KPFA listeners: Look for your recall ballot, then vote YES!

Posted on December 31, 2011 by admin

Thanks to a grassroots campaign for local control, Pacifica treasurer and KPFA boardmember Tracy Rosenberg is facing a recall. If you are a KPFA listener, watch your mail for a ballot. [UPDATE: Pacifica has apparently missed its own deadline of Dec. 30 to mail ballots -- more here.]

Then, VOTE YES on the Rosenberg recall, which is endorsed by: CRAIG ALDERSON, Secretary, KPFA Local Station Board | AILEEN ALFANDARY, News Co-Director | TINA BACHEMIN, KPFA Reporter | DAVID BACON, labor correspondent, former KPFA Morning Show | BOB BALDOCK, KPFA Public Events Producer | LARRY BENSKY, Pacifica National Affairs Correspondent (1987-2007)  | MAL BURNSTEIN, KPFA board member and retired civil rights lawyer | PAMELA DRAKE, Oakland activist | BRIAN EDWARDS-TIEKERT, KPFA News | DANA FRANK, Professor of History, UCSC | JON FROMER, singer/songwriter, NABET/CWA Local 51 shop steward | MARY FROMER, Organizing Director, SEIU Local 707, Sonoma County (retired) | DAVID GANS, music programmer, KPFA board member | SHERRY GENDELMAN, attorney, former chair, KPFA board; former chair, Pacifica National Board  | CONN HALLINAN, columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus, the Daily Planet, contributor to CounterPunch, former head of UCSC’s journalism program | MATTHEW HALLINAN, Listener Rep, KPFA board | JOHN HAMILTON, KPFA News anchor | RICH JOHNSON, activist | RANSEY KANAAN, KPFA unpaid staff, founder AK Press and PM Press, co-founder San Francisco Anarchist Bookfair | LARRY KELP, KPFA producer and host, Sing Out! | ROSE KETABCHI, Free Speech Radio News | JACK KURZWEIL, Listener Rep, KPFA board | YING LEE, Asian-Americans for Peace and Justice | LAURA LIVOTI, Founder, Justice in Nigeria Now! | SASHA LILLEY, Against the Grain (Shop Steward, CWA Local 9415) | TIM LYNCH, KPFA producer and host, unpaid staff | PHILIP MALDARI, The Sunday Show (Shop Steward, CWA Local 9415) | JOANNA MANQUEROS, Music of the World, unpaid staff | DIANA MARTINEZ, Letters & Politics, unpaid staff | LAURA PRIVES, former Executive Producer of the KPFA Morning Show; Producer, Letters & Politics, KPFA board member, Pacifica National Board member | GLENN REEDER, KPFA News, unpaid staff | LYN HOLLANDER SAVIO, Mario Savio Memorial Lecture & Young Activist Award | DAN SIEGAL, activist and KPFA board member | VANESSA TAIT, KPFA News; co-founder, FSRN | JOHN VAN EYCK, former KPFA board member | BARBARA WHIPPERMAN, Treasurer, KPFA Local Station Board | MARGY WILKINSON, Chair, KPFA Local Station Board | RYCHARD WITHERS, KFCF General Manager (titles and organizations for identification only). For updates, see www.SaveKPFA.org.

If you do not receive a ballot by 12/30/11, contact us at votesavekpfa@gmail.com or leave us a message at (510) 969-9373.

Why Recall Rosenberg?
Pacifica treasurer Tracy Rosenberg has been the principal defender of the current regime at Pacifica, the corporation that owns KPFA. With Rosenberg’s support, that regime has declared war on KPFA’s listeners and workers. It has:

  • purged KPFA’s biggest fundraiser and most listened-to local program (The Morning Show), causing morning pledges to drop by more than half and putting the station’s fragile finances at risk
  • conducted illegal, retaliatory layoffs
  • wasted more than $80,000 of listener money on an anti-union law firm
  • diverted workers’ retirement contributions for other purposes
  • slapped gag rules on KPFA’s staff
  • illegally barred KPFA’s elected representatives from taking their seats on Pacifica’s Board.

Impartial oversight of vote still in question
After an outpouring of listener pressure, management finally certified the recall election to proceed, but has been vague about how it will conduct the vote, or if it will follow Pacifica’s own rules and mail the ballots before year’s end. Hundreds of KPFA listeners signed the recall petition, which lays out the charges of election fraud, email theft, and the destruction of programming by Rosenberg. Hundreds more have signed a second petition demanding that a neutral third party oversee the vote.

