Protesting at KPFA

To Be Punished for
Protesting at KPFA?

Behind the scenes at KPFA Free Speech Radio


November 16, 2024

You might think that "KPFA" and "protests" go together like red beans and rice. And indeed, one of the hallmarks of KPFA's distinguished history has been its coverage of antiwar demonstrations -- from Vietnam to Reagan's wars in Central America, to the invasion of Iraq, and up to today's US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza. And of course one of the reasons KPFA is still here today was the massive 1999 street protests on behalf of the station.

So if listeners are concerned that today's KPFA is straying from its noble heritage, wouldn't a protest be appropriate? Two of KPFA's Local Station Board (LSB) members thought so, but now they're confronting trumped-up (pun intended) charges that could lead to their expulsion from the Board.

The "accused" are labor activists Steve Zeltzer and Lisa Milos. who were both elected to the LSB in 2023 (Steve also hosted a labor show on KPFA for years, until management canceled it without explanation). On July 31, they and some allies (including a third LSB member, former Berkeley City Councilperson Cheryl Davila) demonstrated outside the KPFA building on Martin Luther King Way in Berkeley.

They talked about multiple issues, including the Protectors attempt to undermine the broadcast-license-renewal of KPFA sister station WBAI, which culminated in an FCC ruling that put new constraints on the fundraising activities of all five Pacifica radio stations, including KPFA. They also called on KPFA to improve its programming by dropping the Washington-centric, pro-intervention 'Background Briefing' show, to make way for pro-peace local voices.

A more peaceful and innocuous protest would be hard to imagine -- only a few people present, on the sidewalk outside the KPFA building, not interfering with KPFA's activity. There were protest signs, but they were taped to the wall of the building with blue painter's tape, so as not to leave any mark when taken down.

But even this tiny demo obviously drew the ire of KPFA's business manager. She came out of the building, argued briefly with the demonstrators, then grabbed one of the protest signs. Steve pulled the sign away from her (it's unknown what brand of politics she espouses, or whether she's aware of the role that protests have played in KPFA's history).

Incredibly, some LSB members from the "Protectors" faction are referring to the few seconds' of tugging over the protest sign as an act of "assault and battery." They've scheduled a "trial" to take place at the November 16 LSB meeting. By a two-thirds vote (if all members are present, the "Protectors" hold a 2/3 majority on the LSB), they could expel Steve from the LSB.

In an email one of the Protectors even referred to "an unauthorized sign," clearly not comprehending that KPFA, at its best, has been the place for unauthorized opinions to be heard.

And what about Lisa Milos? She's accused of "making inaccurate statements" about the protest, in a posting to an email list. She too is "on trial," and could be expelled from the board by a two-thirds vote at the November 16 meeting.

Since the LSB is not a court or other department of government, it isn't subject to the rules that bind state and federal governments. And indeed, the "Protectors" have already shown they have no intention of respecting the rights that defendants Steve and Lisa would have in an actual court of law: the Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees defendants the right to a "speedy and public trial." Yet the Protectors intend to hold their trial in secret ("executive session"). The Sixth Amendment also specifics says a defendant has the right to "be confronted with the witnesses against him." But the Protectors have already declared that the business manager (and her boss, the general manager) won't attend the LSB meeting.

As an NGO, KPFA is not bound by the Bill of Rights. But shouldn't a media organization that broadcasts programs about "peace and justice" make certain to, at a minimum, follow the same rules that apply to governments, if not go above and beyond them?

Moreover, while it occupies itself with manufactured internal battles like this one, the Protectors faction members who dominate the LSB are doing nothing for the benefit of the radio station whose listeners elected them. The LSB is required to do an annual performance evaluation of the KPFA General Manager, but the last GM was evaluated only once in his nine-year tenure. And although that manager resigned more than two years ago, the LSB still has not started a hiring process for a new one.

It never even followed through on the manager's request to create a fundraising committee. The LSB needs to be told to disband its circular firing squad, and actually do some useful work.

The Protectors apparently intend to keep the November 16 Zoom meeting secret from beginning to end.

If so, there'll be no way for KPFA supporters to attend and listen. But anyone with an opinion to share can email the LSB prior to the meeting, at kpfalsb@googlegroups.com Thanks!



Posted
November 9, 2024

KPFA/Pacifica: Lords & Ladies vs. the Peasants

The Legacy of the '90s at KPFA

at KPFA/Pacifica

Lords & Ladies vs. the Peasants


by Daniel Borgström
Sept 16, 2024

Longtime KPFA listeners remember 1999 as the year of the Hijacking, the Lockout, and the massive response. Ten thousand people marched through the streets of Berkeley chanting "Take back KPFA!" and "Save Pacifica!" The battle was waged in the station's studio, on the streets, and even in the courts. The good guys won, and the hijackers were thrown out. But acolytes of that regime remained, and their proteges are today very much back in control -- the gatekeeper clique at KPFA.

Sadly, the KPFA scenario is often repeated in the affairs of humankind. I missed the French Revolution, but I imagine it went much like the one at KPFA. The Bastille was stormed in a day, but the fight wasn't over. (Still isn't, in fact.) It often seems to follow a pattern: There's a dramatic moment, a historic victory, but then after everything finally seems to be on the road to eternal happiness, come months and years of intense strife. Issues get complicated, seemingly arcane, and it gets vicious. Why the ongoing conflict? people ask, wondering why the former dear comrades can't just be nice to each other and get along. They're all progressives, aren't they? (Or are they?)

The 1999 uprising at KPFA began, very much like the French Revolution, with a split among the power elite. Like Louis XVI of France, the headstrong monarch of KPFA/Pacifica quarreled with her courtiers, threw them out of the palace, locked the gate, and called in mercenary troops -- rent-a-cops. The station's disenfranchised nobility, losing their wits and acting out of sheer desperation, allied themselves with dissidents, appealed to the rabble, and called for mass demonstrations. The response was huge, and to the astonishment of everyone, the rebels emerged victorious. The intolerable monarch went into exile, leaving the kingdom to the triumphant radio-heads -- a motley assemblage of commoners, peasants and riffraff, together with nobility and bureaucrats from the old regime. Everyone pledged eternal loyalty to the ideals of the revolution, the Pacifica Mission Statement.

At first there was wild jubilation, dancing in the streets, and a huge amount of good feeling. All the worthy people were dear sisters and brothers, in a splendid state of living happily ever after. The bluebloods and bureaucrats from the old regime joined in the celebrations together with their low-class brethren, graciously tolerating the situation, putting a good face on it, and biding their time. The problem was that the ungracious mob now expected to have a say in the running of the show. So the lords and ladies were then faced with the daunting task of getting this horde of loud, smelly, cantankerous, meddlesome peasants to leave the castle, go back to tilling the lands, and give up their preposterous notions of involving themselves in governance of the station.

Major differences and animosities began to surface during the drafting of Pacifica's new constitution, known as "The Bylaws." Courtiers and bureaucrats from the old regime tried to bend the new document to their liking, intending to preserve whatever they could of their former status and privileges; and they did win major concessions. Nevertheless, the dissidents stuck to a vision they'd been nurturing for many long years during the decade preceding 1999. The traditional motto of "liberté, égalité, fraternité" was updated to include "democracy, transparency, accountability."

