KPFA donors file complaint against Pacifica with Attorney General over recall vote

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Charging that the Pacifica Foundation has failed to follow its own rules in holding a listener-prompted recall election, a group of KPFA listeners has filed a formal complaint with the state Attorney General‘s office, which oversees California nonprofits.

“It’s ironic and disturbing to see these tactics from a network founded to uphold progressive values of free speech and participatory democracy,” said Ying Lee, a longtime Berkeley activist and KPFA supporter. “Whatever their views on station politics, listeners should be outraged by Pacifica’s flagrant violation of its own bylaws.”

In September, hundreds of KPFA members signed petitions calling for the recall of Tracy Rosenberg, who serves as treasurer of the Pacifica National Board. Among other things, Rosenberg was the architect of Pacifica’s destruction of what was the station’s top fundraiser — the KPFA Morning Show.  She also pushed through measures that denied KPFA’s elected representatives their seats on the Pacifica National Board until they were overturned by court injunction. Read KPFA Local Station Board chair Margy Wilkinson‘s YES on KPFA recall, as delivered to the Marin Peace and Justice Coalition.

KPFA management certified the signatures as valid on November 1, triggering a December 31 deadline — under Pacifica’s own rules — to mail recall ballots to all KPFA listener-members. But no ballots were ever sent.

That may change soon:  SaveKPFA filed its complaint with the Attorney General on Tuesday, February 28. By Wednesday, Pacifica National Board chair Summer Reese indicated she was prepared to hire someone to run the election, and that ballots would be mailed soon — but she did not specify when.

KPFA on the brink: pledge drive falls $125,000 short

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Recall endoser Larry Bensky with KPFA's Antonio Ortiz & John Hamilton
Recall endoser Larry Bensky with KPFA's Antonio Ortiz & John Hamilton

The station ended its Winter Fund Drive one week ago, $125,000 short of its pledge goal. This is sad news for everyone who cares about KPFA, and it underscores the importance of change at Pacifica.

Pacifica’s re-programming of 6-10 AM is behind the shortfall. Those time slots used to raise 40% of KPFA’s total pledges. Since the destruction of the Morning Show, that’s dropped by more than half. For a time, station management was able to offset the plunge by lengthening fund drives, but they’ve run into diminishing returns from that strategy. (This year’s Winter Fund Drive ran 24 days, a whopping 50% increase from the length of the last Winter Fund Drive before the Morning Show was axed).

By any measure, the morning lineup that Pacifica imposed on KPFA has been a catastrophic failure. But instead of fixing it, Rosenberg, and the Pacifica managers she backs, are still defending it. They rejected over $63,000 that SaveKPFA raised to pay for the reinstatement of the Morning Show. They spent more money on lawyers to fight Morning Show co-host Aimee Allison‘s reinstatement than it would have cost to keep her on payroll for a year. And they’ll keep doing it until KPFA’s voting members call them to account.

Democracy when? Still no ballots and paychecks bouncing

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Still nothing from Pacifica on when ballots will go out in the  recall of Tracy Rosenberg. As a reminder: Pacifica’s own rules for recall elections required it to send out ballots no later than December 30, 2011. That’s nearly 6 weeks ago!

One thing Pacifica’s delay has accomplished (probably by design): it’s bought Rosenberg time to build a campaign machine, and for the Pacifica-imposed interim manager at KPFA to start using station resources to support her efforts.

Thank you to those who have signed the online petition (over 1100 currently) or written letters to Pacifica demanding an impartial recall supervisor. SaveKPFA is also considering legal options for forcing Pacifica to comply with its own rules.

Now Pacifica’s bouncing paychecks, too
KPFAWorker.org has published an email from KPFA’s union, CWA Local 9415, sent to Pacifica management. The message spoke to two issues: bounced paychecks and the network’s illegal withholding of retirement contributions. Several employees across Pacifica’s stations — including one at KPFA — took their paychecks to the bank in January and got nothing to show for it but a bounced check fee. There’s been no explanation from management to staff about why it happened, or what Pacifica is doing to prevent a recurrence. Bouncing paychecks is a criminal offense.

This comes on the heels of revelations by KPFA’s union last fall that Pacifica had been diverting workers’ contributions to their retirement plans in order to pay other bills. At the time, Pacifica promised workers it would 1) catch up on payments to their accounts — which it eventually did, 2) pay them the legal minimum interest rate on the catch up payments — which it hasn’t yet, and 3) make timely contributions in the future. On that last point, KPFA workers report that their retirement accounts should have had two deposits from Pacifica in January — they’ve had none.