Many who signed expressed their frustration with Pacifica’s actions against KPFA, led by treasurer Rosenberg and executive director Arlene Engelhardt. For instance, listener Fred Hosea writes: “The dysfunction, drama, loss of listener support, and mismanagement of the past year amount to an intolerable failure, with Tracy Rosenberg and Arlene Engelhardt at the corrupting center. Rosenberg must go with all due haste, with Engelhardt to follow.” | SEE PETITION OR PETITION SIGNATURES

Help SaveKPFA spread the word
To raise funds to cover possible legal costs and the expense of contacting all of KPFA’s 20,000 listeners, SaveKPFA has set up an online account for those who would like to support our work. (Of course, we encourage you to support KPFA as well.) If you’d like to be added to SaveKPFA’s endorsers’ list, please email us with your name and how you’d like to identified.

Pacifica admits it failed to deposit pension money
Pacifica has finally admitted that it was not depositing employees’ pension contributions into their accounts in a timely fashion “for the past few years.” The network has sent a memo to staff claiming it was a “misunderstanding,” and acknowledging that it must repay the missing deposits with interest. Since early October, KPFA’s union has been investigating the apparent diversion of funds, calling it a form of wage theft.

Job evaluation of interim manager focus of board debate
Procedures for evaluating KPFA’s interim manager was the focus of December’s Local Station Board meeting. Many board members were frustrated that KPFA’s interim management refused to give contact information for the station’s workers to enable the board to survey them about interim GM Andrew Phillips‘ performance. “We should be able to have that,” said SaveKPFA-affiliated board member Andrea Turner, adding that managers “should respond to us,” so that the board can fulfill its duties. | LISTEN TO 3 minute clip of Turner, or the entire meeting: part 1 | part 2 |  part 3 | part 4

Posted in KPFA, Pacifica, Tracy Rosenberg, elections and governance, recall Tracy Rosenberg, recall election | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

600+ KPFA listeners tell Pacifica: quit stalling on recall vote

Posted on December 5, 2011 by admin

As of early December, over 600 listeners have signed a petition demanding that the Pacifica National Board immediately delegate responsibility for running the pending recall election on KPFA board member and Pacifica treasurer Tracy Rosenberg to a neutral third party and have the election conducted promptly. On November 1, KPFA management certified that listener-members had submitted more than enough valid signatures for the vote to proceed.

Many who signed the petition added comments. “Pacifica, stop stalling,” wrote  Amy Smith, “KPFA’s listeners want a fair vote!”  The election “must be in the hands of a neutral third party,” wrote Mary B. Skinner, because “current management has clearly shown it is incapable of such trust.”  In addition, fourteen members of KPFA’s Local Station Board have signed a letter urging impartial oversight of the vote. | READ PETITION COMMENTS | READ BOARDMEMBERS’ LETTER

Under Pacifica’s own policy, ballots must go out within 60 days of the certification, and are due back within 35 days after mailing. This puts the balloting period in December and January. So far, there’s been no word from Pacifica on what it will do. SaveKPFA supporters suspect that Pacifica may time the ballots for the holiday season, when they expect attention to be lowest. In fact, the Pacifica National Board decided to move its discussion of the recall into closed session — a clear violation of the open meeting rules in Pacifica’s bylaws.

Rosenberg allies try to squelch elections
Faced with SaveKPFA‘s successful recall petition, some members of Pacifica National Board seem to be thinking that listener participation isn’t such a great thing after all. By-laws amendments drafted by Rosenberg’s allies that are due to be voted on in December would raise the number of signatures needed for a recall from 2% to 10% of the membership, dramatically restrict the time in which signatures can be gathered, and force members filing a petition to bear all costs of the vote.

Donate, endorse to help SaveKPFA get the word out
Given these obviously undemocratic maneuvers, SaveKPFA is concerned that Pacifica may attempt to delay the recall vote indefinitely. If so, we’ll have to go to court to get Pacifica to allow KPFA’s listeners to have their say. To cover potential legal fees — and campaign costs once Pacifica does get a ballot out — we’ve set up an online account for SaveKPFA where you can give a donation of any size. “SaveKPFA is an all-volunteer organization,” said treasurer John Van Eyck. “We appreciate any support you can give for legal costs or election mailings, and we also strongly encourage you to donate to KPFA as well.”

If you’d like to be listed on SaveKPFA materials as endorsing the recall, please email us with your name and how you’d like to identified.

More mismanagement at Pacifica
Continuing developments confirm that the Pacifica National regime for which Rosenberg serves as treasurer is disastrous. As reported earlier this month, KPFA’s union has discovered Pacifica diverted workers’ retirement plan contributions for months. As KPFAWorker reports, while Pacifica claims it has restored the money it took out of workers’ accounts, it “still has not notified affected employees, apologized to them, nor made them whole by paying them interest.”