The outcome, beginning in the early 2000s, was a radically new system of radio governance, a "listener democracy." Listeners who donated $25 or more to the station became voters, choosing their representatives to sit on boards overseeing the KPFA station and the Pacifica radio network. In radio governance, this was a revolutionary concept; however the Lords & Ladies found it absolutely revolting.

There was a time (the good old days) when peasants knew their place. One can sympathize with the plight and anguish of the once proud KPFA aristocrats, courtiers, and bureaucrats, who were to find themselves sitting shoulder to shoulder with unwashed peasants who were elected to the new Local Station Board (the LSB).

KPFA's first board election was held in the winter of 2003-2004, and as spring became summer, the reaction against the new Pacifica Bylaws began. An opening shot was a letter from a patrician lady who declared, "I do think the bylaws are a disaster." Her ladyship, a show host at KPFA, was an enlightened aristocrat, one of capitalism's discontents who loved the downtrodden peasants and hated their oppressors. It was just that she didn't want to see peasants trooping into her castle, intruding on her domain, and stepping on her privileges with their muddy feet.

The newly elected board members took their seats on the newly formed LSB; and the division between the patricians and lower orders soon became apparent. A leaked email of September 1st 2005 revealed that a lord had called his group to a "general strategy session" .and among the topics on his agenda: "how do we make our enemies own the problems that are to come?"

"You consider us your 'enemies'?" fellow board members asked the author of the email. His reply was evasive.

Among other strategic topics listed in that Sept 1st email was the "Roy issue." That referred to a disagreement between the bluebloods and station's general manager (GM) over the scheduling of a popular show, DN! Such a disagreement might seem rather insignificant, but it suggested that the manager was not a yes-man, inclined to do the do the bluebloods' bidding. So grounds had to be found for his dismissal.

They charged the manager with sexual molestation, a charge which did not hold up under investigation. Although the manager was cleared of charges, the accusations created an unpleasant, or even toxic atmosphere. Eventually, in Jan 2006, the mgr. was fired, but for undisclosed reasons. That became a landmark victory for the lords and ladies, and every general manager since then, from 2006 to the present (2024) has been more or less in their pocket.

According to the Bylaws, the LSB has considerable power in its job of overseeing the station. It plays a role in selecting the General Manager, and is required to do a yearly job performance evaluation of the manager. In practice, the bluebloods on the board have been able to avoid such obligations and render the board ineffectual. In 2020 it was discovered that property taxes hadn't been paid on the station's studio building for over 6 years, and the Alameda County tax office was about to seize the property and auction it off. That upset some listeners who urged board members to hold the station's manager accountable. However, the lordly faction, which held a board majority, came to the manager's defense, and passed a motion (11-20-2020) reading:

"The KPFA Local Station Board finds that due to numerous false and/or misleading accusations made about the KPFA General Manager, it is not possible for the KPFA Local Station Board to conduct a fair and unbiassed evaluation of the KPFA General Manager at this time." (And in their motion they misspelled "unbiased.")

At first glance, this might appear to be a worker-run collective, a socialist ideal. Sadly however, that is not the reality at KPFA. The bluebloods who became the gatekeepers of the station are a relatively small clique of holdovers from the hijacker regime of the 1990s which was linked to the Clinton Administration. They and their acolytes, though few in number, are well connected to entities outside the station. Most of the unpaid staff, who in fact produce most of the programming, are excluded from the ruling clique, as are some of the paid programmers. They're part of the peasantry.

Their faction which represents them on the LSB has used several names over the years; currently they call themselves the "Protectors," and they openly state that they protect the staff and management -- which they do. (That is, they protect members of their in-group and mgrs. who align themselves with the lords and ladies.) And they boast that the station is doing great.

In reality, the station is surviving -- but not doing great. Listener subscribership has fallen to about half of what it was a decade ago. This problem is not unique to KPFA -- public radio stations almost everywhere are losing listeners. Young people turn to podcasts, and other online sources of information. KPFA must do more to adapt to technological change and new ways (some now not-so-new) of accessing media. KPFA's archives must be searchable; otherwise they're like a library with no catalog. Multimedia is no longer the future; it's here. More programming must include video -- those are a few of the things that reformers are urging. However, the bluebloods have been slow to make such innovations; perhaps that's the nature of a status quo group.

Meanwhile, the whole purpose of having a radio station is its programming. Since 1949 KPFA has stood up to Joe McCarthy and HUAC, opposed the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and promoted progressive causes. Today many excellent programs at the station are still reporting on a wide variety of events including the genocide in Gaza. Nevertheless, not everything on KPFA is progressive. For over a year the station has been giving nine hours a week to Ian Masters, a show host who has lambasted Venezuela and Cuba, and attacked Mumia Abu-Jamal. Masters calls Mumia's supporters "gullible."

In attempting to describe the situation at KPFA, I've been using the analogy of Lords, Ladies and Peasants; though some observers with a somewhat less medieval mindset might prefer to call it "class struggle." Call it what you may, the station is run by a power elite who lord it over the rest. And though this is a leftwing radical radio station where almost everybody would consider themselves "Progressives," I would suggest calling them "establishment progressives." The operative word here is "establishment."

At the root of the problem is a legacy of the hijacker regime of the 1990s that never got resolved. The picture is not encouraging, but I don't think it's impossible either. I'm just saying that we have a long and hard battle ahead of us.


DANIEL BORGSTRÖM


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Right now the station is having an election for the LSB. Although I call it a struggle between the Lords and Ladies vs. the Peasants, it could also be called a struggle between the status quo folks and the reformers. The reformers, known as "RESCUE PACIFICA are presenting these eight excellent candidates, or as I might call them: uncommon commoners.

Rabab Abdulhadi - Professor at San Francisco State; Palestinian scholar / activist

Donna Carter - Retired nurse and California Nurses Association contract negotiator

Stan Woods - Oscar Grant committee member; former ILWU Local 6 board member

Virginia Browning - Former radio reporter / producer / program host

Felipe Messina - Modesto Cop Watch member; IBEW member; clean-air campaigner

Pathma Venasithamby - Jewish Voice for Peace member

Phoebe Thomas (Sorgen) - Social Justice Committee of Berkeley Unitarian-Universalists

Michai Freeman - Disability-rights organizer; former Berkeley City Council candidate

These Rescue Pacifica candidates are endorsed by past and present KPFA staff members, including Andres Soto, Peter Phillips, Joy Moore, Ann Garrison, Frank Sterling, and Anthony Fest, as well as many peace and justice advocates. Please read more at rescuepacifica.net



Your "STV" ballot allows you to vote for multiple candidates; please vote for all eight Rescue-Pacifica candidates. Thanks for your support!



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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 Rescue Pacifica

rescuepacifica.net

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This is an updated and expanded version of an article I wrote years ago.
Daniel

The Old Regime's Legacy at KPFA

A slow motion takeover of KPFA began in 1992 and reached its climax in 1999. During those years, the highjackers recruited assistants, trained proteges and created a culture which has permeated the station for the last two decades. It's the background of the ongoing struggle for accountability and transparency at KPFA.

