Last fall, a committee of local KPFA board members interviewed and choose four candidates for permanent KPFA general manager who, they unanimously agreed, were qualified. The names and resumes were sent in early November to Pacifica interim executive director Summer Reese, who has the responsibility under Pacifica’s bylaws to hire one of them. To date, there’s no word from Reese on whom she intends to hire.
Meanwhile, KPFA’s current interim general manager, Richard Pirodsky, has now been given the task of also performing the same services at sister station KPFK in Los Angeles. That station, along with Pacifica’s KPFT in Houston, recently lost its Corporation for Public Radio grants due to declines in listenership; all 5 Pacifica stations suffered delays in their CPB funding due to Pacifica management failures. | SEE letter from CPB to KPFT, and the CPB’s audit of Pacifica
Last fall, KPFA’s former interim GM, Andrew Phillips, was transferred to Pacifica station WBAI, where he worked to bring new voices to the airwaves, before he resigned over disagreements with Pacifica’s fundraising reliance on AIDS denier Gary Null, as reported in Current. Pacifica management has sought proposals for outside groups to lease WBAI, according to both Current and Pacifica historian Matthew Lasar on Radio Survivor.
Pacifica’s National Board meets next weekend in Washington, DC and there are likely big changes coming as new representatives from each station take their seats on the national board. SaveKPFA‘s own Margy Wilkinson, former chair of the KPFA Local Station Board, is a candidate for chair of the PNB.
KPFA’s sister station in Fresno, KFCF, is back to nearly full power after having lost the power supply in its transmitter and running at 7% of power for a week. The station bit the bullet and ordered a new transmitter.