to be the newsletter of the Left or the newspaper of the Left." Whether you want to be a house organ or a means of reaching out. And I think that's a serious consideration. Marc Cooper who uses that line sort of got it from me and since I'm a Copyright lawyer I may go after him for copyright infringement. I'll just say, as an aside, don't listen to what the folks apologizing for Pacifica, or folks at the head of Pacifica are saying, watch what they are doing.

In the summer of 1960, I sat on the sidewalk here in Los Angeles in front of the Democratic Party’s 1960 Convention where John F. Kennedy was being nominated, as part of a Civil Rights demonstration against the party. Next to me were Marion Berry (who was much thinner than he is now) who was then the head of the Student Non-Violent Coordination Committee, the most militant part of the Civil Rights Movement, Tom Hayden (who was also thinner than he is now. Of course I haven't changed), and others from the student movement. We went from there, that night, to hear Martin Luther King speak at the Shrine Auditorium. This was the only time I ever heard Martin Luther King speak. Martin Luther King spoke to everybody in that audience. He spoke to the Ph.Ds. He spoke to the sharecroppers. He spoke to the students. He spoke to the activists. He knew how to get his message over to everybody who needed to hear it, and that is what Pacifica has to aspire to. Now we're not all Martin Luther Kings, and we can't do that all the time, but as I say, I believe that's what we really have to aspire to, and that takes a dedication and a seriousness and a commitment to the Vision and the Mission; which I think is being fretted away in terms of the current leadership.

To highlight the degree of change: 20 years ago, the manager of KPFK (Mark Schubb's predecessor), Will Lewis, went to jail rather than turn over to the Los Angeles Police, the communiqués that the station had gotten from the Symbionese Liberation Army, the people who had kidnapped Parry Hearst. We felt very strongly then that Pacifica, as a free speech news organization had no business being part of a chain of evidence to the Police. Our job was to get the word out, the information out, the Police’s job was to do their Police thing and those were entirely separate.

Fast forward 20 years to today [1999] when the leadership of Pacifica turns over to the Police all the communications, emails and letters they have gotten protesting the current policy. Now, what a difference, twenty years makes. How did we get here?

Lew Hill was a World War II pacifist, a Consciousness Objector (CO). He went to CO camps, believed in peace and non-violence. He was a Journalist in Washington DC, right after the war, heard Churchill's, "Iron Curtain" speech, saw the gathering of cold war storm clouds, was very worried about the threat to peace that that was. He was not allowed, by the radio station, he was a reporter for, to talk about it because they were afraid of offending the sponsors, the advertisers. So he quit and came out to Berkeley and found some kindred souls and he decided, he realized, that the only way you could have a station dedicated to Peace and Justice and Free Speech was if the only sponsors were the listeners. Hence: Listener-Sponsored Radio.

Now a very interesting litmus paper test on where people are coming from is when they talk about the station. Is it listener-sponsored or is it listener-supported? There's been a drift, a strong one to “listener supported”. Frankly, the only time now, even on KPFA that the term is mostly listeners-sponsored is when they're Pitching. Listener-supported is a different thing from listener-sponsored a different kind of relationship. Sponsors call the shots. Supporters are passive.

If you know you're going to start a grocery store, unless you're going to own it personally as a sole proprietorship, you have to have an entity. So if you're going to start a grocery store around here you might have the name Northgate Groceries Inc. In the 50's, KPFA, had to have a legal entity holding KPFA and that was the Pacifica Foundation. A California Non-Profit Corporation set up at the beginning.

Folks down here in Los Angeles, led by the late Lloyd Smith and others around the ACLU, in the 50's, were very concerned about the fact that you couldn't say much about McCarthyism and the Red-Scare that was going around at that time. They felt correctly and knew that Los Angeles needed a listener-sponsored station; raised the money, formed it and approached Pacifica and said, look, we'd like to link up with you and be part of you, and they did and that's how we got KPFK.

Louis Schwitzer, a New York millionaire who had started a fine music station (mostly as a hobby) got tired of it. One day he picked up the phone and called up Russell Jorgenson, then president of the Pacifica Foundation and manager of KPFA and said, "Would you like a radio station in New York?" Well it took him quite a while to convince Jorgenson that this just wasn't a hoax call. When he found out it was for real, he picked himself up from the floor and WBAI became part of Pacifica. I was in law school in New York at the time, and heard Malcolm X and so on, it was a wonderful addition to New York.

Then people concerned with the Civil Rights Movement started KPFT in Houston. It was bombed off the air twice by the Klan. And it has come out since then that the FBI was very much involved in that bombing. Not in solving it, but doing it.

When it was just KPFA and KPFK, the Board of Directors of Pacifica Foundation, a single group, could meet. California is not that big. After WBAI came along it became unwieldy, the members of that Board felt they couldn't stay in touch enough with the sense and pulse of the community so that's when they set up Advisory Boards.

The Advisory Boards then selected the members of the Pacifica Board. They decided that it was important to have a station in the Nation's Capitol and applied for a License, WPFW. There was an eight-year fight to get that License and finally it came on. Now both KPFT and WBAI broadcast mostly music. What's important about this is, what had grown up, what had been created by these people, a lot of hard work was: Listener-Sponsored Radio.

Now this Country one doesn't have to believe in a conspiracy theory: people who meet in the same room and decide everything. But there is an elite. There are people who have enormous amounts of power, they know each other and they are on interconnecting Boards and clubs. In those circles the big Foundations do a lot of the planning.

The Carnegie Foundation commissioned a study on broadcasting and the Carnegie Commission came up with a proposal that there should be Public Broadcasting. If you read the "Carnegie Commission Report" carefully, what it really says is that, the people in this room, the upper classes, the intelligentsia, the activists, aren't listening to the mass media, aren't watching television, aren't listening to popular radio. We need, they said, a way of reaching them with a message of the wholeness of the United States, and how good things are. We need a channel for to the elite, to the educated classes, to the opinion leaders. That is why the Carnegie Commission recommended and why Congress did set up Public Broadcasting. Public Broadcasting originated as a very different animal, for very different kinds of purposes. In the middle there came Community radio, smaller stations, more or less modeled on Pacifica.

Since that time, there's been a pull, and I think its been going on for almost 20 years. There's been a sucking sound from Washington; sucking listener-sponsored radio into the world of public radio. But Public Radio is really Government radio. That’s were they money comes from, that’s who runs it.

Robert Coonrod, who precipitated this crisis, since 1967, made his career running the propaganda system for the US Government overseas. Running a system whereby the US Government puts out its views and its ideas to the people of the world, Radio Free Europe, Voice of America, Radio Marti and so on. The new President of National Public radio has exactly the same background. What's going on here? People who were in charge of sending U.S. Government propaganda to the peoples of the world are put in charge of what's called Public radio, and are using those same skills to send their message, the Government's message, to the people of this Country. Pacifica is a giant exception to this.

When the United States wants to subjugate Yugoslavia, what does it do? One of the first targets it bombs is the radio and television stations. Now I believe that what's going on, led by people and money at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a bombing of listener-sponsored radio, the bombing of the American public, trying to mute the independence and the message of listener-sponsored radio.

Let me shift slightly to the dynamics within Pacifica, which are important. Things have got to change. Its not the case that everything was honky-dory and perfect in the last period of years, or ever. Pacifica has been very important and very good but there are some serious problems with its structure. For most of Pacifica's existence, until about the last ten years, paid staff was really dominate, staff really ran things and mostly made the decisions, and there was a great deal of good to that but there were also some problems. People tended to hang onto their programs, there tended to be a tacit agreement among staff: “I don't question your program, you don't question my program.” People who started out having a lot to say maybe ran out of things to say; and maybe there should have been some rotation. There was no mechanism for doing that because, as I use to say, the managers really had very little authority, they floated on a sea of volunteerism where they couldn't do a whole lot. That did lead to some ossification.

