The results in KPFA’s 2012 Local Station Board election are in and certified. SaveKPFA candidates took 6 of the 9 listener-elected seats, plus the top alternate position. KPFA’s elections use a proportional representation system, so taking two-thirds of the open seats means SaveKPFA won roughly two-thirds of the vote — a strong mandate from KPFA’s listeners, who had by far the highest turnout rate in the 5-station Pacifica network.
The winning candidates from SaveKPFA are Dan Siegel, Craig Alderson, Mark Hernandez, Jose Luis Fuentes, Carole Travis and Burton White. The first alternative is SaveKPFA‘s Barbara Whipperman.
“This vote was a referendum on Pacifica’s direction,” said Alderson. “KPFA’s listeners spoke loud and clear for local control, high-quality programming, and against Pacifica’s attacks on KPFA’s union.”
The election was the first held at KPFA since Pacifica’s former Executive Director Arlene Engelhardt ran out KPFA’s local management, purged the station’s popular Morning Show, replaced it with an all-volunteer lineup, and then put notorious union-busting law firmJackson Lewis on retainer to deal with the backlash. In 2012, the Pacifica National Board decided to let Engelhardt’s employment contract expire.
Three listeners from the competing United for Community Radio slate were also elected: Andrea Pritchett, Ramses Teon Nichols and Laurence Shoup.
“Although we have differences of vision, everyone in this campaign ran because they care about KPFA,” said SaveKPFA member Margy Wilkinson, who is currently serving as chair of the Local Station Board. “KPFA’s listeners have made clear which vision they prefer; now it’s up to all of us to find common ground to move forward.”
In the staff portion of the Local Station Board election, former Morning Show co-host (and current UpFront co-host) Brian Edwards-Tiekert took first place, followed by Joy Moore and Frank Sterling.
Thanks, voters, for delivering the strongest mandate possible for local autonomy, respect for listeners and staff, and transparency and accountability! We congratulate those who won, as well as those who ran — including SaveKPFA candidates Paula Erkkila, Kate Gowen and Barbara Whipperman — all of whom dedicated significant time and energy to the process.
What’s next? Elections at other Pacifica stations are still underway — their outcomes will determine whether or not SaveKPFA can join a majority coalition on the Pacifica National Board (PNB), whose members are elected by each of its stations’ local boards. The composition of the incoming PNB will be determined over the next two weeks.
The stakes are high: the departure of Pacifica Executive Director Arlene Engelhardt and Chief Financial Officer LaVarn Williams leaves the network’s top two management positions open, to be filled by the incoming board. We’ll keep you posted once we know what that board looks like.
This month, KPFA is going through what will probably prove to be one of the most important elections of its 10-year experiment with democracy. I’m supporting the candidates listed at www.savekpfa.org, along with many other endorsers, because what’s at stake is the survival of KPFA as we know it.
Right now, KPFA is slowly recovering from a near-mortal blow. When Pacifica purged The Morning Show two years ago, it removed KPFA’s biggest fundraiser from the air. To compensate, the station had to increase the amount of days it spends in fund drives by 30%–a sure recipe for dropping listenership and diminishing pledge totals.
Then, Pacifica racked up hundreds of thousands in legal fees—some from the country’s most notoriously anti-union law firm, Jackson Lewis—and stuck KPFA with most of the bills.
Thanks to heroic fundraising efforts by KPFA’s staff, the generosity of KPFA listeners who kept donating, some of them under protest, and to a fortuitous bequest gift, we’ve made it this far—barely.
And, against the odds, we’ve started to re-build.
Thanks to our union, several of us won reinstatement after Pacifica’s purge. With support from local management, we launched UpFront—KPFA’s new 7:AM program. Since day one, we’ve been the station’s top fundraiser—and thanks to the boost in morning fundraising, KPFA’s fund drives are now raising more money per day, and ending sooner. Meanwhile:
·A SaveKPFA campaign forced Pacifica to ditch Jackson Lewis—which should prevent further inflated legal bills.