We now have some indication of where the money’s been going. Starting in July, Pacifica covered the payroll and benefits for WBAI in New York — over $130,000 per month. Publicly, Pacifica had been bragging that WBAI was experiencing a “turnaround” under the management that the network’s executive director, Arlene Engelhardt, installed without the approval of WBAI’s staff or local board.

Management at WPFW in Washington, DC is also on the ropes. Washington’s City Paper reports that more than 80 staff members there have signed a letter of no confidence in their manager, accusing him of lengthening fund drives, imposing steep austerity measures that affect union workers but not managers, and holding such disregard for input from his own staff that he hasn’t called a meeting in 8 months.

Art by Bob Baldock for the film KPFA on the Air

KPFA’s awesome Occupy coverage
As the Occupy movement has erupted, KPFA’s coverage has been stellar, with breaking news updates from protests, live broadcasts, and interviews that bring in-depth analysis to the movement.

Here are just a few recent highlights: Mitch Jeserich‘s anchoring of a live broadcast of former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich addressing a crowd of 10,000 on Sproul Plaza; comprehensive coverage of protests from the Pacifica Evening News; KPFA news anchor John Hamilton‘s report for Democracy Now on the police violence at Occupy Cal; and a fascinating interview on Letters and Politics about the most historic occupation in U.S. politics — the Bonus Army encampment in Washington during the Great Depression.

A big thank you to behind-the-scenes technical staff, like Antonio Ortiz, Frank Sterling, and Dev Ross, who’ve gone above and beyond to get live broadcasts on the air. Thanks to everyone at KPFA — from board ops and engineers, to reporters and music programmers — who’ve participated in this important coverage.

KPFA board member makes news
SaveKPFA activist Dan Siegel, who serves on both the KPFA and Pacifica boards, made national headlines when he very publicly resigned as an unpaid advisor to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan because of her decision to forcibly remove the encampment in downtown Oakland. He was interviewed on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show.  (Believe it or not, Pacifica is still spending listeners’ money fighting in court to kick Siegel off the national board.) 

Local board discusses programming, budget
KPFA’s Local Station Board met November 19, and among other things, had a lively discussion about KPFA’s programming.  “We need to talk to a wider audience,” said SaveKPFA-affiliated board member and journalism professor Conn Hallinan. KPFA needs to reach people “who don’t have the same politics as we have,” he said, adding, “for that, we need to be good.” Programming discussed in part 3 of the meeting. | LISTEN to 3 minute clip, or the entire meeting: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

Support the KPFA Crafts Fair
KPFA’s biggest fundraiser of the year is coming up: the annual KPFA Crafts Fair on December 10 and 11. It’s an amazing event full of artwork, music, and an opportunity to do your holiday shopping in a way that supports local artisans. All proceeds stay with KPFA — Pacifica doesn’t take a cut of event revenue. Check out the Craft Fair’s webpage, or like its Facebook page. See you there!

Posted in KPFA recall vote, Pacifica, Tracy Rosenberg, elections and governance, fund drives, recall Tracy Rosenberg, recall election | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Recall moves ahead, listeners petition for impartial oversight

Posted on November 6, 2011 by admin

The campaign by KPFA listeners to recall Pacifica National Board treasurer Tracy Rosenberg has passed an important hurdle. KPFA management certified this week that recall petitions submitted by SaveKPFA activists contained more than enough signatures of KPFA subscribers.

The petitions included more than 800 signatures, and 462 were verified on the first pass as precise matches to KPFA’s subscriber database — more than the number needed for the recall to go forward. Subsequent matching accounting for name variations, address changes, and so forth brought the number of valid signatures up to 583, or 70% of the total submitted.

“We can’t wait any longer to recall Tracy,” said Pamela Drake, a member of KPFA’s Local Station Board.  She added that next week marks the one year anniversary of Pacifica’s purge of KPFA’s popular Morning Show, which Rosenberg was instrumental in engineering.

Running the recall election is expected to cost about $10,000 for printing and postage — or about 50 cents per KPFA subscriber. In the year since Pacifica’s elimination of the Morning Show, the loss in pledges during morning drive time has averaged over $8,000 per weekday.  “That means Rosenberg’s purges have cost KPFA hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Drake, “and more importantly, have deprived Bay Area listeners of consistent, hard-hitting morning programming.”