Then a shift started to happen under Reagan era deregulation. Non-commercial stations were allowed for the first time to rent out to commercial outfits what's called their sidebands. Each transmitter, like KPFK, has two other signals it can send out which are good for sending out data, to hand held stock quotation things, reading for the blind, others kinds of information, specialized information services. These are very valuable and the administration of them is a bit complicated. So Pacifica, as a national entity, took on the job of making these deals. Renting out the ten sidebands on the five stations (two on each). And Pacifica kept that money.

Now up until that time, the Pacifica National Office (which was always small) got all of its money from the stations. There was a tithe the stations paid to national which was two or three percent of their listener income. The managers had to actually write those checks and that gave the managers a lot of defacto power. When Pacifica suddenly had large amounts of money coming from another source, unaccountable to the stations, power started to shift in a very serious way.

Part of the mechanism for Public Broadcasting making its influence felt on community radio (and muting it) was something called the "Healthy Station Project," funded by CBP and run by Pacifica executive director Lynn Chadwick's ex-husband. He went around to community stations, Pacifica stations and others; dangling money and saying, You've got to professionalize. You've got to have less volunteers. You've got to take the power of the volunteer away. You've got to be slicker and go for a wealthier audience. A lot of stations felt that pressure and there was a definite move in community radio in that direction, in some stations and the distinction between listener-sponsored radio and public radio got blurred. The healthy station project was fairly influential in Pacifica stations too.

Fast forward to recent events and these have been alluded to today, but I think it's very important to understand how we got where we are now. The current crisis has been precipitated by the firing of Nicole Sawaya, who was the manager of KPFA, all factions, up and down, thought she was terrific and believe me, if you can get that reputation in a Pacifica station, that's a miracle. Managing a Pacifica station is not an easy job. So she must have been doing a terrific job.

Two years earlier, wanting to insulate themselves from local board and community criticism, the Pacifica leadership had solicited an opinion from CPB President Robert Coonrod, an opinion that the current structure (of station board electing the national board0 violated the Public Broadcasting Act. They got Coonrod to say that if they didn't change this structure quickly they would lose the next CPB check, which was 1.4 million dollars. I'm a lawyer, and I went back and looked at the Public Broadcasting Act and this legal opinion is entirely bogus, just looking at the text of the Statue, in fact, the Statue was based on, it was modeled on the Pacifica structure at the time it was passed. We were the model for this law, which they are now saying that we're violating, and at the time that they set up this law, the entire Pacifica Board was selected by the stations’ Local Boards. To put pressure on wobbly national board members, the Executive Director asked the managers to do a budget laying out where would they cut if they lost this 1.4 million dollars.

Now there's a multiplier effect in a Pacifica station’s budget. The fixed cost of Pacifica stations are about fifty percent of their budget, the rent, the mortgage, the electric bill and all that; so the only place that you can cut is staff, that's the only fungible cost. So if you lose 15 percent of your income you have to cut your staff by 30 percent. If you lose 20 percent of your income, you have to cut your staff by 40 percent. Cuts like that are (obviously) devastating and disruptive both to the people cut and to the operation of the stations. None of the stations are fat. That would be a drastic thing to do.

I told you, Pacifica used to get 2 to 3 percent of the Station's income, now it gets 17 percent. Nicole Sawaya, alone among the managers, presented a plan saying she would cut that 17 percent to make up for lost CPB funds, if Coonrod carried out his threat.

Because Nicole Sawaya would not cut the Pacifica share (rather then staff in that revised budget) she was fired. So what we have is a close collusion with the current Pacifica leadership and CPB, the resistance of one courageous station manager, and the present crisis.

The other thing to say is simply this. Lew Hill would spin in his grave if he knew that the head of a federal agency was the head of Pacifica. I don't care what Mary Frances Berry did in the past, we have to look at who and what people are. She is a Clinton appointee, a consummate Washington insider, to have such a person as head of a counter-cultural independent media organization, makes absolutely no sense. Its a total contradiction.

What's happened, I believed is that a flying wedge came from Washington, taking advantage of a structural weakness of Pacifica, that has always been there. There's always been a structural weakness, which is its lack of accountability to the communities it serves, not only to the subscribers and the listeners but the social movements such as peace, labor, civil rights, which it serves. Lew Hill was worried about a takeover by a small group, well Lew Hill, guess what? It's happened.

This crisis has got to be resolved by a restructuring of Pacifica so it's Democratic and really accountable to the people that it serves. Pacifica's asset, the licenses, (are probably) worth $200,000,000 to $300,000,000. Anybody would be tempted by that amount of money, I would be. The only way you can keep them honest is if they are accountable to their communities and that change ultimately has to happen.

Thank you.

Moderator: If you have any questions for Peter Franck.

Questions:

Gary: Could you just go over again because I think it's important that Radio Marti connection, I didn't quite catch that.

Peter: From the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Web page here is the "Bio" of Robert Coonrod. Prior to joining the CPB, Mr. Coonrod was deputy director of Voice of America, the Global Radio and Television Network. He oversaw VOA, The office of Cuba Broadcasting, both Radio and TV Marti and Worldnet television. I'm skipping a little bit. He's been with USIA since 1967. He's also held senior positions in USIA's bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.”

Now, let me skip ahead to National Public Radio, because that's part of it. Kevin Close, the new president of NPR, again from their Web page: “Before joining NPR, he served as Director of the US International Broadcasting Bureau in Washington, he managed the US Government's Global Radio and Television Services with studios and stations worldwide. Under Close's leadership RFE, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty forged new Broadcast partnerships with newly Independent Radio Stations in Central Europe and Russia.”

So these two people, who are the heads of the two parts of the Public Broadcasting System, made their career in the US Government's Overseas Propaganda Arm. The solution to the current problem is to get back to understanding that this is listener-sponsored radio and acting in terms as listener-sponsored radio and realizing that that's very different from Government radio and there's got to be a separation.

Michael: I'm Michael Turner Thomas, I'm formerly the black guy with Free Radio Berkeley. I realize what's going on especially with Micro Power being shut down, that KPFK is the last voice we have. What's going on now is just an obvious Big Brother push, you know it's obvious to all of us here today. I must say I'm reluctant to really embrace KPFK because I see the same gate-keeping attitudes that throughout communication permeating within this and I mean the only place Black men are over represented in this Country is in Prison. I certainly do not want Jesse, the logo corporate, Ventura president, like the corporate fascist media is pushing right now. So how can you expect us to really jump on this bandwagon when you really haven't shown the community support, especially from where I'm from?

Peter: That's the reason that it has to be open to the whole community. I'll tell you we can really thank the leadership of Pacifica. If you would have heard the Hip-hop section of the Joan Bias concert last Friday night. Or seen the diversity of people out in front of KPFA everyday and every night, this will open things up in a really wonderful way and we've got to make sure it stays that way.


PETER FRANCK
1999
2018 UPDATE: Peter Franck continues to be involved in ongoing discussions. His website is culturelaw.com



KPFA 94.1 FM is one of five stations of the Pacifica radio network which are located in major cities across the country. The other stations are WBAI 99.5 in New York, WPFW 89.3 in Washington DC, KPFT 90.1 in Houston, and KPFK 90.7 in Los Angeles. There are also about 300 affiliate stations.





