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