tracy rosenberg

Mark your calendars: recall ballot count in court Sept. 11

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Pacifica treasurer Tracy Rosenberg filed suit last month to halt the recall vote count, charging that Pacifica had delayed the vote too long. The recall was initiated nearly a year ago when over 800 KPFA listeners signed SaveKPFA petitions demanding a recall vote on Rosenberg. Over our repeated protests, Pacifica delayed the recall election past December 31, 2011 — which was the date called for in its own rules and bylaws.

Now Rosenberg is asking a judge to throw the recall out, and for Pacifica to pay her attorneys’ fees, because of the delays. But Pacifica’s legal counsel Andrew Gold writes in an August 27 brief to the court that Rosenberg “is complicit in the actions of the PNB that caused the delay in the selection of an election supervisor and thus the delay in the distribution of ballots. As a result, she cannot benefit from that delay.”

“Plaintiff Rosenberg participated in all of the PNB meetings where the recall election was discussed,” writes Gold, “and personally opposed one of the proposed election supervisors….Despite her intimate knowledge of the procedures, and her involvement in all of the decisions being made, Ms. Rosenberg never objected to the delay in appointing an election supervisor, never raised any issue concerning the record date…and never questioned the timing of the distribution of the ballots. Instead, she waited until the very end of the process to file her complaint.” | READ MORE at the court’s website; enter case number RG12641585. (Gold’s brief is dated 8/27/12 and titled Opposition to Application for Preliminary Injunction Filed.)

NOTE DATE CHANGE: The case will be heard on Tuesday, September 11 at 2:30pm in D-514 in the Hayward Hall of Justice (directions). The public is welcome to attend, so mark your calendars!

In early August, a large number of ballots was picked up by the election supervisor from the Berkeley Post Office, and as witnesses watched, transferred under court order to safe deposit boxes at nearby banks (see photo here).

Send a strong message to Pacifica by voting YES on the recall

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Pacifica treasurer Tracy Rosenberg claims that she “saved” KPFA from bankruptcy, but as KPFA News co-director Aileen Alfandary writes in an open letter released today, “a close examination of that claim shows it doesn’t hold water.”

Alfandary continues: “Virtually the entire reduction in staffing in 2010 was from union members who took voluntary layoffs. When the dust settled, and Pacifica was forced to rehire Brian Edwards-Tiekert, the only involuntary layoff that occurred in 2010 was that of the other Morning Show co-host who had been paid for a grand total of 27 hours a week. It’s absurd to claim that this small salary saved KPFA from bankruptcy. It’s quite the contrary. The reduction in fundraising from purging the Morning Show cost us dearly and drove listeners away from KPFA.” | READ ALFANDARY’S ENTIRE LETTER HERE

Recall supervisor: not so neutral

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Last week, the supervisor Pacifica hired to run KPFA’s election, Matt Ward, threatened SaveKPFA that he would refuse to send out ballots unless we participated in an on-air debate — on two days’ notice. He also declined to give SaveKPFA any details on the ground rules and format for the debate until just before airtime. Once the debate started, he interrupted SaveKPFA‘s debater three times during her opening statement: telling her she couldn’t discuss the layoff notice KPFA’s union has just received, accusing her of hyperbole, and threatening to take away her time.

Then complaints started coming in from listeners who had called the studio to voice pro-recall positions and were rejected after a call screener asked what they wanted to say. We believe this is the first time KPFA has ever screened calls-ins for content during an election debate. When one pro-recall voice did get on-air — and started to explain why she had stopped supporting Tracy Rosenberg — Ward started interrupting her almost immediately. He let all other callers go on at length. Ironically, Ward had published a rule that KPFA staff members could not participate in the debate — then he let two pro-recall unpaid staffers on the air to speak uninterrupted, even after they identified themselves as staff members.

Then ballots hit mailboxes. Ward had modified the text of SaveKPFA‘s recall petition before printing it in the ballot package: contrary to Pacifica’s own recall procedures, he took out three topic sentences summarizing the charges against Rosenberg, as well as the entire concluding paragraph of the petition. Now the ballot language doesn’t match what over 800 KPFA listeners had signed onto (here’s the original recall petition that listeners signed and the actual ballot that mailed). So much for a fairly-run election!