budget

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

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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.

KPFA listeners deliver petitions demanding recall vote

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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.

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

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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!