Recall ballots should arrive in listeners’ mailboxes next month. IMPORTANT: If you haven’t yet signed the listener petition demanding that Pacifica make sure the recall vote has impartial, third-party oversight, please do so now. | SIGN PETITION HERE

Posted in KPFA recall vote, Pacifica, Tracy Rosenberg, budget, elections and governance, fund drives, recall Tracy Rosenberg, recall election | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

KPFA workers uncover retirement shortfalls, endorse Occupy Oakland strike

Posted on November 6, 2011 by admin

KPFA's Sasha Lilley (left) & Mitch Jeserich (right) broadcasting from Occupy Oakland

Union workers at KPFA say that Pacifica has been shorting their retirement accounts, in violation of federal law. KPFAWorker.org reports that when employees got their quarterly statements from account provider ING, “they noticed that Pacifica had taken money out of their paychecks but had not put the money into their pensions during half of the weeks recorded.”

After two KPFA union members investigated and obtained documents about Pacifica’s payments (as is their right under the federal law), they received “terse” emails from both interim KPFA general manager Andrew Phillips and Pacifica’s executive director Arlene Engelhardt threatening legal action if they shared the information.

Union rep Christina Huggins of CWA Local 9415 stepped in. After receiving no response to her queries from either Engelhardt or Pacifica’s CFO Lavarn Williams, Huggins wrote this letter to the Pacifica National Board, to whom both Engelhardt and Williams report. “This is a form of wage theft, and it is a very serious matter,” Huggins wrote.  “The scope of this problem is large: We have seen this pattern for every employee whose records we have been able to check,” she wrote, adding that similar problems were identified as far back as a year and a half. “I’m writing to you as fiduciaries of the Pacifica Foundation,” Huggins continued, “because what we are dealing with is looking less like an error and more like a pattern: Missing payments, lack of transparency, hostility to employees who ask financial questions, unwillingness to release basic financial documents. These are classic warning signs of financial mismanagement and/or internal fraud.”

Engelhardt eventually responded, admitting the payments were overdue but saying they had finally been made. “They’ve not paid for lost interest, nor have they notified all the affected workers,” one KPFA worker told us.

Financial transparency lacking at Pacifica
In the wake of the retirement fund blowup, SaveKPFA reps have been pressing Pacifica management for financial transparency. Pacifica National Board members Dan Siegel, Andrea Turner and Laura Prives (who serve on the KPFA local board as well), have exercised their right to have their agents (KPFA treasurer Barbara Whipperman, and Brian Edwards-Tiekert, a former KPFA treasurer) inspect Pacifica’s books.

So far, they report that Pacifica management has been less than forthcoming — insisting all document requests be submitted in writing, unilaterally canceling scheduled inspections, and paying an attorney to write them a threatening letter.

Pacifica to put KPFA’s money in B of A?
While the Occupy Wall Street protests have inspired record numbers of people to move their money out of corporate mega-banks, Pacifica management is trying to move its stations’ money in.

Pacifica’s chief financial officer LaVarn Williams is pressuring KPFA and the other stations Pacifica owns, to move their business to Bank of America. (KPFA’s business manager has solicited a proposal from a local bank that would cost $20,000 per year less in fees).

Meanwhile, KPFA’s union staff passed a resolution in support of Occupy Oakland‘s Nov. 2 general strike, and the station’s journalists joined the movement on the streets to do extensive live coverage of the actions.

Posted in Arlene Engelhardt, KPFA, Pacifica, budget, labor, recall Tracy Rosenberg | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Fund drive comes up short; KFCF nixes KPFA’s new programming

Posted on November 6, 2011 by admin

KPFA’s Fall Fund Drive has come up over $100,000 short, mostly due to a stunning $8500 per day shortfall during the morning hours (see chart at right comparing this fall with last fall, when the Morning Show was still on the air).

KPFA fall fund drive chart

Among the questionable programs broadcast during the drive was one presented by interim general manager Andrew Phillips which promoted far right-wing ideas along with bizarre theories about brain control.

Fresno station KFCF has pulled two programs installed recently by KPFA’s interim management, TwitWit and The Week Starts Here. The programs, hosted by allies of Pacifica management, were put on the air despite an outcry from KPFA listeners who supported existing Sunday night arts programming. While KFCF rebroadcasts much of KPFA’s air, it is independently run by the Fresno Free College Foundation. KFCF’s Program Needs Assessment Committee recommended that the new shows be nixed, and the award-winning LA Theatre Works be returned to its regular slot.

Edwards-Tiekert (center with mike) interviewing filmmaker Michael Moore at Occupy Oakland

Award for KPFA journalist
KPFA staffer Brian Edwards-Tiekert has won an award from the Society of Professional Journalists – Northern California.