The author, Maria Gilardin, is a former KPFA programmer & department head, & present independent program producer (TUC Radio). She documents the staff role (or lack thereof) in the attempted hijacking of KPFA during the 1990's.


SEVEN LONG YEARS: 1992 - 1999
by Maria Gilardin
August 2004

During the slow motion take over of KPFA that began in 1992 and reached its climax in the attempted sale of KPFA and the lock-out of station staff in 1999, we, community members and members of Take Back KPFA and the Coalition for a democratic Pacifica (CdP) waited, first patiently and then with more and more anxiety for a letter or statement from staff, alerting the community to the hijacking of KPFA and Pacifica.

That letter was never written. Had not three courageous programmers finally gone public KPFA listeners might never have known and the logo of another network might be disgracing the building on MLK Jr. Way today.

As somebody who picketed the Pacifica National office in Berkeley dozen of times in those seven years, who attended protest rallies when staff was kicked out, who was present at countless KPFA Local Board meetings where the restructuring of Pacifica became apparent to anybody taking the trouble to go and listen, I was amazed -- as were many other Pacifica activists -- at the passive, fearful silence, not to mention instances of outright support for those changes, coming especially from the long - time paid KPFA staff.

Since 1992, and for seven long years, we put flyers into staff mail boxes, issued press releases to the media and copied them to staff; even setting up a micro power radio station outside of KPFA and tuning the receivers inside KPFA to the pirate frequency. We wrote messages in chalk on the sidewalk for you to see when you came out -- and saw you leave through the back door. We called you personally on the phone, asked friends of yours to intervene and help rescue KPFA and Pacifica before it was too late. But save for the one exceptional action by three staff members, none of you who were there did anything for almost seven years -- until the summer of1999.

When Dennis Bernstein and two others called attention to the 1997 union contract that was signed as a sweetheart deal with KPFA management, they were denounced by staff. Much later, when Nicole Sawaya was fired and her firing protested by Larry Bensky, Robbie Osman, and Dennis Bernstein, no unified support of Nicole came from staff who returned to the station without her.

From 1992 to early 1999, respected programmers went on the air, supported the purges of 1995, when 165 community programmers were dismissed all at once, and maligned Take Back KPFA and the CdP.

The New Pacifica is just 6 months old. When the National and Local Boards were seated in February of this year the time of hijacks and takeovers finally ended. This should have been a time to celebrate.

NOW, all of a sudden, in July 2004, you are writing a letter claiming that the newly elected board -- or at least some of the members -- are your enemy. Others have dealt with some of the complaints. I am addressing those of you who signed the letter.

I am troubled by the signatures of unpaid staff whom I know, respect, and like. Why would you have signed a document that is largely based on incidents you did not take part in or witness? I asked some of the parties accused and their recollections differ considerably from the statements in the staff letter.

I am addressing the question of the presence of "saboteurs from former Pacifica Executive Director Pat Scott's regime" on KPFA staff because I think these parts of the letter are addressed at me.

It is easy to blame Pat Scott for everything. Bertolt Brecht wrote in his poem on history: (Julius) "Caesar conquered Gaul. Did he not at least have a cook with him?" Pat Scott could not have done what she and those who followed her did, if she had not had a lot of help. And having knowledge and not acting on it is a serious matter. There are issues of integrity, ethics, and responsibility involved. I am, of course, excluding all those who signed this letter who played no part in this. I am addressing those among paid staff of the period of 1992 to 1999, many of whom are still there, who were the supporters of the take-over.

The time line below gives the most important events in that slow motion take-over of KPFA and Pacifica, during which anyone present should have been aware of fundamental change taking place in the structure of the station, the bylaws, the governance, and the national office. It was a very serious matter, involving the plunder of millions of dollars of listener money over those many years. The time line shows how benefits accrued to those who collaborated, and lists the many missed opportunities to protect KPFA and Pacifica from the takeover. For the most part names have been withheld by me to still protect the guilty.

We, who worked for years in the Save KPFA and Pacifica movement, have never addressed that most important question:


Why did staff inside KPFA not prevent the 10-year corporate raid?

Many of current paid staff were inside the station between 1992 and 2002. You saw what was going on from day to day. Some of you held positions directly assisting the hijackers. And if you did not see it you saw us picketing the station, pleading with you to act. However, instead of ringing the alarm you ignored us and persecuted the lone whistle blowers inside the station.

You could have prevented the take over. We did not want to blame you. We were sure that ultimately even the collaborators would welcome change. Even those who helped Pat Scott and those who followed her could not have been happy in that role. We understand that the amount of intimidation was immense. Not everybody has the guts to stand up. We thought you would be relieved to live and work without fear and compromise.

However, now, just five months into the new era of Pacifica, many of the names of those who collaborated with the old regime appear on the staff letter of July 22, 2004. I know that the mainstream media feels empowered to re-write history, but when it happens at KPFA it must become a cause of wider community concern.

I am writing this because there are now two stories, two parallel narratives. The inside and the outside story of KPFA and Pacifica and they are totally different. Collaborators have become heroes, victims made perpetrators; actions and in-actions reverse their order. Michael Moore is right. We are living in fictional times. But we cannot allow fiction to invade KPFA.

Here is a list of some of your missed opportunities to save KPFA and Pacifica:

In June, 1993, KPFA was picketed by African-American programmers from KPFK in L.A. They were protesting Pacifica Executive Director Pat Scott's purges at our sister station. They had hoped for help from you -- none was forthcoming.

1994: Pat Scott changed the face of community radio by voting as a member of the CPB task force to peg CPB funding to Arbitron ratings, a decision that almost defunded KPFK and several other community stations. There was not a word from staff.

February 1995: Pacifica program directors were told to mainstream programming. The staff of KPFA voiced no opposition. Instead management at KPFA began to prepare the purges of August 1995.

March/April, 1995: Pat Scott hired the American Consulting Group, listed by the AFL-CIO as a notorious union-buster, to break the KPFA union (United Electrical Workers). Did nobody notice that they were there?

May 1995: Bill Mandel was fired for deviating from his subject matter and breaking the "Gag Rule". More than 60 people picketed the station -- no paid staff among them. Some of you went on the air and said it was good thing to fire people who had been there so long and were "old". Now, that some of you have been there for almost as many years, "term limits" is no longer talked about.

June 1995: The National Board began to hold secret meetings in violation of CPB funding guidelines. For the next two years, Take Back KPFA activists picketed at National Board meeting sites, often struggling to raise enough money to send representatives to other cities. There was never, in all these years, any participation from paid staff until it was almost too late, in 1999, until your own sinecures were threatened.

August 1995: All 7 to 8 pm weekday public affairs slots were replaced with music and 165 programmers, many of them community activists, were removed from the air. Some were informed, as they went on the air, that this was their final program. (The large number of 165 was due to the fact that these evening slots were programmed by collectives: Native Americans, Gay community, the Women's Department, Pacific Islanders etc.)

This mass removal changed the demographics at the station in a dramatic way, since a substantial number of the evening programmers were people of color.

In the context of the 1995 purge four KPFA departments were eliminated without resistance from paid staff.