DISCLAIMER: This is not an official Pacifica Foundation website nor an official website of any of the five Pacifica Radio Stations (KPFA Radio, KPFK Radio, KPFT Radio, WBAI Radio, WPFW Radio). Opinions and facts alleged on this site belong to the author(s) of the website only and should NOT be assumed to be true or to reflect the editorial stance or policy of the Pacifica Foundation, or any of the five Pacifica Radio Stations (KPFA Radio, KPFK Radio, KPFT Radio, WBAI Radio, WPFW Radio), or the opinions of its management, Pacifica National Board, station staff or other listener members.

What is at stake at KPFA

This is from five years ago; Pacifica has changed executive directors several times since then, but the basic issues remain the same.

by George Reiter
Chair, Pacifica National Board
November 20, 2010

What is at stake in the conflict at KPFA? It is not the continued existence of the Morning Show. It will be back with new hosts. It is not the competence of the hosts. By all accounts, they did a fine job. It is not whether there will be local programming at KPFA. Local programming has been a mainstay of the Pacifica Network and will continue to be.

What is at stake is the financial viability of the Pacifica Foundation, and its ability to manage the stations in the network. That viability depends on the ability of each of the stations to raise sufficient money to meet payroll and expenses. That hasn't been happening at KPFA for at least two years.

The board in 2009 mandated reductions in staff that the management at the time didn't make and the ED didn't enforce. The cash reserves of KPFA, about $800,000 dollars in 2009, are now gone, The board has again this year observed that reductions had to be made, and our Executive Director is seeing to it that it happens.

She has the unanimous support of the board for the principles that she laid out for the reductions, respect for seniority, the best interests of KPFA and the network, maintaining the programming grid where possible, and keeping the strongest possible skill set at the station.

The Pacifica Foundation owns the licenses for all five stations. Should one station failing to meet its expenses drain the resources of the network past what can be sustained by the remaining stations, the entire network will be bankrupt and the fate of all five stations will be in the hands of a bankruptcy court judge. The board has the responsibility of seeing to it that that doesn't happen.

Some have attempted to make the salary of the national staff, consisting of an ED, a CFO, two accountants, an administrative assistant, two part time technical workers and an affiliates station coordinator, an issue. Or the in person meetings of the board now costing half of what they cost for the previous 6 years. This level of staffing the salaries and the expenses are minimal in managing a $12 million dollars/year enterprise. To the extent that this accusation stems from a desire to have no national collective supervision, and ultimately no network but a collection of five independent stations, this is misguided both in purpose and strategy. The times require a national network, and the outcome of bankruptcy hearings will not be five progressive stations running their own affairs, but more likely two commercial stations and three new Christian radio channels.

KPFA has been a bulwark of the network in the past. The farsightedness of the leadership created and then supported the growth of the other stations. The network has been a strength for all of us, recently when money had to be transferred from KPFT to pay salaries at KPFA, and in the past when contributions from the other stations kept KPFT on the air.

I ask that you support the Pacifica National Board and its Executive director Arlene Englehardt in maintaining the financial viability of the Pacifica Foundation and its ability to manage and develop the network.


GEORGE REITER
Chair, Pacifica National Board



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for updates, reports & essays on KPFA/Pacifica,
please visit these websites:

UNITED FOR COMMUNITY RADIO

PACIFICA IN EXILE

ANN GARRISON, A KPFA REPORTER

LORDS & LADIES vs. the PEASANTS at KPFA


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KPFA 94.1 FM is one of five stations of the Pacifica radio network which are located in major cities across the country. The other stations are WBAI 99.5 in New York, WPFW 89.3 in Washington DC, KPFT 90.1 in Houston, and KPFK 90.7 in Los Angeles. There are also about 160 affiliate stations.



Vote for the UCR -- United for Community Radio



















United for Community Radio

The CL in a Nutshell

(The group which formerly called itself "The Concerned Listeners" now uses the name Save KPFA which it stole from an earlier group.)



by Richard Phelps
May 4, 2011

The practices of the KPFAForward, Concerned Listeners, SaveKPFA and KPFAWorker are very similar to right wing practices. Yes the outward politics are very different but not their practices. They don't believe in equal time, look at the last two LSB programs and how their staff allies misuse the news to propagandize. They twist reality to make up wedge issues. They don't really want democracy if it looks like they may lose control to the "voters". "dismantling the Local Station Board", aka the democratic process, or "how do we make our enemies own the problems that are to come?" From one of their "secret" meeting memos. Brian Edwards-Tiekert, 2005.

There are numerous other examples like dumping the Program Council, trying to end the UnPaid Staff Organization (UPSO), hiding a $375,000 check for over a year, refusing to promote LSB elections on the air etc., etc.

I think this quote from Cornel West fits them well although it was meant for our national leadership in Washington.

"Our leadership elite may still want to believe in democratic principles-they certainly profess that they do-but in practice they have shown themselves all too willing to violate those principles in order to gain or retain power", Cornel West from his book Democracy Matters.

RICHARD PHELPS

May 4, 2011

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** other websites & articles **


The original 1993 Save KPFA (whose name was stolen by the "Concerned Listeners")

Democracy at Pacifica by Robbie Osman Across the Great Divide

The Grassroots Radio Movement in the U.S. by Marty Durlin and Cathy Melio

Updates, reports & essays about KPFA & Pacifica Foundation Radio at
UNITED FOR COMMUNITY RADIO


KPFA 94.1 FM is one of five stations of the Pacifica radio network which are located in major cities across the country. The other stations are WBAI 99.5 in New York, WPFW 89.3 in Washington DC, KPFT 90.1 in Houston, and KPFK 90.7 in Los Angeles. There are also about 160 affiliate stations.



















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The near-disaster

For many years KPFA has been living beyond its means. In 2010 then Executive Director Arlene Engelhardt prevented a financial collapse by laying off some of the station's staff. That resulted in a huge hassle as can be seen in this article by Virginia Browning who explains why the layoffs of 2010 were necessary. Virginia is a member of UNITED FOR COMMUNITY RADIO (UCR).



The near-disaster of 2010

by Virginia Browning
UNITED FOR COMMUNITY RADIO
November 18, 2010


TOGETHER paid and unpaid staff and listeners prevented the selling off of Pacifica stations in 1999. Now IS the time to Support KPFA! Devastating as current [2010] layoffs of low-seniority staff are, former KPFA treasurer Brian Edwards-Tiekert knew this day had to come years ago.

Few would argue with the claim that current KPFA Morning Show hosts have done some excellent work seldom heard in radio these days. Alternative budget? They have been scoured, hoping they could provide help.

In one article by Carol Spooner, you can read laid off Morning Show host Brian Edwards-Tiekert urging other Pacifica stations to make needed cuts, all the while supporting more hires by KPFA.

Votes by Edwards-Tiekert and his allies on the National Pacifica board during that time show his support for a regime at the New York station that was quickly draining the network. Mara Rivera and others have posted the details of this on Indybay and elsewhere.

Locally, as treasurer of the KPFA Local Station Board, Edwards-Tiekert presented and urged, and with his majority on the board passed, budgets that hid important pieces of information from the board for several years in a row. This greatly exacerbated the current financial problems. (While the economy in general surely contributed, many on the board not of Edwards-Tiekert's group urged for years more caution and planning. Had their advice been heeded, KPFA would likely be spared this crisis now, even with the bad economy.)

