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

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.

Is there now censorship at KPFA?

David Gans, host of Dead to the World

Station management inflicted another serious wound to KPFA’s goal of honest, free speech radio last week when it dropped a disciplinary letter and gag order on unpaid music programmer David Gans.

Gans made brief comments during his August 10 show that were critical of management, eliciting a written warning from interim program director Carrie Core not to discuss “internal issues.” Gans published his comments and Core’s letter on his blog, calling the incident “another salvo in an ongoing battle for the soul of KPFA,” and urging listeners to sign the recall petition against Tracy Rosenberg, a key supporter of management.

“Managers freely broadcast their own anti-union positions and Pacifica’s,” noted KPFAWorker.org, “but slap ‘disciplinary actions’ or gag rules on KPFA’s workers when they speak their minds about the radio network they have labored to build over decades.” Disciplinary letters have also been sent in recent months by Core to paid staffers Mitch Jeserich, John Hamilton and Mark Mericle for reporting on layoffs at the station.

Sonali Kolkathar, host of Uprising

Core also said she’s going to remove the popular Saturday morning program Uprising, hosted by Sonali Kolhatkar. A veteran Pacifica journalist working out of KPFK in Los Angeles, Kolhatkar has made several on-air statements of solidarity with KPFA’s workers.

What would replace Uprising? A “labor show” by management ally Steve Zeltzer. As KPFAWorker notes, “the same managers who supported paying over $70,000 to fight the station’s union workers” put Zeltzer forward to replace respected KPFA producer David Bacon.” Like most unpaid staff at the station, Bacon has refused to cooperate with management’s replacement of union staffers.