The Women's Department had as department heads, over time, an African-American, a Native American woman and a Latina. The Third World Department had an African-American woman as the long-time department head and the Public Affairs Department had an African-American department head and later two Latino directors. KPFA paid staff also agreed to the firing of the last FOLIO editor, and the termination of the FOLIO department, ending publication of, not only a literary supplement, and reference guide and resource, but an essential form of monthly outreach to KPFA's listeners, continuous since the station's founding in 1949.

All three programming departments (Third World, Women, and Public Affairs) had a degree of diversity. They also allowed for community participation in the programming of KPFA that no longer exists in the tightly controlled "air-strips" and remnants of PA programs that have become the private property of a host. Several paid staffers voiced approval of the demise of these departments on the air.

November, 1995: Brian McConville, investigator from the Inspector General's office of the CPB (Corp. for Public Broadcasting) launched an investigation into the violation of open meeting rules of the Pacifica National Board. Following Pat Scott's intervention with his boss, he was fired 17 days later and the investigation is suspended. At the time, both management and staff never bothered announcing that the meetings were even taking place.

May, 1996: The presence of the American Consulting Group at KPFA, and Pacifica, was exposed by Take Back KPFA. The producer of the labor program on KPFA did not have the courage to mention its presence in KPFA's union negotiation while interviewing a union activist on the role of the ACG in preventing union organizing at the Lafayette Park Hotel The rest of the staff also maintained radio silence concerning ACG's role at the station.

December, 1996: CPB's Deputy Inspector Mike Donovan was fired after attempting to continue the investigation into the violation of open meeting rules of the Pacifica National Board. No word from staff. Unconcerned with anything outside of the station's front door, paid staff probably didn't know about it.

1996-1997: The union at WBAI, the United Electrical Workers (UE), refused to submit to Scott's order to kick the unpaid staff from the union. While the WBAI/UE fought all the way up to the NLRB for inclusion of the unpaid staff in the bargaining unit -- and even initially were victorious at the New York level (Feb. 1997) -- KPFA paid staff knuckled under to Scott and left the UE and joined the CWA (Communication Workers of America), breaking solidarity with their sister union members in New York, and as well as with KPFA's unpaid staff who they unceremoniously booted out.

There was, however, a pay-off. In return for two-tier pay raises, job protection and a pension plan, staff agreed to NOT go on strike, NOT do sit down actions, and NOT employ work stoppages, slow downs or boycotts, sympathy strikes or corporate campaigns against management.

A courageous letter signed by three dissident staff members and former union stewards appeared in the S.F. Bay Guardian in October 1997, pointing out that: "CWA members granted management the absolute right to fire at will all on-air personnel hired after Sept. 1, 1997. "

And "The new agreement, which both CWA and Pacifica have called "win-win," creates the same kind of unfair two-tier pay system that BART and UPS workers successfully opposed in their recent strikes. It specifically states that management can hire temporary workers for as low as $7.50 an hour for work for which other employees receive a substantially higher wage."

Paid staff gave up all these rights at a crucial time where any such action as a work stoppage, slow down or boycott, sympathy strike or corporate campaign would have exposed the hijacking of Pacifica and the enormous financial fraud committed by the leadership.

March, 1997: Community members hired a lawyer to fight to retain the rights of local board members to sit on the National Board while Pacifica began to change the bylaws to make the National Board self perpetuating and exclude station board members and staff from the National Board.

1997: National Board meeting in Oakland: Take Back KPFA had a sizable picket outside the Oakland hotel where the board was meeting. Inside Mary Frances Berry was voted in as the new chair of Pacifica. KPFA representative and Board Secretary Roberta Brooks attempted to have a motion entered into the minutes as passed that had not been approved at the last meeting. A Take Back KPFA member held up a tape recording of that meeting to prove it. At that moment KPFA paid staff entered in their new CWA T-shirts. They read a prepared statement regarding their personal pay issues and left. We ran after them, pleading with them to stay and listen or to join the picket line outside. One and all, they refused.

With the exception of KPFA, the media were beginning to take interest in the story, and articles were posted and disseminated via the internet.

While the urgency of the KPFA/Pacifica issue became increasingly apparent, paid staff kept completely silent.

The last chance for KPFA staff to write a letter came and went in February, 1999 when Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Ed Herman wrote a moving appeal, alerting the public to the imminent danger. We -- the activists on the outside -- hoped that, finally, staff would have the courage to put their names to that letter. They did not sign on -- not even under the wings of luminaries such as Chomsky, Zinn and Herman.

That was the last chance to rescue KPFA and Pacifica before the lockout and occupation of the station by security guards. In retrospect it is evident that paid staff only began to act when their personal jobs were at stake. It is sad to say that a large number of paid KPFA staff seem to be people who see this not as a station that belongs to the community, accountable and inclusive, but as a place to pick up a pay-check.

When on July 14, 1999 armed guards, hired by Pacifica, tried to arrest Dennis Bernstein after he disclosed the attempt to sell KPFA on Flash Points, Dennis tried to find a way to warn listeners of the take-over by running upstairs to the news department. Mark Mericle was just reading the headlines and was getting ready to lead with a story on health care.

As Dennis tried to get his attention and removed the feed reel with the story from the tape deck, Mark refused twice to deviate from his schedule. Only when the board operator opened the microphone and the sounds of the struggle went on the air did Mark report on what was going on.

The battle for Pacifica was not over when staff returned to the station after the 1999 lockout. Paid staff returned without Nicole Sawaya and accepted the appointment of Jim Bennett by the Pacifica National office in her stead.

Silence among the paid staff fell again on the station at the end of 1999 as the fight over the dissolution of the national hi-jack board of Pacifica continued. Most of staff did not participate in the law suits, in the pickets of National Board members, or in the boycott of Pacifica National News. Staff was very late in supporting Free Speech Radio News -- started in a garage in Berkeley -- and even late in supporting Democracy Now!

While members from community organizations, most notably from the CdP, were arrested at picket lines, and organized and financed the first two rounds of elections for a KPFA Local Station Board, staff retained their silence. Staff as a whole did not allow the Local Station Board to report on the developments of the bylaws via regular Local Station Board reports. Listeners who depend on the station to keep them informed about such things had to wait for sympathetic programmers to offer time.

KPFA staff as a group refused to participate in the boycott of Pacifica National. From 1999 until removal of the last hijackers from Pacifica's national staff in 2002, KPFA transferred to that office hundreds of thousands of dollars of listener donations used to fight the community and the lawsuits.

The crucial period from early 2002 until very recently saw KPFA and Pacifica under judge's orders to develop a new set of bylaws. The Local Station Boards and committees, several dozen people at each station worked, very hard at consensus. At KPFA the board held meetings at the station to make it easy for staff to participate in the writing of the bylaws. One staff member participated.

Listeners wrote into the bylaws unprecedented rights and representation for staff on the local and national boards, giving them 25% membership on all boards. Under the old bylaws staff representation was zero.

Community stations across the country interviewed members on the bylaws committees, and even participated in the process. But staff at KPFA for which the bylaws were written maintained an almost uniform silence.