Someone may post on indybay the section of the union contract (which I have seen) that forbids "job actions" when the contract is in compliance. It would seem that the constant on-air referral to a website giving much disinformation by Edwards-Tiekert and his on-air allies violates this contract.

For example: It is certainly disinformation, as is claimed on that site, that "people of color" were targeted for layoffs. It happens that 6 or 7 KPFA staff took voluntary leave.

At a meeting of the Berkeley Labor Commission Wednesday night, November 17th, 2010, a statement was made by Esther Manilla, one who took the voluntary leave, that she didn't think it would come down this way. She said, as I recall and others too, that she thought if she took leave some others from her show would automatically be spared.

However, the low seniority of Aimee Allison, for example, a very skilled host with a dynamic voice whom many, myself included, are sorry to see leave, has the lowest seniority of all on-air hosts.

One charge by Edwards-Tiekert is that the so-called "sustainable budget" -- rushed into the board meeting months and months after the budget should have been passed -- could have saved the layoffs. Despite its last-minute arrival, Pacifica Executive Director and CFO LaVarn Williams carefully checked and re-checked this budget, passing it by Pacifica's insurance company and others to ensure workability. However, as detailed by Engelhardt November 17th (2010) to the Berkeley Labor Commission and elsewhere, unfortunately this budget would not save the network and station from the need for cuts. That Engelhardt and Williams did carefully consider this alternative budget is never reported by Edwards-Tiekert's longtime gatekeeper group on the air or on their websites. Of course many of the famous guests who only know these gatekeepers as skilled trusted on-air personalities have now passed on the disinformation elsewhere.

One would think such actions would be reason enough to at least sanction Edwards-Tiekert, but he has been supported by a local management at KPFA that aided in these damaging actions.

However, his layoff is NOT "payback" for even this, as he is now claiming, but the simple fact that within his job classification, he is one of the lowest in seniority. He is claiming that others there have lower seniority. Executive Director Arlene Engelhardt has emphasized that Edwards-Tiekert may well have "bumping rights" if he is qualified for other positions whose current job-holders have lower seniority than Edwards-Tiekert. Negotiation between union and management is set to be stepped up in the next few days.

The union emphasized to Executive Director Engelhardt that layoffs must follow union seniority guidelines. Engelhardt has emphasized that she stepped in months after local management neglected to stave off the crisis, carefully following this mandate from the union.

VIRGINIA BROWNING
November 18, 2010


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10 Years of KPFA Finances in TABLE FORMAT

and, presented as a GRAPH, the same data:
10 Years of KPFA Finances GRAPH


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for updates, reports & essays on KPFA/Pacifica,
please visit these websites:

UNITED FOR COMMUNITY RADIO

PACIFICA IN EXILE

ANN GARRISON, A KPFA REPORTER

LORDS & LADIES vs. the PEASANTS at KPFA


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KPFA 94.1 FM is one of five stations of the Pacifica radio network which are located in major cities across the country. The other stations are WBAI 99.5 in New York, WPFW 89.3 in Washington DC, KPFT 90.1 in Houston, and KPFK 90.7 in Los Angeles. There are also about 160 affiliate stations.



Vote for the UCR -- United for Community Radio




































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Dan Siegel at Pacifica Radio

DAN SIEGEL and the KPFA/Pacifica Election of 2007


Attorney Dan Siegel has an interesting history at Pacifica Radio, where some of his unethical acts are documented in a report by a former election supervisor, Casey Peters.

According to Peters' report, Siegel (along with others) manipulated the KPFA/Pacifica elections of 2007, in which Siegel's group, the "Concerned Listeners" (CL), now SaveKPFA, fraudulently won a majority of seats on KPFA's LSB (Local Station Board). Siegel was then Foundation Counsel and, during the election, also became interim Executive Director of the Pacifica Radio network.

Peters also mentions that Dan Siegel entered his home illegally, startling his wife who yelled at him to get out, and called the police. "We seriously considered pressing trespass and assault charges," Peters says in the report.

Today (2008) Dan Siegel is a member of KPFA's LSB. His group, formerly the CL'ers (Concerned Listeners), now call themselves SaveKPFA

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excerpts from FINAL REPORT
on the Pacifica 2007 Elections
by Casey Peters
National Elections Supervisor (NES)


An unexpected problem arose at KPFA where candidate carts were bundled in large groups playing for several minutes at a time. This was done rather than the traditional broadcast of carts individually, dispersed among other sorts of programming. Some candidates contended that the bundles always started with management’s favored candidates and that listeners tuned out after the first couple of carts were aired. I spoke with KPFA’s Interim General Manager Lemlem Rijio and Interim Program Director Sasha Lilley, and both agreed to de-bundle the carts and to broadcast them individually as other stations do. However, in practice they refused to conform to a direct order from the National Election Supervisor [NES]. The bundling continued, putting some candidates at a distinct disadvantage. The one candidate whose cart aired first in the bundle garnered the most first place votes by far in the KPFA Listener Sponsor vote count.


Management Interference

Greg Guma, who hired me to be Pacifica Foundation's National Elections Supervisor for the 2007 election cycle, was known as a critic of our elections and someone who felt that his power as Executive Director [ED] was undermined by interference from ill-informed but strongly opinionated board members. However, Guma was unflinching in following the letter and spirit of Pacifica Bylaws in his administrative support for the election process. He published a brief commentary on other approaches to governance that might draw upon a number of traditions. Regardless of his personal and professional views on how best to govern the Pacifica Foundation, Greg Guma always lent his full support as ED to implementing the governance process established in the ByLaws and to the work of the Election Supervisors.


Many of the problems that arose in the elections this year may be traced to the disruption caused by the early severance of Greg Guma after he tendered his plan for resignation as Executive Director. The PNB [Pacifica National Board] ushered him out the door hurriedly rather than on the timetable he offered which would have left him at the helm during the election cycle. The vacuum of power, with an intermittent interim ED interlaced by the spectacle of unprofessional vacillation on the part of the presumptive new leader, created a virtual meltdown situation. With obvious instability at the top, the election campaigns descended into chaos. As soon as Nicole Sawaya stepped into the Executive Director role, I left word with her assistant that I was available to meet at her convenience to brief her on the status of the ongoing elections. Ms. Sawaya sent word back that she had no intention of meeting with the NES [National Election Supervisor] and that she opposed Pacifica Bylaws provisions for elected boards.


Shortly thereafter, Ms. Sawaya's sent an email to the PNB [Pacifica National Board] attacking me for allegedly being partisan in my administration of the election. Apparently, she preferred to get her information by rumor and to spread falsehoods through a gossip mill rather than to meet face to face on a professional basis and civilly discuss any concerns that might arise. This was a great disappointment, as the warring factions had put aside their differences to join in support of Ms. Sawaya to be hired as Executive Director. My hope was that her leadership would help to bring about an Era of Good Feeling. Instead, she fomented the worst of behavior already prevalent at Pacifica.


Soon, Nicole Sawaya had resigned -- at least temporarily -- and Dan Siegel was put back into place as interim ED [Executive Director]. At that point, the power really seemed to go to Siegel's head and he started ordering me about in how to fulfill my duties. He applied intimidation regarding the still-pending certification of KPFA results, telling me that I would be fired if I did not do so promptly. The problem was that criteria for certification had not been met due to irregularities in the campaign, as will be explained later in this report.


Regardless of my desire to maintain absolute integrity in each of the local elections throughout the cycle, I was forced to capitulate in order to continue my work in administering the elections at the remaining radio stations. I realize now that this was an unforgivable error on my part and that I should have publicized the fact that the Interim Executive Director [Siegel] was using extortion to intimidate the National Elections Supervisor and wrongly influence the outcome of the elections to the detriment of members of the Pacifica Foundation.