SPJ must have seen something Pacifica didn’t — the award is for climate change reporting Edwards-Tiekert did after Pacifica laid him off, and before it was forced to reinstate him with back pay. (The Pacifica-installed management at KPFA is still refusing to return the Morning Show to air, so Brian is now reporting for the News Department).

Posted in Andrew Leslie Phillips, Arlene Engelhardt, KPFA, KPFA recall vote, Pacifica, budget, censorship, corporate underwriting, fund drives, recall Tracy Rosenberg | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Silence from Pacifica on recall vote; Pacifica overrules KPFA board on budget

Posted on October 20, 2011 by admin

Stack of recall petitions.

It’s been over a month since members of SaveKPFA submitted petitions seeking a recall vote against KPFA board member and Pacifica Treasurer Tracy Rosenberg, the driving force behind Pacifica’s destruction of KPFA’s Morning Show, and its war against the station’s workers and listeners.

Thanks to your efforts, a delegation of SaveKPFA activists submitted over 800 signatures from KPFA listener-members — that’s over twice the number needed — to trigger a recall ballot under the network’s bylaws, in which every current member is entitled to vote.

The response from Pacifica? Complete silence. KPFA staff confirm Pacifica has finally turned over the signatures for validation against KPFA’s member database, but from Pacifica, there has been no word on when the recall election will be held, or who will run it. All discussion of the recall process at last month’s 4-day meeting of the Pacifica National Board happened behind closed doors. The only information released from that meeting is that Pacifica has found a lawyer to tell it, bizarrely, that a successful recall would take nearly ten times the number of votes required by Pacifica’s bylaws.

This is a blatant misreading of Pacifica’s bylaws. Like most of Pacifica’s election manipulations, it probably won’t hold up in court. But it does demonstrate Pacifica’s willing to bend the rules in Rosenberg’s favor — which is why we need to demand a fair process.

ACTION ALERT: Sign this petition demanding a fair recall
KPFA listeners are signing this petition demanding that Pacifica run the recall vote promptly, and that supervision of the process be turned over to a neutral party (such as the American Association of Arbitrators, or California State Mediation and Conciliation).  CLICK HERE to add your support!

KPFA fall fund drive chart

Why a recall is important: a fund drive in crisis
KPFA’s Fall fund drive is struggling. Why?  Pledging from 6-10 AM has dropped over $9,000 per day since last year, before Pacifica cancelled the KPFA Morning Show and re-arranged the rest of the morning lineup in a shake-up engineered by Pacifica Treasurer Tracy Rosenberg (see this chart).

Prior to its cancellation, the Morning Show was KPFA’s biggest fundraiser. Andrew Phillips, the manager Pacifica installed at KPFA after the shakeup, has been unresponsive to calls from KPFA’s staff, listeners, and elected Local Station Board to restore the Morning Show.

So, what’s his plan?

First off: Longer fund drives. Phillips has already extended the Fall drive to 24 days — the longest in at least a decade. And, even with the extension, the fund drive is on track to finish at least $40,000 short of its goal.

Second: Kooky content. Last Thursday, Phillips put himself on the air for 90 minutes to hawk the DVD Zeitgeist, a bizarre amalgam of populist, religious, and right-wing conspiracy theories that allegedly provided inspiration to the man who shot Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

SaveKPFA is encouraging everyone who cares about the future of KPFA to contribute during this fund drive in spite of the lunacy — your donation secures your right to vote in the upcoming recall, and it deprives managers like Phillips of a pretext to lay off union workers.

Staff cuts loom, after Pacifica overrules KPFA’s board on budget
SaveKPFA-affiliated representatives on the Local Station Board worked hard this summer to craft a balanced budget for KPFA that would preserve the programs listeners care about, and put resources into off-air fundraising. KPFA treasurer Barbara Whipperman even brought to light a whopping $300,000 error in the budget template Pacifica had issued to KPFA. Fixing the error made it possible to budget for shorter fund drives.

Then, after KPFA’s budget was passed by a majority vote and sent to the network, Pacifica management moved the goalposts and overruled KPFA’s local elected representatives. Pacifica said KPFA would have to budget an additional $113,000 for “depreciation” –  an accounting abstraction that does not actually cost any money. Then Tracy Rosenberg used her position as Pacifica treasurer to unilaterally slash $121,000 out of KPFA’s personnel budget to pay for that depreciation.

The last time Rosenberg inserted herself into the budget-cutting process, Pacifica eliminated the most listened-to program produced at KPFA, and violated the union contract at KPFA by laying off staff out of seniority order, following a list Rosenberg herself drafted that included her political opponents. Which leads to an obvious question — who’s she targeting this time?

PLEASE MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD TODAY by signing this petition demanding that Pacifica fast-track this recall election under the auspices of a neutral third party. And give to KPFA to ensure you’ll be able to vote. You can make an online donation here.