The story repeated itself in changes concerning Program Councils. Many community stations have such councils: Madison, Wisconsin; Portland, Oregon; and the GRC (Grassroots Radio Coalition) contributed from their experience. KPFA staff almost entirely ignored the debates over responsibility and rights of Program Councils and then sabotaged the outcome by not attending meetings or overturning decisions taken in them.

In the years from 1999 to today, KPFA staff had unprecedented freedom to run the affairs of the station as they pleased. Pacifica's national office no longer interfered. There was an in-house General Manager who was willing to cooperate fully with paid staff. There was no Program Director for most of that time. KPFA paid staff was in charge -- and is now.

If there have been no significant changes in all these years, is it because KPFA is already perfect? Even the paid staff majority would not say that. Even friends of staff, such as Doug Henwood, say -- terrible to hear -- that "KPFA is irrelevant". KPFA is known as Pat Scott Radio because it still operates under the same system of NPR -- derived structures, in violation of the founders intent, and with a paid staff lacking in diversity as it was in 1995.

KPFA, as a station, in spite of its freedom from interference by the National Board, has not participated in the media democracy movement, in the resurgence of community radio via the GRC, the micropower movement, Indy media or other efforts to free the air and open access. As a station with a huge staff and unprecedented resources KPFA has been unable even to conceive of what Amy Goodman has actually done, initiating a national media collaboration involving] radio (ranging from community to NPR stations) with television and the internet.

Democracy has a hard time coming to KPFA in spite (or some would say, because of) the leanings of so many paid staff members towards the Democratic Party. There can hardly be a clearer indication of entrenched and reactionary power, than more than a year's adamant resistance to shifting the station's most popular and respected program, Democracy Now! to a time when most working people can hear it. Ownership of airtime, turf and power have also prevented an open, honest discussion over strategies to produce the best possible programming for the station as a whole.

To those of you who read through this long and critical letter, please consider what is truly most to your advantage, and that of the community you have obligated yourselves to serve. Please support a free and democratic KPFA.

Maria Gilardin
8/30/04


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*** *** ***

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


RESCUE PACIFICA rescuepacifica.net

PACIFICA IN EXILE pacificainexile.org

Pacifica Fightback for Democracy

KPFA 94.1 FM is one of five stations of the Pacifica radio network 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 250 affiliate stations.






















.

KPFA's LSB Jan 11, 2020

Between the Minutes
at KPFA on January 11, 2020


Notes on what's happening at KPFA
-- Getting Tom Voorhees on the PNB
-- Rejecting the Bylaws change
-- Another program taken off the air

by Daniel Borgström


Saturday, January 11, 2020 -- KPFA's Local Station Board (LSB) meeting.


Not a lot of drama at this day's meeting, but two important things were decided. First of these was to choose four reps to the PNB (Pacifica National Board). That is one of the most important decisions the LSB makes each year. Other LSB tasks are to evaluate the General Manager and also the Program Director -- neither of whom have been evaluated for some time.

There are 24 seats on the board, and our affinity group, Rescue Pacifica, has 8 of these seats. So logically we could get one of our people, Tom Voorhees, on the PNB. But there was a potential glitch -- the majority faction, the UIR/SK, had made multiple attempts to force Tom off the PNB. First, a couple of years ago, they had launched a series of lawsuits. I'll spare you the excruciating details on that and just say they failed, and Tom kept his seat on the PNB. Then, during the takeover of WBAI in New York, one of the takeover-team (Donald Goldmacher) attempted to remove him from the PNB. No grounds for that were ever given, and the matter was dropped, but it was quite clearly because Tom was one of the PNB members who refused to go along with the takeover of WBAI.

So we considered it possible that the majority faction, (the UIR/SK) might find a pretext to block Tom from running. Well, they didn't. So today Tom Voorhees was elected to another year on the PNB without any fights or drama.

(UIR/SK is United for Independent Radio/SaveKPFA; both UIR and SK are deceptively named, adapted from the names of opposing groups.)

The other two listener reps chosen today for the PNB were Chris Cory and Akio Tanaka, both of the UIR/SK. (Donald Goldmacher, who'd been one of their PNB reps last year and played a prominent role in the takeover, didn't run for the PNB this time.)

One staff rep was reelected: Sabrina Jacobs. She was the acting chair of the PNB during the takeover of WBAI in New York.

(Please note that I'm trying to use a neutral term for the month-long takeover of WBAI. The takeover team euphemistically calls it "the October attempt to save Pacifica," and we call it "the coup" or "the hijacking of WBAI.")

THE PACIFICA RESTRUCTURING PROJECT

That concluded what is normally considered one of the LSB's most important tasks of the year. Then we had another agenda item of major importance. That was a motion to endorse the "Pacifica Restructuring Project." If enacted, this project will bring about a total change in Pacifica's bylaws, replace elected boards with ones where most seats will be appointed. LSBs of the other Pacifica stations are also voting on it; WPFW and WBAI have already rejected it unanimously.

The motion was presented by LSB members Susan da Silva, Akio Tanaka, and Donald Goldmacher. Donald participated remotely by speaker phone. The motion read:

"Be It resolved that the amended Pacifica Bylaws submitted to the Pacifica National Board in September 2019 by more than 1% of the Pacifica members, and subsequently accepted by the Pacifica National Board, be enacted as soon as possible."

Although almost everyone recognizes that the PNB is dysfunctional, the proposed restructuring will take out the democracy without remedying the problem. That was our view, so we opposed it. However, there were only 8 of us, and while I can't say what the others of our affinity group may have expected (after all, nobody likes to say a fight is lost before you fight it), I thought this awful thing was certain to pass. After all, the deep station at KPFA was home base for last fall's takeover of WBAI, and now this.

Discussion on that began at 1 p.m. and continued for nearly an hour. Everyone spoke, and as they spoke, one after another, it began to look like we were not totally alone in opposing it. To my surprise, even Sabrina Jacobs (former spokesperson for the takeover of WBAI) opposed it, as did several others of the LSB majority. So as the discussion drew to a close, it looked as though this just might be close to a tie.
(There is just too much said in that discussion to even try to quote here. I recommend listening to it on the archive at kpftx.org)

Then came the vote:
4 in favor
13 no
4 abstained
Motion failed.

This should've been a roll call vote. It was not. Three of four who voted yes were Susan, Aki, and Tim; I'm not sure who the fourth was. Quite strangely, it appears that Donald Goldmacher hung up and left without bothering to vote for that motion which he'd put so much of his efforts into.

So KPFA's LSB did not endorse the Bylaws changes, the "Pacifica Restructuring Project." Nevertheless, our station's General Manager Quincy McCoy announced over KPFA's airwaves: "Members of the PNB voted on the proposed new bylaws & the LSBs are now voting and so should listener-members" -- possibly giving the erroneous sense that the proposal was well received.

There was also a second motion by Susan, an addendum to the first: "Be it resolved that the delegate members of the KPFA LSB believe the Pacifica membership should have a right to vote on the current bylaw proposal submitted by membership petition in September 2019."

Discussion opened and James McFadden of Rescue Pacifica said, "I recommend that we abstain on this motion. It is meaningless grandstanding that wastes LSB time. The current bylaws define when a listener election is required. This is an attempt to include propaganda."

No one else spoke on that motion, and we voted: 5 in favor.
14 abstained.