Essentially, Dan Siegel in his dual roles as corporate counsel and Interim Executive Director engaged in threats and manipulation to unlawfully control the outcome of Pacifica elections. This constitutes the highjacking of the vote count. On the evening of March 13, 2008, I was about to leave for Los Angeles International Airport to fly to New York for the WBAI vote count when I received a message from Pacifica Chief Financial Officer Lonnie Hicks. Earlier in the day, he had confirmed that my accommodations in New York City were reserved. The new message said that Interim ED Dan Siegel did not want me conducting the vote count at WBAI and was firing me as National Elections Supervisor. Further information about the WBAI count follows later in this report.


A few days later, Dan Siegel entered my home illegally without any prior notice, and without ringing the bell, knocking on the door or announcing himself. Siegel startled my wife Marilyn, who was home alone, in our living room and she yelled at him to get out. His intent was to confiscate election equipment and materials without compensating me for work completed. Siegel had apparently been drinking, and sat in a rented SUV flashing his headlights into our bedroom. Marilyn called the police to stop the harassment. We seriously considered pressing trespass and assault charges, but felt any publicity about the incident would not look good for the Pacifica Foundation.


Shortly thereafter, I arranged through the good graces of KPFK Interim General Manager Jim Lafferty to deliver the desired equipment and materials in exchange for partial payment for services rendered.


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The full report on the Pacifica 2007 Elections by Casey Peters, National Elections Supervisor (NES)


Open Letter: 2007 elections




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Updates, reports & essays about KPFA & Pacifica Foundation Radio at
UNITED FOR COMMUNITY RADIO


KPFA 94.1 FM is one of five stations of the Pacifica radio network which are located in major cities across the country. The other stations are WBAI 99.5 in New York, WPFW 89.3 in Washington DC, KPFT 90.1 in Houston, and KPFK 90.7 in Los Angeles. There are also about 160 affiliate stations.










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We need to endorse Tracy Rosenberg

Today as we enter 2012, KPFA 94.1 FM is still on the air, thanks in large part to Tracy Rosenberg. She is now facing a recall election.


by Virginia Browning & Daniel Borgström
April 26, 2012

Tracy Rosenberg is a member of KPFA's Local Station Board and also of Pacifica's National Board. She is among the very most effective board members Pacifica has ever had.  Having worked  way overtime to understand the financial data, and to report back to listeners about what she found, she is one of the people most responsible for saving the network from bankruptcy.  Tracy continues to be effective in opposing fake campaigns by a group of self appointed gatekeepers to retain control of the station and network, which is undoubtedly why they have mounted this very public waste of time and money--the campaign to recall her.

What is Tracy accused of?   Using a KPFA email list to promote a new show.  She used the list with the express permission of Pacifica's executive director who asked Tracy, as the head of Media Alliance with a large email server, to contact all KPFA members on the list she was permitted to use and promote the new show.

Ironically, those who falsely claim she used the private list inappropriately have themselves been using a mysteriously acquired list to email listener-members.  They do this under the name "SAVEKPFA," a name all of us once used when we wrested the station from a possible sale in 1999.

Some staff members certainly do support the "SAVEKPFA" usurpers, as that support is in sync with their longtime effort to maintain control of the airwaves by a few, and limit access to this community station.

Tracy has supported the unpaid as well as the paid staff, including advocating for more training, perhaps making use of seasoned broadcasters in a much-needed role as mentors and collaborators versus sometimes undercutting and holding hostage unpaid staff for "fill-in" spots if they toe the line.  Tracy supports the democratic opening up of the airwaves to more community voices, not only as interviewees, but as broadcasters of their own stories.  A very effective public speaker herself, she understands the value of good radio, and certainly wants support for training to achieve the most appealing and informative radio possible.  She simply realizes that there are more than a handful of people capable of contributing to this on KPFA.

KPFA has material assets, and it has people assets. Tracy Rosenberg is one of the station's people assets.  We cannot afford to lose her.

Other Activities & Positions
In addition to her work at KPFA/Pacifica, Tracy Rosenberg has been the Executive Director of Media Alliance since 2007. She has organized and advocated for a free, accountable and accessible media system, focusing on the protection and sustainability of alternative media outlets,  from Pacifica Radio to low-power FM, public access and Indymedia.  She has monitored the mainstream media for accuracy and fair representation and facilitated the training of numerous nonprofit organizations and citizen's groups in effective communications.

She writes on media policy at the Huffington Post.

Stop the Recall
Afterword regarding recall elections
Does "why we think the whole idea of a recall is wrong/bogus/dishonest, etc." include that it is fundamentally unfair to allow a bare majority of voters to recall a director elected under a proportional representation election system? The method of election used to elect LSB members is intended to guarantee minority representation on the LSB while allowing the majority of voters to elect the majority of LSB members. Because the bylaws-creators apparently hadn't anticipated quite this degree of trickery, the bylaws as of now have no fair provision for the replacement of the recalled member. If Tracy is recalled, instead of KPFA's representation on the Pacifica National Board consisting of a majority on the LSB from one group and a minority from another or other groups, there would be no minority representation on Pacifica National by the minority viewpoints at KPFA.

This recall campaign was mounted by those who "won" their majority on the local board in part by committing egregious election violations in the last LSB election , then suing Pacifica for the election supervisor's imposed penalty. (She – the National Election Supervisor – NES - was explicitly mandated to remove from the air those who committed the violations; however, as the most obvious of them were committed on the last two days of the election, days with a large number of votes cast – removing those broadcasters from the air then as the bylaws explicitly calls for would have done nothing to further fairness. She could have also thrown the whole election out, costing the foundation many thousands of dollars. Instead, she simply removed the votes of violators as she was more generally if less explicitly allowed to do and as seemed fitting under the circumstances. Whether, in a related case, a local judge and former member of their exclusive "union" seemed to side with the skewed presentation of their viewpoint by the master- rhetoriticians so many have come to trust, with Pacifica lacking resources to pursue its rights further, does not invalidate the right of the NES to mete consequences to those thwarting the election process.


Stop the Recall

Some KPFA election violations 2010

AUDIO of the On-Air Live Debate, Friday, June 29th, at 1 PM, between Tracy Rosenberg and recall proponent Margy Wilkinson. If you missed it, you can listen in KPFA Archives by clicking here

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Updates, reports & essays about KPFA & Pacifica Foundation Radio at
UNITED FOR COMMUNITY RADIO


KPFA 94.1 FM is one of five stations of the Pacifica radio network which are located in major cities across the country. The other stations are WBAI 99.5 in New York, WPFW 89.3 in Washington DC, KPFT 90.1 in Houston, and KPFK 90.7 in Los Angeles. There are also about 160 affiliate stations.

SaveKPFA and the Truth

are Seldom on the Same Page
SaveKPFA's competing fund drive

by Richard Phelps, former Chair KPFA LSB
June 20, 2011

What does it say about an organization, SaveKPFA, that needs to distort reality so often and so much to support its cause? To me it says that they have the same morality as Karl Rove and the Corporate/Pentagon owners that control the overwhelming majority of our media and thus what people think about. If they try to win by lies and distortions how will they function if they are running KPFA and/or Pacifica. SaveKPFA/Concerned Listeners recent efforts in collusion with the JUC between 2005-2009 almost bankrupted KPFA/Pacifica.

In quotes are statements from the SaveKPFA web site. Followed by the simple truth.