Posted in Arlene Engelhardt, KPFA, Pacifica, budget, elections and governance, fund drives, legal | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

KPFA listeners deliver petitions demanding recall vote

Posted on September 13, 2011 by admin

Listeners Sharon Maldonado, Kim Waldron, Ying Lee & Barrie Mason (l to r) delivering petitions.

A delegation of listeners delivered a huge stack of petitions containing signatures of over 800 KPFA members during the September 10 meeting of the station’s elected Local Station Board. | KPFA News coverage (audio mp3) | Public comment (7 min audio clip)

Listeners are upset with the loss of local control at KPFA Radio 94.1 FM in Berkeley. The Pacifica network, which owns KPFA’s license, has made controversial changes to programming, including canceling the popular Morning Show at 7-9 AM, severely affecting fundraising during the station’s morning drive time. The petitions demand a vote among KPFA listener-members on the question of recalling board member Tracy Rosenberg, who has been a key ally of Pacifica’s heavy-handed management of KPFA.

“We fought — and won — a similar battle for KPFA back in 1999 when Pacifica tried to take over our station,” recalls listener-activist Barrie Mason. “Tracy Rosenberg has consistently used unethical means to undermine local control,” she added. “Removing her is the first step in saving KPFA.”

“Thousands of listeners have written, called and picketed at KPFA in recent months, demanding a return of the Morning Show and an end to Pacifica’s meddling in the station’s autonomy, but the network’s management refuses to listen,” said KPFA local board member Pamela Drake.

The charges against Rosenberg, who sits on both KPFA’s local board and Pacifica’s national board, include drawing up a secret layoff list that was used to cancel the Morning Show, pressuring Pacifica management to mount legal challenges to seating her opponents on the board (all of which were later overturned in the courts), and falsely obtaining and using KPFA listener-subscribers’ personal emails.

Local station management must review the petitions to insure that the signatures are those of actual KPFA members (people who have given at least $25 in the last year). The Pacifica bylaws simply state that a recall election will be triggered by petitions from 2% of the station’s members — in this case, less than 400 valid signatures are needed.

Audio of the entire September 10 Local Station Board meeting is available here: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 [note: sounds quality improves after first few minutes].

See also: No confidence in Pacifica-appointed manager, says local board.

Posted in KPFA recall vote, Pacifica, Tracy Rosenberg, budget, elections and governance | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

No confidence in Pacifica-appointed manager, says local board

Posted on September 13, 2011 by admin

On September 10, KPFA’s Local Station Board passed a resolution saying it had “no confidence” in KPFA’s interim general manager Andrew Leslie Phillips, who was installed by Pacifica’s executive director Arlene Engelhardt about six months ago. The vote was 11-8. All SaveKPFA-affiliated board members present voted for the measure.

“After Pacifica cancelled the Morning Show and laid off its co-hosts, it rejected $63,000 in pledges to help return the program, hired an anti-union law firm to fight KPFA’s staff to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars in KPFA’s own funds, and continued making top-down, ill-advised program changes,” said Drake. “We find this unconscionable,” she added.

For details, see Phillips’ support for business “sponsorships” at KPFA (i.e., underwriting), his actions on programming and fundraising, and his approach to station staff.

Delegates to the San Francisco Labor Council unanimously passed a second resolution last week supporting KPFA’s workers.

Audio of the entire September 10 Local Station Board meeting is available here: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 [note: sounds quality improves after first few minutes]. | KPFA News coverage (audio mp3) | Public comment from meeting (7 min audio clip)

See also: KPFA listeners deliver petitions demand recall vote

Posted in Arlene Engelhardt, KPFA, Pacifica, Tracy Rosenberg, censorship, corporate underwriting, fund drives, labor, underwriting | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Uprising spared, LA Theatreworks on the block

Posted on September 6, 2011 by admin

Despite promises that they would not make any program changes without constituting a Program Council and consulting KPFA’s staff, Pacifica-appointed managers Andrew Phillips and Carrie Core are pressing ahead with plans to replace popular KPFA arts programs with shows hosted by their political allies.

The plans include a program about KPFA’s internal issues, to be hosted by a pro-management partisan who has produced online videos attacking SaveKPFA as well as KPFA’s union, CWA. (Ironically, management has disciplined union members Mitch Jeserich, Mark Mericle and John Hamilton, and unpaid staffer/board member David Gans, for simply mentioning such “internal” issues on the air.) And LA Theatreworks appears to be on the chopping block, to be replaced by a program hosted by allies of management called “Twit-wit,” in which actors read a Twitter stream.