It was two o'clock. The meeting took a break, then continued on for another hour. Next on the agenda was "Public Comments," which is normally near the beginning of the meeting. Two people from the audience spoke: Stan Woods and Anthony Fest, both former LSB members.

"First off I want to congratulate the board for voting down the Corporate Model proposed Bylaws," said Stan Woods, and then commented on the station's sparse coverage of the antiwar movement. "KPFA has always been known as the antiwar station. Not so much anymore! ... KPFA has rarely had genuine anti-imperialist, antiwar activists on the air recently, instead preferring guests that MSNBC or NPR would have no problems with. One blatant example is the frequent appearance of Professor Karen Greenberg [Director of The Center on National Security] who in response to a question from myself stated, 'We should never forget that the FBI or CIA are there to protect us!'"

Across from Stan sat board member and KPFA show host Philip Maldari. Just the previous Sunday, Philip had hosted Karen Greenberg on his show, but she's been on at least once since then. Some have joked that she's on so often she might as well have her own show.

The second speaker, Anthony Fest, talked about KWMR, a community radio station at Point Reyes and Bolinas, which operates on $400,000, only about 12% of what KPFA spends. Not peanuts, but it showed that a community radio can run on a lot less than we might think necessary. In addition to about 95 adult volunteers, the station also had junior high and high school students performing as deejays. Maybe KPFA should consider something like that; it could generate interest among young people.

General Manager Quincy McCoy was absent. Business Manager Maria Negret wasn't there either. So treasurer Sharon Adams gave the treasurer's report along with a bit of obligatory WBAI bashing. There were no financial spread sheets.

Chris Cory, chair of the PNB's National Finance Committee, reported that Pacifica has hired a new iCFO, Anita Sims. She works for NETA (National Educational Telecommunications Association), and was the supervisor of her predecessor; so Ms. Sims is familiar with Pacifica.

Near the end of the agenda was an item listed as: "Old Business: Motion concerning PNB Directors." That's the way the secretary listed it, giving no indication that it's a motion Rescue Pacifica introduced in December; the item should have read: "Motion to consider the censure of Donald Goldmacher for accusations that could have tarnished the reputation of fellow PNB member Tom Voorhees during a Pacifica election." The LSB didn't get to it last month, nor at this meeting. So it'll just continue to stay there, possibly to the discomfort of some.

The meeting adjourned at 3:15, having lasted 4 hours.
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THE MONDAY MORNING AFTER
On Monday the 13th, just two days after the LSB meeting which General Manager Quincy McCoy did not attend, he took yet another show off the air. This latest target is "Work Week," hosted by Steve Zeltzer, the only show on KPFA devoted to labor issues and probably one of the very few if not the only show specifically on labor in the Bay Area. For a so-called progressive station to terminate coverage of such an important and under-covered subject indicates that KPFA is joining the class war on the wrong side.

Lacking any explanation from the GM, this could be seen as a retaliatory measure; Steve is a former LSB member who raised uncomfortable questions, and recently he was interviewed on WBAI in a discussion of the Coup.

During the last couple of years, General Manager McCoy has taken several programs off the air; these include "Guns & Butter," "Discrete Music," and "Twit Wit Radio." McCoy's biggest takedown was last October at KPFA's Pacifica sister station in New York, WBAI 99.5 FM, where former iED John Vernile appointed him "Consulting Programmer of Pacifica Across America." In that capacity McCoy replaced all local programming on WBAI's airwaves with piped in programs and awful machine music.

KPFA is now playing a cart with the lines, "Quincy McCoy, our terrific general manager."

This "terrific" GM needs to be evaluated by the LSB. That's one of the duties of the LSB, long overdue.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Here are KPFA's current officers and new PNB reps:
LSB chair: Christina Huggins -- UIR/SK
LSB vice chair: Marilyn Langlois -- Rescue Pacifica
LSB secretary: Carol Wolfley -- UIR/SK
LSB treasurer: Sharon Adams -- UIR/SK

KPFA's Pacifica National Board (PNB) reps:
Tom Voorhees -- Rescue Pacifica
Chris Cory -- UIR/SK
Akio Tanaka -- UIR/SK
Sabrina Jacobs -- UIR/SK

The eight RESCUE PACIFICA persons on the KPFA LSB are: Frank Sterling, Marilyn Langlois, Tom Voorhees, Karina Stenquist, Mantra Plonsey, James McFadden, Christine Pepin, and myself Daniel Borgström.


--- --- --- --- --- ---
DANIEL BORGSTRÖM
member of KPFA's Local Station Board
with input from members and supporters of Rescue Pacifica

For updates, reports, audios, & essays about KPFA/Pacifica, please visit these websites:

RESCUE PACIFICA rescuepacifica.net

PACIFICA IN EXILE pacificainexile.org

AUDIO ARCHIVES of LSB meetings kpftx.org

DANIEL'S SITE Daniel's Free Speech Zone



KPFA 94.1 FM is one of five stations of the Pacifica radio network 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 250 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.

takeover of WBAI in New York

The takeover of WBAI in New York: a view from KPFA in California


by Daniel Borgström
October 11, 2019

A few days ago (October 7), people from KPFA took part in a shut down of WBAI 99.5 FM, the Pacifica sister station in New York. This action was done in the name of Pacifica, which owns WBAI as well as KPFA and three other stations, but it was in complete violation of the Pacifica bylaws, and was planned in secret and kept from other board members. The takeover was temporarily halted by a TRO, but the studio was found in disorder, computers and other equipment were missing, though reportedly later recovered. Even pictures were taken from the walls. At a court hearing on October 10th a judge reversed most of the TRO, allowing the intruders to retain control of WBAI's airwaves and play piped in filler music and material from other Pacifica stations, some of which included a KPFA fund drive. So KPFA, a California station, held a fund drive in New York -- for the benefit of KPFA of course. (It will be interesting to see if they harvested anything more than ill will.)

The surprise raid was led by Pacifica's new interim Executive Director, John Vernile, and was assisted by persons from other Pacifica stations. Although people from KPFA do not appear to have been physically at the scene, KPFA's general manager Quincy McCoy was named as "Consulting Programmer of Pacifica Across America," a newly created position.

The idea behind that ham-handed action was supposedly to save the Pacifica network from financial disaster. The financial problems are real, nobody disputes that. None of the five Pacifica stations are doing really well. KPFA has lost a quarter of its membership during the past decade, and it continues to lose listeners; its cash flow shows a $433,000 short fall. Ironically, the only Pacifica station showing signs of improvement is WBAI; its listenership has increased. But whatever WBAI's potential for recovery may have been, it seems pretty well nipped in the bud. And however this turns out, it's going to cost money that Pacifica cannot afford, further dragging the network deeper into the hole.

Even if WBAI could somehow be magically disappeared from the network, a complex host of other problems would remain. Some of these are unique to Pacifica, and some are not. Most non-commercial stations are in trouble these days.

The various reasons seem to be complex. Here in this essay I want to talk about just one particular aspect which I've seen during my 15 years as an observer of KPFA and now a board member. Namely, that KPFA has for many years been living beyond its means. And there's a huge amount of denial about that; it's kind of like trying to tell the CEO of a petroleum company that oil and natural gas need to stay in the ground.