"In a separate action, Phelps is suing several SaveKPFA members for their role in collecting $63,000 in financial pledges to restore The Morning Show. (That's right — he's suing them for fundraising!) Phelps alleges the fundraising activity was "disloyal" to Pacifica, and he's demanding $800,000 in damages."

First, I am not suing, I am the Plaintiff's lawyer. No one is being sued for being a SaveKPFA member. The four defendants are elected members of Pacifica governance that launched a fund drive competing with KPFA's fund raising efforts. It is well established law that members of corporate governance can not compete with their corporation, which is what they are being sued for: Breach of their duty of Undivided Loyalty. One of many ways to Breach their Fiduciary Duty to Pacifica, a duty WHICH COMES WITH ELECTED OFFICE IN PACIFICA GOVERNANCE, as Dan Siegel lectured to the LSBs in 2008 when he was Foundation Counsel.

The evidence is absolutely clear that their fund raising was/is disloyal to Pacifica. In their pitch they say :

"If Pacifica does the right thing, we will bundle your pledges and submit them to KPFA as part of a special fund."

This was not a benign and positive action. It was designed to leverage and manipulate the management and governance processes. Otherwise there would be NO CONDITIONS on their fund raising.

"Attorneys at Siegel & Yee sought to have the suit dismissed as a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), but a Fremont-based judge allowed it to move forward. Phelps filed the lawsuit in Fremont, presumably to avoid landing in the Oakland courtroom of the judge who has repeatedly ruled against him. "

This statement is so far off base it should be embarrassing to who wrote it. I have long since given up on SaveKPFA/CL folks being concerned about their dishonesty and inaccuracies. If they were they would have stopped years ago and they have only gotten more rabid.

First, I didn't file this suit in Fremont, I walked from my office to the Oakland courthouse to file it, and if I did file it in Fremont, there would only be a slight chance of it staying there. Where you physically file the complaint has nothing to do with what judge gets it. Civil cases are randomly assigned to trial courts in Oakland, Hayward and Fremont. You don't get to pick. The judge that ruled against their motion is no different than any other Alameda County Superior Court judge. His court room is in Fremont, part of Alameda County last I checked. The judge ruled against them since the law does not support their motion. Breaching a Duty of Loyalty is not a constitutionally protected activity, and thus not subject to anti-SLAPP protections.
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Now let us take a brief look at how SaveKPFA's slim majority is governing. The last LSB Radio Report was a good example of how they struggle demonstrates how they govern.

When I was Chair of the LSB back in 2005-6 I produced most of the LSB Radio Reports and I always invited and encouraged the other side to be on the show. When they were on I didn't control their mics. I wanted both sides to be heard. It is the clash of ideas that helps advance society and KPFA/Pacifica.

The recent show run by Save KPFA was a very different format. Tracy Rosenberg and I were to be on the show to represent our side. Their previous show had 4-5 of them on and very brief controlled participation by our side. Pam Drake and Margy Wilkinson were producing and hosting the recent show. The show started at 8 a.m. I arrived at 7:50 to get ready and was told that I would have to wait to go into the studio. Tracy arrived at a little after 8 and was told the same thing. At 8:30 a.m we were finally allowed to sit in the broadcast studio by ourselves. Our Mics were off. The Save KPFA hosts then announced that "we had just arrived" and would now join the show. Which didn't happen for a few more minutes.

While we were waiting outside the studio they played a pre-produced piece read by Matthew Hallinan totally distorting the history of the 1999 struggles at KPFA and what followed for the next several years. Neither Tracy nor I were allowed to be on mic after their "1984" version of KPFA history. We weren't even in the studio.

While we were in the studio our mics were off except when "they" wanted to allow us to speak. It was totally different from the way I hosted the shows. It was clear that they didn't want us to get to say much and only on the topics they wanted. Does this sound like what Pacifica was founded for? No. And it is consistent with how SaveKPFA deals with the facts and the truth. Their version of Faux "Fair and Balanced". They also screened the calls that they took and this is nothing new.

Why would anyone who believes in the Pacifica Mission not want to allow different positions and ideas to both be heard by our audience?

Now lets look at SaveKPFA's direct LSB governance. In April they made a motion to censure Tracy Rosenberg for conduct outside the meeting having to do with e-mail lists. I am not going to deal with the specifics since it has been commented on multiple times and this is about due process and tyranny of the majority. I was not at that meeting since I was at Kaiser ER with a family member.

At the May LSB meeting I raised a Point of Order pointing out that Tracy was not given proper due process since our rules require that any discipline for conduct out side of a meeting must be done with notice and a hearing. As soon as I started raising the issue Conn Hallinan gave me the finger from across the room. My Point of Order was postponed until later. When we did get to it the SaveKPFA Chair ruled that a Censure was not discipline. This is ridiculous and I challenged the chairs ruling and the SaveKPFA's slim majority voted in lock step to support their chair, ignoring this fracturing of reality. Not one of them would stand up for the truth. They all put their power and control and desire to punish and embarrass a vocal opponent above due process. This is TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY and quite scary.

When SaveKPFA does this and their members vote in lock step, contrary to the truth, I get really worried about our "progressive-left" movement. Either SK/CL folks do not realize that they are practicing just like our corporate masters or they do and they don't care. They are going to do anything to win. How is this helping to create a more just society? What message is this giving to our children and the youth, who will be running things one day?

What does it mean when the SK/CL folks demonstrate for democracy and due process for foreign countries and don't practice it here when they can?

If SK/CL were running our country I am sure I would still be on the outside fighting for democratic governance and due process given the way they practice now.

--RICHARD PHELPS, former LSB Chair.



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Updates, reports & essays about KPFA & Pacifica Foundation Radio at
UNITED FOR COMMUNITY RADIO


KPFA 94.1 FM is one of five stations of the Pacifica radio network which are located in major cities across the country. The other stations are WBAI 99.5 in New York, WPFW 89.3 in Washington DC, KPFT 90.1 in Houston, and KPFK 90.7 in Los Angeles. There are also about 160 affiliate stations.





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False History & Current Myths

about KPFA & Its Union
by Clique Watch

JANUARY 14, 2011

“SaveKPFA”/Concerned Listener apologists for the insider clique at KPFA continue to haul out bucket loads of disinformation and spin in discussing the history and current state of the station and its union.

In criticizing Isis Feral’s “KPFA's Working Majority Gets Screwed by CWA Job Trust,” an insider clique apologist commented:

>>“Don't you remember your basic Pacifica history? Pacifica management ‘busted’ the UE in the 90s by bringing a case to the NLRB to get the unpaid staff removed from the bargaining unit. They won. Unfortunately, the result of that legal decision was that unpaid staff no longer have any collective bargaining rights. It's been that way for over a decade.”

Pacifica management in 2010-11 is not the same as Pacifica management in the 90s, and this is not 1999. The Pat Scott/Mary Frances Berry regimes of the 90s were intent on NPRizing Pacifica and acted without regard for the concerns of local constituencies. By contrast, Arlene Engelhardt and LaVarn Williams have intervened at the last possible minute to save KPFA from bankruptcy after CL-dominated KPFA management did nothing for 3 years to deal with the economics of declining revenues.

As for the NLRB decision, the commenter conveniently leaves out the fact that KPFA paid staff were, with a few exceptions, willing to abandon unpaid staff’s collective bargaining rights even before the NLRB decision came down in 1999. WBAI switched to AFTRA only after unpaid staff had already been removed from the collective bargaining unit. KPFA’s move to CWA was made two years earlier, before such a move was necessary. That says a lot about the kind of top-down union culture that exists at KPFA.