SaveKPFA-affiliated local board members wrote this letter to Phillips, calling management’s actions “incomprehensible,” and noting that they are “certain to drive away even more of KPFA’s listeners.”

YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE: TAKE ACTION FOR KPFA!
An avalance of objections from KPFA listeners and staff appears to have saved Sonali Kolhatkar‘s Uprising (details here). Let’s turn up the heat again: CLICK HERE TO SEND AN EMAIL to KPFA’s managers telling them that you DO NOT support their destructive moves, and that you demand their resignations immediately. Use our sample letter or create your own, as you prefer.

Outraged listener letters pour in
Hundreds of you have also called for the resignations of the managers responsible for the destruction of KPFA’s programming. Here are just a few: “As decades-long listeners and financial contributors to KPFA,” wrote Blair and Charlie Moser, “we honestly believe that ‘managers’ Engelhardt, Phillips and Core are deliberately attempting to destroy KPFA, in order that its license and broadcast frequency can be sold to commercial interests. These three so-called ‘managers’ are paid a total of $210,000 in salaries….Those funds should support the programming KPFA listeners pay to hear, not an incompetent bureaucracy that is canceling the best programs.”

“Without the anchor program of the Morning Show, to wake me up in the morning, I only sporadically listen to KPFA throughout the day, avoiding ever more programming” installed by the interim managers, wrote listener Norie Clarke. “We must remove the bloated salaries, and dictatorial powers of Phillips, Core, and Engelhardt which are being used to bleed dry the resources, community spirit and open voice of KPFA.”

We’ll be posting more letters from listeners who have given permission at SaveKPFA‘s listener mail page.

Your KPFA board reps at work
After a disastrous fund drive with year-over-year declines in every morning time slot reprogrammed by Pacifica, SaveKPFA reps passed a motion at the August 20 Local Station Board meeting recommending that managers reinstate the Morning Show during the major fund drive scheduled for October.

Pacifica-appointed manager Andrew Phillips gave no indication he’d actually implement the motion. The debate, however, was instructive: members of Independents for Community Radio (ICR), the pro-management slate on KPFA’s board, had to explain how they justified keeping KPFA’s biggest fundraiser off the air. Pacifica has maintained it was forced to axe the Morning Show due to financial necessity and union rules regarding layoffs — even though Brian Edwards-Tiekert won reinstatement through a union grievance and SaveKPFA raised enough money to pay for Aimee Allison to return.

But at the board meeting, ICR rep Henry Norr (audio clip) argued against even temporarily putting the old Morning Show staff on the air because, he said, it would increase pressure for a permanent reinstatement. ICR rep Cynthia Johnson said, “There is nothing sacred about a couple of jobs.” Former ICR member Sasha Futran (audio clip) who declared herself fully independent earlier this year, said, “The Morning Mix [the program Pacifica imposed to replace the Morning Show] is, frankly, dreadful. . . there were two times I turned to the station at 8 AM and didn’t know I was listening to KPFA.” She turned to her former ICR colleagues and said they know the program is awful, and say as much to each other privately. | ENTIRE BOARD MEETING: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5

solidarity fist kpfaSolidarity from San Francisco Labor Council
Delegates to the San Francisco Labor Council unanimously passed a second resolution last week supporting KPFA’s workers. In addition, unpaid programmer David Bacon, who has been out in solidarity since the Morning Show‘s cancellation, made a surprise appearance on KPFA after Philip Maldari asked him to guest host the pre-Labor Day Sunday Show. Listeners, such as Barrie Ann Mason, were delighted, calling the show “informed, intelligent, thoughtful, grounded in experience [and] very compassionate,” and adding a thank-you for Bacon’s “principled” stand to help KPFA’s community regain control of the station.

LAST CHANCE: send in your recall petition now
We will shortly be turning in petition signatures to recall Pacifica National Board treasurer Tracy Rosenberg. As with any petition campaign, some signatures will not be valid, and we expect Rosenberg to try to slow the process by bringing multiple challenges. That’s why it’s extremely important to exceed the required number by an overwhelming margin — so the petition’s validity is beyond question.

