Month: September 2012

For real change, vote for all 9 SaveKPFA candidates in KPFA’s local board election

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KPFA on the air
Art by Bob Baldock for the film "KPFA on the Air"

[UPDATE: Ballots in the KPFA election mailed Nov 6 from New York. If you don’t get yours by Nov 13, email election@kpfa.org and request a duplicate ballot. Votes are due Dec 11.] Check out the 9 wonderful activists running as SaveKPFA candidates in this fall’s KPFA Local Station Board Election: Craig Alderson, Paula Errkila, Jose Luis Fuentes-Roman, Kate Gowen, Mark Hernandez, Dan Siegel, Carole Travis, Barbara Whipperman and Burton White.

Between them, they have a wealth of background in radio, nonprofit administration, fundraising, labor, grassroots organizing, and social and economic justice movements. They come from around the Bay Area and beyond, all enthusiastic listeners of KPFA who want to make a positive difference in its future.

Read SaveKPFA‘s election platform, What We Stand For, which includes: • Restore local control at KPFA • Ensure high quality, progressive programming • Respect KPFA’s listeners • Support KPFA’s staff • Require transparency and accountability from Pacifica.

Please distribute widely — let your friends and neighbors know that this vote will be crucial for KPFA’s future. Let’s elect all 9 SaveKPFA candidates and get KPFA and the Pacifica network back on track!

We welcome endorsements from all members of the KPFA community – listeners, staff, writers, artists, community and labor activists, etc.  Click here to add your name.

9/13/12: Last day to join KPFA to vote in fall elections

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Changing the dynamic at Pacifica Radio is up for a vote in this fall’s election for Local Station Board members at KPFA and the other four Pacifica stations. In order to participate in these upcoming elections, you need to be a member of your local Pacifica station as of Thursday, September 13. The minimum membership contribution is $25 between Sept 13, 2011 and Sept 13, 2012.

At KPFA, if you haven’t made a donation between those dates, you can do so  by paying online with a credit or debit card at https://secure.kpfa.org/support. A pledge by itself is insufficient; you must actually have paid your pledge by close of business September 13 to be eligible to vote. So please don’t delay!

If you aren’t in the Bay Area, you can support Pacifica stations that you listen to in other areas. If you are a New York City listener, become a member of Pacifica’s WBAI. In Los Angeles, it’s Pacifica’s KPFK. In Washington, DC, jazz and public affairs fans alike pledge to Pacifica’s WPFW. And in Houston, Pacifica’s outlet is KPFT.

Mark your calendars: recall ballot count in court Sept. 11

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Pacifica treasurer Tracy Rosenberg filed suit last month to halt the recall vote count, charging that Pacifica had delayed the vote too long. The recall was initiated nearly a year ago when over 800 KPFA listeners signed SaveKPFA petitions demanding a recall vote on Rosenberg. Over our repeated protests, Pacifica delayed the recall election past December 31, 2011 — which was the date called for in its own rules and bylaws.

Now Rosenberg is asking a judge to throw the recall out, and for Pacifica to pay her attorneys’ fees, because of the delays. But Pacifica’s legal counsel Andrew Gold writes in an August 27 brief to the court that Rosenberg “is complicit in the actions of the PNB that caused the delay in the selection of an election supervisor and thus the delay in the distribution of ballots. As a result, she cannot benefit from that delay.”

“Plaintiff Rosenberg participated in all of the PNB meetings where the recall election was discussed,” writes Gold, “and personally opposed one of the proposed election supervisors….Despite her intimate knowledge of the procedures, and her involvement in all of the decisions being made, Ms. Rosenberg never objected to the delay in appointing an election supervisor, never raised any issue concerning the record date…and never questioned the timing of the distribution of the ballots. Instead, she waited until the very end of the process to file her complaint.” | READ MORE at the court’s website; enter case number RG12641585. (Gold’s brief is dated 8/27/12 and titled Opposition to Application for Preliminary Injunction Filed.)

NOTE DATE CHANGE: The case will be heard on Tuesday, September 11 at 2:30pm in D-514 in the Hayward Hall of Justice (directions). The public is welcome to attend, so mark your calendars!

In early August, a large number of ballots was picked up by the election supervisor from the Berkeley Post Office, and as witnesses watched, transferred under court order to safe deposit boxes at nearby banks (see photo here).