>>“CWA is one of the most democratic unions in the labor movement, and represents many media workers across the nation.”

I guess that at KPFA, “democratic” and “many” translates to 20%, the other 80% consisting of staff without a grievance procedure, benefits or training.

>>“And far from ‘dismantling community oversight,’ SaveKPFA is a broad coalition rooted in the community. Thousands of its supporters have written, demonstrated, and pledged their backing for change at Pacifica, and voiced their outrage at what the current Pacifica administration, embodied by executive director Arlene Engelhardt, is doing to the station.”

Those listeners who have protested the layoffs have done so because they are being disinformed by an incessant, slick, and well-organized PR machine. But people may be starting to catch on. The first “SaveKPFA” mass rally on Nov 4 drew 150 supporters, the 2nd rally on Nov 19 brought out about 50, and exactly 17 attended the third rally on Dec 3. That doesn't sound like massive support to me.

>>“...click on ‘FACTS ON KPFA'S CRISIS’...”

In fact, the “SaveKPFA” and kpfaworker websites are full of disinformation and lies attacking Pacifica (the only remaining national progressive media outlet in the US let’s remember) while serving the narrow interests of the small insider clique at KPFA who run the websites. For those who prefer to rely on true facts in trying to understand what’s going on, check out United for Community Radio.

“SaveKPFA”/CL avoids public discussion, debate, or dialogue like vampires shrink from sunlight.

>>“‘[Isis Feral] states, ‘Many people now refer to the managing faction of the still unionized workers as the “entrenched staff”, and some call the CWA a “scab union”. From the start the CWA played the divisive role of an elitist private club, rather than that of a union.’ Nope, 'afraid not. The only people who use these kinds of nasty, union-busting terms are this author and a few friends who are pissed the lost a majority on KPFA's board.”

It’s true that some of us are disturbed and saddened that people we thought were progressive and principled could resort to such underhanded tactics to ensure they got a factional majority on the board (see Local and National Election Supervisors’ reports for descriptions of “SaveKPFA”’s many 2010 election violations). We fought hard in 1999 to democratize the station, and it is awful to see a small handful of people putting so much energy into trying to destroy the station’s moves toward a democratic, transparent and accountable governance structure. If freed from an environment of attack and obstruction and given a chance to flourish, democratic governance could bring the station closer to the communities it serves and return it to a state of vibrancy and health.

>>“Managers are not part of the [bargaining] unit.”

That really misses the point; CWA Local 9415 works hand in glove with managers and other allies outside the bargaining unit to achieve their ends (see Brian Edwards-Tiekert’s infamous “how do we make our enemies own the problems that are to come ” memo from 2005). What kind of union strategizes with non-union members? A management union.

>>“‘Unpaid staff represented by the UE were entitled to such benefits as travel expenses and childcare.’ Yes, before Pacifica took its case to the NLRB and busted the UE, that was true. However, did you know the childcare reimbursement was only about 10 cents an hour? Wow, hate to lose that benefit! The travel reimbursement still applies; any unpaid staffer can get it.”

It’s telling that the author of the paragraph above makes light of what was lost by unpaid staff, who have no grievance procedure and must rely on the largesse of politicized management to receive training or access to other means of advancement within the station.

The fact is that entrenched gatekeeper culture at KPFA doesn't support worker rights or even labor programming. The station used to run a mere 20 minutes on labor out of the 168-hour week. Now, preferring to score political points by "boycotting" the new morning show over a trumped up union issue, the gatekeepers have ironically taken even this minuscule bit of labor programming away.

>>“As far as UPSO being ‘the closest thing to a union for volunteering workers,’ well maybe, theoretically, if it actually had participation from a broad range of unpaid staff. It doesn't. UPSO's leadership has been so poor they could not even run a proper election for years. Three or four people making decisions in the name of 150 unpaid staffers isn't acceptable, which is why management de-recognized it at one point.”

Station management never liked the idea of an organized unpaid staff and did whatever it could to disable it, including obstructing and delegitimizing UPSO, just as it did with the Program Council and as management tends to do with un-unionized workers everywhere. In this case, though, the union is joined at the hip with management and is all about protecting its own and, more particularly, the preferred within its own. As essentially a management union, CWA Local 9415’s interest is to defend its power base in KPFA's unionized decision-makers, first making it impossible for UPSO to function and then having a management shill claim there’s no interest among unpaid staff to organize for bargaining rights.

And let’s bring some perspective: Hundreds of AT&T workers have been laid off in the Bay Area in the past few years, and Local 9415 has shrunk from 6000 to about 1800 in the last decade. Yet we have all this noise about two people laid off in accordance with the union contract?

>>“There is no union contract for unpaid staff, and there hasn't been for over a decade. Pacifica ensured that when it engaged in union busting in the 1990s and took its case to toss the unpaid staff out of its bargaining units and won at the NLRB. CWA asked at the bargaining table to have unpaid rights included; management refused. CWA also held a series of meetings unpaid staff and welcomed them to organize back in the 90s. Unpaid staff decided the interest was not there.”

People there at the time (see Maria Gilardin’s “Why Did the Staff not Prevent the 10-Year Corporate Raid?") refute this. Back in the late 90s, workers at WBAI under UE fought to retain union representation even as KPFA’s paid staff (again, with some exceptions) hung unpaid staff out to dry by moving to CWA without a fight. There were ongoing attempts to persuade KPFA paid staff (many of the same people who bogusly yell about “union busting” and “scabs” today) to remain in solidarity with WBAI’s struggle but to no avail.

>>“The ‘deep division within KPFA’ this author dreams up doesn't exist...The ‘deep division at KPFA’ has nothing to do with the union, it has to do with ignorant outsiders like this writer tossing around ridiculous accusations and rhetoric for their own political purposes, with no knowledge of the KPFA situation or its history.”

How nice that someone can speak for all of KPFA’s workers in assuring us that there’s no division within the station. If this person had been at the 11/11 rally in front of KPFA, organized by unpaid staff, he or she would have seen a large, loud, impassioned refutation of that notion. There’s a clear system of patronage operating in which some are rewarded, some punished, and some are left alone as long as they never object to the existing station power structure in which decisions are made with no process or transparency and benefits are bestowed and punishments meted out politically. And how typical of someone speaking from an elite position of power within KPFA to dismiss someone as an “ignorant outsider.” It’s all about “community” until someone from the community calls them on their shit.

>>“As far as being ‘entrenched’ -- what a loaded term -- there are tons of unpaid staff who have been at KPFA for decades. Aren't they ‘entrenched’? How come Dennis Bernstein -- rather ‘entrenched’ no matter how you define it -- is never accused of such by his admirers?”

“Entrenched” doesn’t refer to how long people have been working at the station so much as the degree of power they have and use to further their agendas and defend their territory. Sasha Lilley (former Interim Program Director and many would say de facto GM during Lemlem Rijio’s tenure), Mark Mericle (head of the news dept and also vice president of the CWA local), Philip Maldari (union steward), Brian Edwards-Tiekert all hold large amounts of power behind the scenes with which they reward friends (e.g., Mitch Jeserich) and penalize enemies (e.g., Dennis Bernstein, Nora Barrows Friedman, those unpaid staff members who have been working at KPFA for years while being denied opportunities for training or paid positions). The entrenched are also good at installing figurehead GMs such as Lemlem and vilifying GMs who aren’t willing to get with the program and do what they’re told (e.g., Roy Campanella Jr).