·Another SaveKPFA campaign fended off a move by Pacifica management to impose another disastrous round of cuts on KPFA.
·Now, the Pacifica National Board has apparently seen the light—they decided to let go of the two executives who carried out the Morning Show purge in the first place.
KPFA is still extremely fragile, but we are headed in the right direction. And that is largely thanks to the fact that we’ve had SaveKPFA boardmembers supporting us every step of the way.
The dividing line on KPFA’s board is this: austerity vs. growth.
On the growth side: SaveKPFA thinks the way to build KPFA is by building great programs that attract large audiences so there are more people to give come pledge drive. We already know what success looks like: KPFA’s two newest daily programs, Letters and Politics and UpFront, are also its two largest fundraisers, bringing in far more than they cost to produce. Together, those two hours account for over a third of KPFA’s fundraising. Building on those successes with more cutting-edge programming is the key to strengthening KPFA.
As for austerity: this year, its champions are calling themselves “United for Community Radio.” Of course, they never use the word “austerity” – but rest assured, when you hear them call for “financial responsibility” and “supporting unpaid staff”, it translates to firing KPFA’s unionized programmers and parceling out the airtime to their allies. Some of them are philosophically opposed to paying people to produce daily shows–they’d rather KPFA sound like a volunteer-run local-access cable station. Others have axes to grind with specific programmers on KPFA’s payroll, and use the station’s finances as a pretext – which is how The Morning Show got targeted, despite the fact that it was the station’s biggest fundraiser.
Their incumbents have had two years to prove exactly what they stand for. When our union protested impending cuts, they came to counter-protest. When Pacifica fired the entire staff of The Morning Show, they supported it (at least one of them, it turned out, had been pushing behind closed doors to have Pacifica cut us). When Pacifica hired the nation’s most notorious union-busting law firm to fight us, they publicly defended it. When KPFA’s local management proposed a balanced, no-cuts budget, they boycotted a meeting to block its passage – even though KPFA was running a surplus.
Does that mean everyone running on their ticket supports more of the same? Not necessarily. There are a lot of new faces in the election this year, and they don’t all necessarily understand what they’ve signed up for. But the first thing they’ll do once they’re on KPFA’s Local Board is vote to send their slate-mates to the Pacifica National Board, where the real power lies. And those slate-mates will make their worst decisions behind closed doors in Executive Session meetings, where there’s very little accountability.
Again, the record speaks for itself: For four years, the “United for Community Radio” (UCR, ICR) precursor slates have been in a majority coalition on the Pacifica National Board. They, and the executives they’ve installed, have left Pacifica a hollowed-out wreck: with millions in unpaid bills, corporate law firms baying at the door, a finance office now incapable of handling even simple payroll transactions, workers’ own contributions to their retirement accounts undeposited (for several months now), donor checks meant for KPFA intercepted and kept away from the station for months.
Now is the chance to turn things around: Next year’s boards will choose a new manager and program director for KPFA, as well as a new Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer for Pacifica. It’s a chance to put the entire Pacifica network on the right track – if SaveKPFA scores a solid win.
KPFA elections have low turnout, and tend to be decided by relatively small margins, which means every vote counts a lot. Please spread the word to KPFA members to vote for the candidates listed at savekpfa.org. And if you’re a voter yourself, return your ballot now so you don’t forget.
For the first election ever, Pacifica is not allowing any in-person ballot drop-offs—you have to mail your ballot. That ballot has to arrive at the ballot-counting location in New York by December 11. It will be competing with holiday mail traffic to get there, so send it now.
Brian Edwards-Tiekert is co-host of KPFA’s UpFront, which airs weekday mornings at 7:AM. He’s served two terms as a worker-elected representative on the KPFA Local Station Board. [This essay originally appeared in Fog City Journal.]