I might call this "Denial in Action." At times it has often looked to me as though this whole insane spending spree were driven by some deliberate force. Can some people really be that incompetent? I often wonder. Well, these are some of my observations going back to 2005. Hopefully this can serve as background to what we're seeing today. I am of course relating my experiences at KPFA, the Pacifica station where I live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Warnings were sounded at least as far back as in 2005 when several board members expressed concern that there were "too many FTEs." It came up during one of the first board meetings I attended, and I remember asking the person next to me what an FTE was. "A full-time equivalent," I was told, and it was afterwards explained to me that the station was acquiring more paid staff than it could afford in the long run. That was detailed in the Local Station Board's Minority Report of September 17, 2005.

In those days the station was actually doing well financially. But according to several board members, LaVarn Williams, Max Blanchet and Marnie Tattersall (all with solid backgrounds in finance), the cost of so much paid staff was not sustainable. KPFA needed to slow down on the hiring, look ahead, and plan accordingly.

Nevertheless, year after year, the warnings were ignored, dismissed, disregarded. Persons expressing them were disparaged, even yelled at. The unsustainable budgets were promoted by "Save KPFA," the slate of board members who represented the station's power clique.

That group has used several names over the years, first it was "KPFA Forward," later "Concerned Listeners," then "SaveKPFA." (They currently use the name UIR, "United for Independent Radio.")

Although SaveKPFA refused to acknowledge publicly that their hiring policy was not sustainable, they seem to have been anticipating a crisis and were prepared to put the blame on others. An intriguing email from that same month of September 2005 turned up as sort of a one-email Wikileak. It's the email which infamously suggested "dismantling the LSB." An even more foreboding line in that same email read: "How do we make our enemies own the problems that are to come?" The author was Brian Edwards-Tiekert, who appeared to be SaveKPFA's chief strategist.

It wasn't just the bloated budgets at KPFA that caused the eventual crisis. There was also SaveKPFA's unholy alliance with JUC, the New York group which was then running WBAI into the ground, generating another financial drain on the Pacifica network. Interestingly, these two groups, SaveKPFA and JUC, seemed to thoroughly dislike each other. Their alliance appears to have been one of convenience, a mutual non-aggression pact, one of shielding each other from oversight. Mismanagement at both stations bled the network.

Several years passed in this irresponsible fashion until the recession of 2008. It hit Pacifica hard, and the inevitable financial crisis was no longer deniable. Even SaveKPFA's Brian Edwards-Tiekert expressed concern and called for layoffs throughout the network. These very necessary cutbacks were carried out at the rest of Pacifica's five stations, but not at KPFA.

It was always difficult, often impossible, to get accurate, detailed information from the SaveKPFA-dominated management. In 2005, board members LaVarn Williams and Richard Phelps spent over a year fighting SaveKPFA to get access to financial records of the foundation. They won that battle, but the war went on. In 2008 SaveKPFA's Dan Siegel illegally stopped an inspection. The power clique did not willingly allow access to information; board members outside the inner circle continued to be denied it.

For most of the decade up until 2009, the Pacifica National Board (PNB) was dominated by SaveKPFA and its allies, but in that year they were voted out and the new Executive Director and CFO were chosen from the opposition. SaveKPFA then launched a disinformation campaign against the Pacifica Foundation. On August 6, 2009, there was a front page article in the Berkeley Daily Planet accusing Pacifica of improperly taking $100K from KPFA. That news leak came from Brian Edwards-Tiekert, the treasurer. But on investigation it was found that no such "raid" on KPFA's money had occurred. The newspaper printed a retraction, but SaveKPFA continued to spread the story, despite its having been exposed as false. Then LSB chair Conn Hallinan, who certainly must have known better, wrote an email accusing Pacifica of "an old fashioned smash and grab" on KPFA's funds.

That was the beginning of a swiftboating campaign against Pacifica in which the SaveKPFA group worked to conjure up images of 1999, portraying Pacifica as the bad guy, the beast, the oppressor and exploiter of KPFA. It was at that time that the group took the name "SaveKPFA," stealing it from an opposition group of the early 1990s. Members of the original 1993 Save KPFA group were outraged and objected strenuously. But the new "SaveKPFA" continued to use its ill-gotten name.

At the end of 2009 it was discovered that a $375,000 check had been left in a drawer until after it expired. KPFA's then General Manager, Lemlem Rijio, took the fall for that and was fired. But it seems highly unlikely that she was the only one who knew about that "forgotten" check.

"How could anyone forget a six-figure check!" KPFA activists asked. Some suspected the "oversight" was intentional and that SaveKPFA folks were deliberately working to bankrupt Pacifica in order to acquire KPFA. Until then, few had openly expressed such suspicions. But after that "forgotten" check-in-the-drawer incident, many of us concluded that if SaveKPFA were not actually planning some such scenario, then it could only be surmised that they were destroying both KPFA and Pacifica out of sheer stupidity.

That was in 2010. Disaster was averted that year, though not without a huge fight. For now, let's fast-forward to 2015: SaveKPFA and its allies were back in charge of KPFA/Pacifica, again pushing the network towards financial extinction. We discovered that Dan Siegel and another prominent SaveKPFA member, Margy Wilkinson, had secretly created, filed and registered a corporation, complete with articles of incorporation, which they named the "KPFA Foundation." It appears that Siegel and Wilkinson created this clandestine "KPFA Foundation" for the purpose of privately taking over KPFA's radio license and real estate assets upon the dissolution of the Pacifica Foundation. In short, it was a plan to steal KPFA/Pacifica.

Strange things continued. In 2015 General Manager Quincy McCoy canceled the summer's fund drive when KPFA had received two large bequests, enabling the station to skip the drive. It seemed as though the station were suddenly awash in money. However, it turned out that $400,000 of the bequest money was specifically intended for the Pacifica National Office, and was improperly diverted to KPFA by members of SaveKPFA. That wrongful diversion of funds intensified the chaos in a system that was far from robust.

Meanwhile, there's the matter of the station's programming, which traditionally had been staunchly antiwar. However, the station has been moving towards the right, increasingly echoing neoliberal/neocon narratives of "humanitarian" intervention. Several programs have been taken off the air, most famously "Guns and Butter," which was disappeared along with its 17-year archive. "Counterspin," "Discrete Music," and "Twit Wit Radio" have also been taken down and replaced by greatly watered-down fare.

We've been waiting fearfully to see which radical KPFA program would be next on the chopping block. It turns out they were aiming for bigger game -- they went clear across the continent, all the way to New York, and shut down Pacifica sister station WBAI 99.5 FM.

DANIEL BORGSTRÖM
member of KPFA's Local Station Board,

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KPFA's ‘Rescue Pacifica’ candidates stand with WBAI against takeover
October 10, 2019

by Rescue Pacifica rescuepacifica.net

Statement by ‘Rescue Pacifica’ candidates for the KPFA Local Station Board in Support of WBAI

Rescue Pacifica vigorously condemns the shutdown of KPFA’s sister station WBAI in New York City. On Oct. 7, there was an attempt by Pacifica’s interim executive director (iED) to close the station and terminate all WBAI staff.

This surprise attack took place early in the morning in the middle of WBAI’s fall fund drive, as well as the voting period for the Local Station Board elections. It is completely at odds with what democratic, transparent and responsible governance should look like and contrary to Pacifica’s original grassroots mission.

Later that day a New York judge issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) preventing iED John Vernile from dismissing the staff and interfering with the station’s operations, pending a hearing to be held on Oct. 18.

On October 10, the iED and six Pacifica National Board members went to court and won an order to partially “vacate” the TRO, giving control of the station’s airwaves and website back to them. The judge also ruled that they still did not have the authority to summarily fire WBAI’s staff pending the October 18th hearing.

For long-time KPFA supporters, the attack on WBAI should bring back unhappy memories of the 1999 takeover attempt at KPFA. The cast of characters is different this time, but the objective appears to be the same – to replace local community-based hosts with shows piped-in from elsewhere, and perhaps to eventually sell the station’s valuable broadcast frequency.

The attack on WBAI is the latest in a series of recent undemocratic actions to happen recently at the network. A group calling itself “Restructure Pacifica” has been circulating a petition to replace the present bylaws with a system that would eliminate listener-elected Local Station Boards. There is also an attempt underway to remove KPFA board member Tom Voorhees from the Pacifica National Board, despite Tom’s unequaled knowledge of radio.

Rescue Pacifica‘s listener candidates are Tom Voorhees, Marilyn Langlois, Karina Stenquist, Christine Pepin, Mantra Plonsey, and Don Macleay. Our staff candidates are Ann Garrison and Steve Zeltzer.

There will be an emergency WBAI town hall meeting on Sunday, October 13, at the ATRIUM at 60 Wall Street, NYC, starting at 1 p.m.


for more info:

RESCUE PACIFICA rescuepacifica.net

PACIFICA IN EXILE pacificainexile.org



KPFA 94.1 FM is one of five stations of the Pacifica radio network 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 250 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.

KPFA's manager attends a board meeting

Between the Minutes on March 14, 2009

by Daniel Borgström


KPFA's General Manager, Lemlem Rijio, paid a rare visit and gave a manager's report at the public Local Station Board (LSB) meeting of March 14th. Actually, it's part of the manager's job to attend every LSB meeting.

Some of the board members seem to have no problem with Lemlem Rijio's noncompliance in this and other matters. The Sherry Gendelman faction, which call themselves the "Concerned Listeners" (CL'ers) (later "Save KPFA"), give uncritical support to Lemlem and the rest of the KPFA management.

But not all of the board is inclined to sign blank checks. There is an opposition, members who see themselves as continuing the legacy of 1999, and they began raising issues and asking penetrating questions. These were, in order of speakers, Gerald Sanders, Shahram Aghamir, Chandra Hauptman, Tracy Rosenberg, Joe Wanzala, Aki Tanaka, Anthony Fest, Henry Norr, and Sureya Sayadi.

"You can't spend money you don't have," cautioned Listener Rep Gerald Sanders. Gerald was referring to the financial mess that KPFA/Pacific is now in. Warren Mar, the CL'er who chaired this meeting, cut in and spoke for Lemlem: "She already knows that!" he said. "Knowing it isn't enough," said Gerald, "You need to act on it."

Staff Rep Shahram Aghamir asked if the station is still employing consultants. "Yes, we still have consultants," Lemlem replied. "How much is being spent on the consultants?" Shahram asked, and, not getting a satisfactory answer, he repeated his question. Finally, Lemlem said: "I will send you a confidential email." She did not explain why the amount spent on consultants had to be confidential.

Listener Rep Chandra Hauptman requested that management not schedule CAB meetings at the same time as the LSB. Some people wished to attend both, Chandra told her, so the two should not be in conflict. Lemlem said okay and asked when the LSB meets--a question that elicited a few laughs since the manager receives all notices of meetings.

"Looking at the budget," said Listener Rep Tracy Rosenberg. "Have we touched our reserve to pay for the deficit the station is running?" Lemlem's answer was "Not yet."

Tracy also asked about the station's personnel policies. She reminded Lemlem that the LSB had, in October 2008, passed a resolution requiring that the information be made available to the board. The manager replied that she would need to consult the corporate counsel to discuss what role the board played in personnel matters and in changing such documents.

"You're not answering the question," Tracy told the manager. "I asked to see the documents, not change the documents."

When Anthony Fest, a KPFA newscaster and staff rep, asked Lemlem why the Program Council was no longer meeting, her reply was surprisingly revealing. "Well," she said, "the Program Council was spending time discussing whether or not it had decision-making power and of course it doesn't--that's management's job--so we stopped it." In May 2004 the LSB had passed a resolution reaffirming the Program Council's decision making powers so that abrupt, secretive programming decisions like this wouldn't take place, but management has in effect disbanded the Program Council.

Anthony also brought up management's de-recognition of the UnPaid Staff Organization (UPSO), and got the usual excuse--that UPSO was "disorganized." The 1999 lockout had inspired the unpaid volunteers into wrestling themselves into a fairly successful organization until polarizing efforts actively worked against it. It was in August 2007 that Lemlem issued a memo withdrawing recognition. The LSB at that time passed a resolution calling on management to recognize UPSO, but the resolution was ignored. The Pacifica National Board also passed such a resolution, also ignored.

In addition to Anthony Fest, several other board members also asked Lemlem about UPSO and the Program Council, but did not get satisfactory replies. Finally, Henry Norr, a listener rep and former SF Chronicle science columnist, spoke. "Your non-responsiveness to this board--" Henry began, and frankly told the manager she was showing disrespect to the board by not attending these LSB meetings, and by not giving straightforward answers to questions asked. He summed up what had been said by other board members, and added another example--the ongoing difficulty of getting announcements for demonstrationx and community events aired on KPFA--despite a board resolution to simplify that process. "Nothing has changed," Henry said, and laid the mike back on the table.

The audience--about a dozen listeners and staff--burst out with spontaneous applause. Before Lemlem could respond, Warren Mar, the CL'er who was chairing the meeting, cut in and barked out angrily, "That was a personal attack!" then added, "That was a speech, not a question!"

A moment later Vice Chairman Mar was engaged in a yelling match with members of the audience. Then he called a ten minute break.

The session with the General Manager resumed after the break. Listener Rep Sureya Sayadi took up the mike and rebuked Vice Chairman Mar: "Lemlem has a right to speak for herself," Sureya told the chair. "You don't need to protect her. You minimize her when you try to speak for her. You minimize her when you try to protect her."

Lemlem Rijio was appointed General Manager of KPFA last October--less than a month after a "Statement of No Confidence" in her management style was signed by 74 members of the KPFA staff. Before that Lemlem had been the interim GM for two and a half years, since April 2006.



UPDATE August 2010

The "Concerned Listeners" have appropriated the name "Save KPFA" -- a name belonging to the group of activists who fought for listener democracy during most of the 1990's. Their name "Save KPFA" is legendary, inappropriate for the "Concerned Listeners", a group whose purpose is diametrically opposite.

Save KPFA--hijacking a legendary name

Update: The Concerned Listener"/"SaveKPFA" faction now calls itself the "Protectors."


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