That the new GM, Amit Pendyal, has gone through the proper bylaws-mandated hiring process and is on the job brings cause for hope and optimism. I very much hope that KPFA’s entrenched staff will stop trying to undermine any GM unwilling to do their bidding. At a time when the station and the network are on the brink, it would be great if they would work with the new GM as he tries to get the station back on track.

JANUARY 14, 2011


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KPFA's Working Majority Gets Screwed by CWA Job Trust by Isis Feral

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10 Years of KPFA Finances in TABLE FORMAT

and, presented as a GRAPH, the same data:
10 Years of KPFA Finances GRAPH



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for updates, reports & essays on KPFA/Pacifica,
please visit these websites:

UNITED FOR COMMUNITY RADIO

PACIFICA IN EXILE

ANN GARRISON, A KPFA REPORTER

LORDS & LADIES vs. the PEASANTS at KPFA


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KPFA 94.1 FM is one of five stations of the Pacifica radio network which are located in major cities across the country. The other stations are WBAI 99.5 in New York, WPFW 89.3 in Washington DC, KPFT 90.1 in Houston, and KPFK 90.7 in Los Angeles. There are also about 160 affiliate stations.















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Dear KPFA Listeners

A letter from Chandra Hauptman
former KPFA Local Station Board member
March 3, 2011

The truth about "Concerned Listeners-SaveKPFA's" latest misinformation

I am writing to give clarity and to correct the misinformation, that you have been hearing for the past three months on KPFA, up to and during the current fund drive, from some of KPFA's paid staff including Aileen Alfandary, Marc Mericle, Mitch Jeserich and Brian Edwards Tiekert. This includes the heralding of Brian's "triumphant return to KPFA" on Monday, February 28th, after being "laid off" for the past three months, due to the financial crisis at KFPA and Pacifica. In truth, Brian never left!

Those of you who listen to KPFA regularly have continued to hear Brian on the air, during the past three months, reporting on the KPFA News and sitting in for various KPFA hosts including CS Soong and Mitch Jeserich.

The truth of the matter is that Brian did not have to be "laid off" three months ago. He could have used his CWA union contractual "bumping rights" to replace John Hamilton, as soon as he was notified that he was being "laid off", because John had less seniority on staff at KPFA than Brian.

Brian chose to "leave" KPFA three months ago, because he was hoping that the subsequent on-air and email campaign mounted by the above-referenced paid KPFA staff and their "Concerned Listener/Savekpfa" allies, would pressure Pacifica management into reinstating the former Morning Show with him and Aimee Allison as co-hosts. (I sincerely believe that Brian was one of, if not THE key orchestrator of this campaign.)

When Brian, and his allies, finally realized that Pacifica's management was not going to capitulate to this on air/email campaign, they created the ruse of Brian's "return" to KPFA, on Monday, February 28th, and the subsequent "lay off" of John Hamilton. None of the above named people who "reported" on these events on KPFA, linked the two of them together, nor mentioned that John Hamilton was laid off because Brian finally decided to use his CWA union contractual bumping rights due to having more KPFA staff seniority than John.

Below are excerpts from two statements written by George Reiter and Arlene Engelhardt, that give clarity to KPFA and Pacifica's dire financial situation, resulting in the layoffs of paid KPFA staff members Brian and Aimee:

In Nov. 2010, former Pacifica National Board Chair George Reiter stated: "... What is at stake is the financial viability of the Pacifica Foundation, and its ability to manage the stations in the Network. That viability depends on the ability of each of the stations to raise sufficient money to meet payroll and expenses. That hasn't been happening at KPFA for at least two years..."

In December, 2010, Arlene Engelhardt, Pacifica's Executive Director, stated: "...Over the past five years KPFA has suffered a 27% drop in annual income - including a 30% decline of more than a $1.2 million in annual listener support. Since 2007 KPFA has lost almost $1.5 million overall..."

You can read their complete statements, as well as other factual information about KPFA and Pacifica by going to Support KPFA.org.

I believe that the negative on air and email campaign, conducted by the "concerned listeners/savekpfa" folks", has been extremely destructive and detrimental to the future survival of KPFA and the entire Pacifica Network! In reality KPFA is NOT in the black, as several "concerned listener/savekpfa" folks want you to believe, but is deeply in the hole with carry-over debts from last year. It will take up to two years to catch up, and unless there are several good fund drives this year, even more layoffs of paid staff may be required in the near future. (The linked chart is a graphic illustration of the severe decline of KPFA's financial situation over the past 10 years).

Truth be told, the financial situation at KPFA and Pacifica is so dire that KPFA and Pacifica are actually facing bankruptcy!

Sincerely, and in true solidarity,

CHANDRA HAUPTMAN
March 3, 2011

** The above statement was written solely by Chandra Hauptman, former KPFA Local Station Board member and long time KPFA community activist (except for the quotes by George Reiter and Arlene Engelhardt).

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THE UNION CONTRACT RE: BUMPING STATES:

"An employee who is laid-off may choose to bump to another job in her/his department where skill, ability, knowledge and job performance are all equal, or could be equal in the opinion of the Employer after reasonable orientation and training."


financial data

10 Years of KPFA Finances in TABLE FORMAT

and, presented as a GRAPH, the same data:
10 Years of KPFA Finances GRAPH

*** *** ***
*** *** ***

for updates, reports & essays on KPFA/Pacifica, please visit these websites:

UNITED FOR COMMUNITY RADIO

PACIFICA IN EXILE

ANN GARRISON, A KPFA REPORTER

LORDS & LADIES vs. the PEASANTS at KPFA


*** *** ***

KPFA 94.1 FM is one of five stations of the Pacifica radio network which are located in major cities across the country. The other stations are WBAI 99.5 in New York, WPFW 89.3 in Washington DC, KPFT 90.1 in Houston, and KPFK 90.7 in Los Angeles. The Pacifica network also has about 160 affiliate stations.

Brian Edwards-Tiekert rehired, spins "Victory"

What really happened?

Brian Edwards-Tiekert has been rehired at KPFA, and the CL/SaveKPFA group are calling this a victory in their war against the Pacifica Radio Network. But was it?

First, a look at Brian's announcement in which he presents this as a victory:

"It's official: on Monday, February 28th, I start work at KPFA again. Legally speaking, Pacifica management is throwing in the towel. After three months of stonewalling, they have given our union a "make whole" offer for my grievance: that means they'll be putting me back on payroll, with back pay. Pacifica has basically conceded it can't win the pending arbitration over my dismissal. This is a victory for our union in enforcing its contract, and I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to CWA rep Christina Huggins for getting us this far."

Sounds impressive, but KPFA listeners have been asking:

* Was Brian Edwards-Tiekert reinstated because he chose to bump someone?

Yes. John Hamilton.

* Could Brian Edwards-Tiekert have come back at any time by bumping someone who had less seniority?

Yes. Just not to an on-air host position as there are no on-air host positions with less seniority than he has.

* Was it Brian Edwards-Tiekert who chose to wait 3 months or so before settling what could have been settled from the time he was laid off?

Yes.

* Regarding the statement, "Pacifica has basically conceded it can't win the pending arbitration over my dismissal"

No. Brian Edwards-Tiekert basically conceded that he could not return as the Morning Show host via the arbitration process.

* Did Pacifica agree to anything it would not have agreed to 3 months ago?

No. They surrendered on the back pay as arbitration would have cost $10,000 and the back pay is less than that.

* How does the contract read?

"An employee who is laid-off may choose to bump to another job in her/his department where skill, ability, knowledge and job performance are all equal, or could be equal in the opinion of the Employer after reasonable orientation and training."















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