If you haven’t already, please:
1) make sure you’re a paid-up KPFA member by giving at least $25 at kpfa.org/support
2) PRINT, SIGN, & MAIL the petition here: http://www.SaveKPFA.org/recall/petition.pdf

A CORRECTION: Tracy Rosenberg wrote to us recently objecting to our description of her as “a key person who put Engelhardt, Phillips and Core in power,” saying she wasn’t a member of Pacifica’s board when executive director Arlene Engelhardt was hired. Rosenberg has been a strong ally of Engelhardt’s her entire tenure, presented Engelhardt a list of KPFA staff members to purge that included the Morning Show‘s staff, personally recruited volunteers to replace those staff when other union members refused to, misappropriated KPFA’s list of member emails to publicize the replacement program, lobbied heavily for Engelhardt to hire Andrew Phillips to work as KPFA’s interim general manager, engineered an illegal move by the Pacifica National Board to unseat two duly-elected SaveKPFA representatives, and launched vicious and misleading attacks on KPFA programmer David Gans for criticizing Pacifica’s hand-picked management. But Rosenberg did not, as far as we can tell, play a role in the decision to hire Engelhardt in the first place. We regret the error.

Yet another legal victory for SaveKPFA
Pacifica management ally Carol Spooner, fresh from her failed attempt to get the Court of Appeals to knock two SaveKPFA representatives off the Pacifica National Board, has racked up two more losses.

First, she tried to intervene at the trial court level, with the judge who issued an injunction in favor of SaveKPFA reps Dan Siegel and Laura Prives. After judge Frank Roesch expressed extreme skepticism, she withdrew her request, and tried to do an end-run around him by filing a new lawsuit with another judge. On August 15, Alameda County Superior Court judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers threw out that suit as well. Strike three!

Posted in Arlene Engelhardt, KPFA, Pacifica, Programming, censorship, fund drives, labor | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pacifica-appointed managers oversee second disastrous fund drive, loss of listenership

Posted on August 16, 2011 by admin

KPFA interim general manager Andrew Philips and interim program director Carrie Core — both brought to KPFA without community input by Pacifica executive director Arlene Engelhardt — have presided over another calamitous fund drive. KPFA’s Summer Fund Drive came up about $44,000 short of its $300,000 goal, another indication of listener dissatisfaction with the removal of the Morning Show. | SEE BELOW FOR HOW YOU CAN HELP

CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION

During the just-completed Summer Drive, the Morning Mix replacement raised a meager $1500 on good days. On other days, it brought in only $650 an hour in pledges. Before it was canceled by Engelhardt, the KPFA Morning Show regularly averaged $5000 an hour in pledges during fund drives.

The last two KPFA fund drives were the worst planned in memory. “Planning usually starts at least 6 weeks out, but Phillips and Core only met with programming staff the Friday before the drive started,” one worker told SaveKPFA. “The managers then repeated programming that had failed to raise money, and even allocated several hours of air-time for Phillips’ own 30-year-old documentary that he produced in the early 1980s.”

Listeners appear to be voting with their donations and sending a clear message, one that is confirmed by Arbitron, the company which surveys radio listeners nationally. Recent data shows a drop in over 10% of KPFA’s audience — or 13,000 listeners — since the Morning Show was taken off the air.

So for all the talk of expanding KPFA’s audience, Pacifica and KPFA management have done just the opposite: they’ve presided over its contraction. But instead of taking responsibility for these decisions, Phillips told station workers “there may have to be staff cuts,” as he announced a meeting for staff and listeners this Tuesday, August 16 at 6pm in KPFA’s Performance Studio (1929 MLK Way, Berkeley).

WHAT YOU CAN DO: TAKE ACTION!

We must change KPFA’s destructive management before we lose our historic and beloved station. Here’s how you can help:

1) SIGN the recall petition against Tracy Rosenberg, a key person who put Engelhardt, Phillips & Core in power. (Here’s the actual petition: http://www.SaveKPFA.org/recall/petition.pdf

2) DEMAND the resignation of the managers who are destroying KPFA: Arlene Engelhardt (salary $90,000), Andrew Phillips (salary $70,000) and Carrie Core (salary $50,000).  TOTAL: $210,000. This is the management team that has:

* refused $63,000 in listener pledges to restore the Morning Show
* spent $70,000 on anti-union consultants
* issued multiple gag orders against KPFA workers who have tried to inform listeners about developments at the station
* overseen 2 disastrous fund drives
* decreed programming changes that will cost over $500,000
* ignored listeners’ desires, and removed KPFA’s excellent programs to put their friends on the air, essentially “firing the listeners” and reducing KPFA’s audience

Why should listeners pay $210,000 dollars for these 3 managers’ salaries, when their incompetence is destroying KPFA? CLICK HERE TO SEND AN EMAIL to these 3 managers, with a cc to members of KPFA’s and Pacifica’s elected boards. Tell them that KPFA needs excellent programming, not wasteful bureaucrats. Use our sample letter or write your own, but please voice your outrage!

Posted in Andrew Leslie Phillips, Arlene Engelhardt, KPFA, budget, censorship, fund drives | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment