All are welcome at the next KPFA Local Station Board meeting, which is scheduled for Saturday, October 18 from 11am to 4 pm at 100 Oak Street in Oakland (that’s the SEIU Local 1021 office). You can find details, including an agenda here.
And don’t miss KPFA’s legendary Crafts Fair scheduled for the weekend of December 20-21. The fair is returning to the East Bay after 20 years in San Francisco, to the stunning Craneway Pavilion on the Richmond waterfront. Be there!
A motion demanding that the former interim executive Summer Reese, who is sleeping at Pacifica’s National Office, “leave peacefully,” passed the KPFA Local Station Board overwhelmingly by a vote of 10-5 on April 12. Those voting against the motion were Cynthia Johnson, Andrea Pritchett, Frank Sterling, Ramses Teon-Nichols and David Welsh.
Board members were responding to the flood of emails and comments about the situation, including a petition signed by over 700 listeners and staff. | LISTEN to the LSB meeting: part a, part b, part c
Meanwhile, the Pacifica National Board met on Monday, April 14 in executive session and issued this report out, which says that due to “pending litigation” the board adjourned to a separate phone number to discuss the lawsuit against Pacifica “without any of the 9 named plaintiffs in the lawsuit monitoring the call.”
That’s the lawsuit we reported on last week, which board members supporting Summer Reese filed with an Alameda County judge. The judge denied their request for a Temporary Restraining Order, and set a hearing for May 6. On Monday’s call, the board authorized Pacifica’s interim executive director Bernard Duncan and/or PNB chair Margy Wilkinson to decide who to retain to defend Pacifica against the suit.
Wilkinson has said that she hoped the plaintiffs would “express dissent with their voices and their votes, not litigation. Pacifica is in a fragile state, and can’t afford the time or expense of this lawsuit.”
Reese and her supporters — most notably Rosenberg — have responded to Reese’s termination by fabricating stories of corruption at KPFA, including the bizarre charge that KPFA has kept its finances secret.
For the record: KPFA’s most recent FINANCIAL REPORTS are publicly available here, and show the station outperforming its budget for this year. Also, if anything were being concealed, responsibility would lie with the person in charge — which, for the past year and a half, has been Reese.
If wild accusations are landing in your email box, you may want to remember that Rosenberg was formally censured by KPFA’s Local Station Board for misappropriating subscribers’ email addresses. Even though the board called on her to destroy then, these addresses may still be in Rosenberg’s possession. If you are receiving unwanted emails, you may wish to file a complaint with Rosenberg’s email provider, Salsa Labs, or with the Federal Trade Commission — the directions are in this story about Rosenberg’s deceptive email practices.