KPFA listeners

New programming a hit, permanent KPFA manager expected to be appointed soon

by

With this spring’s new majority on the Pacifica National Board and Reese’s ouster last month, the network is moving forward once again.

uprisingAfter special broadcasts of Sonali Kolhatkar‘s Uprising Radio pushed KPFA’s spring fund drive far above its goal, the station’s interim general manager Richard Pirodsky added the program to KPFA’s morning lineup at 8am, following the very popular UpFront with Brian Edwards-Tiekert at 7am. Along with Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! at 9am, and Mitch Jeserich’s Letters & Politics at 10am, the drive time programming has been overwhelmingly popular with listeners, and is important in giving the station a sound financial footing, at a time when it one of the few of the five Pacifica-owned stations not in the red. The Morning Mix hosts are now broadcasting in the afternoon.

If you haven’t yet, please drop KPFA’s manager, Richard Pirodsky, a thank you note at richard@kpfa.org, and cc us at votesavekpfa@gmail.com.

Word is that the new interim executive director appointed by the national board, Bernard Duncan, is on the verge of announcing a new permanent KPFA general manager for KPFA from among three finalists.

Staff and community members who were introduced to these finalists during a “meet and greet” session in May have described each of them as “excellent,” “outstanding” and “promising.” This exciting development is long overdue. The Local Station Board chose the finalists and submitted their names back in November 2013 to Pacifica’s then-interim executive director, who failed to fulfill her obligation hire one.

“After an era period of transient managers and interference by Pacifica administrators with their own agendas,” said Local Station Board secretary Craig Alderson, “we’re now looking forward to a permanent general manager, vetted by local representatives, who will actually be able to address the KPFA’s critical issues instead of just treading water. We’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

Banning dissent at Pacifica?

by

Before votes in KPFA’s local board election are even counted, Tracy Rosenberg and her allies at the national level continue to do damage to Pacifica’s structure and mission. Earlier this week, the Pacifica National Board, which is dominated by Rosenberg and her allies, passed a measure that prohibits those who dissent from Rosenberg’s agenda from serving on local or national boards.

“The resolution banning those deemed ‘disloyal’ which was presented to the board by Tracy is pure McCarthy era,” noted Sasha Futran, KPFA’s former Local Station Board vice chair. “The appeal process is a sham, as any appeals would go to the very people who took after them for political reasons in the first place. This is the kind of divisiveness that is tearing Pacifica apart. Tracy has a big hand, perhaps the biggest, in that process,” added Futran, who was a member of Rosenberg’s slate at one time, before leaving it to join SaveKPFA.

Listeners pledging for KPFA Morning Show
A few of the hundreds of KPFA listeners who pledged to help bring back the Morning Show in 2011.

The measure is aimed squarely at 4 SaveKPFA members — Margy Wilkinson, Dan Siegel, Mal Burnstein and Conn Hallinan — for their role in collecting over $60,000 in pledges to restore the KPFA Morning Show and rehire its laid off co-hosts back in 2010-2011. They raised only pledges of support, not actual money. Nevertheless, the “Morning Show 4” were slapped with a lawsuit by Rosenberg allies Richard Phelps and Daniel Borgstrom, who allege such fundraising activity was “disloyal” to Pacifica. Phelps and Borgstrom are demanding these four listeners pay Pacifica “damages” of $800,000.

The proposal from Pacifica’s governance committee would ban anyone whose actions have been declared by a court of law to be breaches of “loyalty,” “fiduciary duty,” or “duty of care” from holding any office in Pacifica. Rosenberg has been publicly predicting victory in the Morning Show 4 case, and it’s transparent her intent is to get rid of her political opponents.

“Do you have any conscience?” wrote one KFPA listener to Rosenberg recently when the lawsuit came up for public discussion recently. “You’re supporting a horrendous attack on 4 KPFA listeners who were simply trying, like generations before them, to support KPFA in a time of crisis.”

Rosenberg’s allies have been issuing gag rules against KPFA’s unpaid and paid staff; now they are going after listeners too. “Banning people, gag rules, anti-union law firms eating up the station’s cash — where have we heard this before?” asked KPFA listener Alison Davis. “In 1999, the last time the network was taken over.”

ACTION ALERT: IT’S TIME TO SPEAK UP! Please take a minute to send an email to Pacifica’s board members demanding they rescind this “loyalty” measure immediately. CLICK HERE to send a sample email (or write your own): “Branding dedicated KPFA members as ‘disloyal’ because they asked for pledges of support for KPFA programming is truly appalling. For the 10 PNB members who opposed this measure: thank you for upholding the spirit of Pacifica. For those who voted for it: I demand that you rescind this McCarthyite loyalty measure immediately and stop trying to punish dedicated members simply because you disagree with them.”

This is about KPFA’s foundational principles of free speech and political dissent. “If a measure like this actually ends up being adopted, Pacifica’s founder Lew Hill would not even recognize the radio network he created,” added Futran.

KPFA’s Tracy Rosenberg promoted and voted for the “disloyalty” measure, which was written by WBAI delegates Kathy Davis and Alex Steinberg and KPFT delegate Bill Crosier.

Rosenberg sues over KPFA recall, ballot count delayed

by

It’s been almost a year since SaveKPFA submitted over 800 signatures from KPFA listener-members seeking the removal of Pacifica Treasurer Tracy Rosenberg — the architect of Pacifica’s purge of the Morning Show. Against our wishes, and over our repeated protests, Pacifica delayed the recall election past December 31 — which was the date called for in its own rules and bylaws. That bought Rosenberg’s supporters six months to raise money for a “no” campaign mailing.

In a bizarre turn of events, Rosenberg has now sued Pacifica over that very delay. Her legal argument? That the gap between the voter eligibility deadline Pacifica set when it verified the recall petitions, and the date Pacifica actually mailed the ballots, is too long. Her suit asks for the recall election to be thrown out altogether, and asks the judge to make Pacifica pay her attorneys’ fees. Don’t expect Pacifica’s attorneys to defend this one too vigorously…

On August 1, an Alameda County Superior Court judge issued a temporary order to place all recall ballots under seal until a hearing on Rosenberg’s lawsuit, now scheduled for September 10. On August 4, SaveKPFA observers documented the retrieval of recall ballots from a Berkeley PO box, and their sequestration in a nearby safe deposit box. They report what appears to be a VERY LARGE number of ballots waiting to be counted (see photo at above). SaveKPFA offers a few thoughts on these latest developments:

  • Rosenberg could have raised her procedural concerns much sooner — perhaps even before ballots were mailed. The suit doesn’t appear to be the action of someone who wants a smooth election process, but rather that of someone seeking maximum delay.
  • Rosenberg filed the suit just before ballots were to be counted, and sought an order to prevent the counting itself (rather than to prevent Pacifica from acting on whatever the count was). This indicates Rosenberg expected to lose the vote count.
  • Any remedy likely to come from her lawsuit — including an entirely new election — is unlikely to produce a different result. So Rosenberg appears to be playing for time.

Rosenberg told the East Bay Express that the vote was too expensive, but KPFA listener-member Mark Spindler told the Daily Californian that “the question should be why is Pacifica teaming with anti-union attorneys” to use donations to fight listeners and staff. He added that Rosenberg “needs to be held accountable for what she has done, and this recall is the vehicle for that.”