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RETURN KPFA TO LOCAL CONTROL: SUPPORT THE RECALL
Since SaveKPFA launched a petition drive to recall Pacifica National Board treasurer Tracy Rosenberg just two weeks ago, the response has been tremendous. Over 200 people have mailed their signed petitions in, and activists are circulating petitions at neighborhood events.
SIGN & MAIL THE RECALL PETITION HERE (PDF): http://www.savekpfa.org/recall/petition.pdf
Some SaveKPFA supporters have even come up with more innovative techniques. Listener Barrie Ann Mason writes: “I copied a pile of the petitions, keep them in my car, and slip them onto the windshields of parked cars with KPFA bumper stickers.”
There’s also been some ancillary benefit for KPFA: donations have been coming in from people who want to make sure their membership is current so their petition signature counts. Since the recall campaign launched, over 30 people have pledged more than $2300 at kpfa.org.
It will take over 400 signatures from current KPFA listener-members to force a recall election, so if you haven’t yet done so, mail in your signed petition today. If you are not sure about your membership status, donate at least $25 to directly KPFA.
In online responses to the recall petition, Tracy Rosenberg has advanced the position that because KPFA raised slightly more pledge money overall than the year before, killing the Morning Show was a good move. Of course, she doesn’t mention the fact that since Pacifica management re-programmed KPFA’s mornings, pledging from 6-10 AM has dropped by six-figure sums (http://www.kpfaworker.org/2011/05/31/kpfa-spring-fund-drive-results/).
There are two reasons that KPFA’s overall fundraising hasn’t dropped. First, some programs, most notably Letters and Politics and the Evening News, have dramatically increased their fundraising. Second, over the course of six months, interim management increased the number of days KPFA spent in fund drives by nearly two weeks, which is hardly something to be proud of. http://www.savekpfa.org/kpfa-listeners-vote-with-dollars
RETURN KPFA TO LOCAL CONTROL: SUPPORT THE RECALL
How it works: To initiate the recall, we’ll need over 400 valid signatures from current KPFA listener-members. You are a member if you have donated $25 or more to KPFA in the past year.
1) If you aren’t already a KPFA member, become one so your signature counts. If you haven’t given for a while, renew your membership. Give at least $25 dollars if you’re an individual, $50 if you’re a couple. Make a donation securely at KPFA’s online donation page: https://secure.kpfa.org/support/
2) Download and print the recall petition: http://www.savekpfa.org/recall/petition.pdf
Some SaveKPFA supporters have even come up with more innovative techniques. Listener Barrie Ann Mason writes: “I copied a pile of the petitions, keep them in my car, and slip them onto the windshields of parked cars with KPFA bumper stickers.”
There’s also been some ancillary benefit for KPFA: donations have been coming in from people who want to make sure their membership is current so their petition signature counts. Since the recall campaign launched, over 30 people have pledged more than $2300 at kpfa.org.
It will take over 400 signatures from current KPFA listener-members to force a recall election, so if you haven’t yet done so, mail in your signed petition today. If you are not sure about your membership status, donate at least $25 to directly KPFA.
In online responses to the recall petition, Tracy Rosenberg has advanced the position that because KPFA raised slightly more pledge money overall than the year before, killing the Morning Show was a good move. Of course, she doesn’t mention the fact that since Pacifica management re-programmed KPFA’s mornings, pledging from 6-10 AM has dropped by six-figure sums (http://www.kpfaworker.org/2011/05/31/kpfa-spring-fund-drive-results/).
There are two reasons that KPFA’s overall fundraising hasn’t dropped. First, some programs, most notably Letters and Politics and the Evening News, have dramatically increased their fundraising. Second, over the course of six months, interim management increased the number of days KPFA spent in fund drives by nearly two weeks, which is hardly something to be proud of. http://www.savekpfa.org/kpfa-listeners-vote-with-dollars
RETURN KPFA TO LOCAL CONTROL: SUPPORT THE RECALL
How it works: To initiate the recall, we’ll need over 400 valid signatures from current KPFA listener-members. You are a member if you have donated $25 or more to KPFA in the past year.
1) If you aren’t already a KPFA member, become one so your signature counts. If you haven’t given for a while, renew your membership. Give at least $25 dollars if you’re an individual, $50 if you’re a couple. Make a donation securely at KPFA’s online donation page: https://secure.kpfa.org/support/
2) Download and print the recall petition: http://www.savekpfa.org/recall/petition.pdf
For more information:
http://www.savekpfa.org/recall/petition.pdf
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http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/07/16/18684943.php
As to outstanding Tracy Rosenberg, she won second place in the last election to to the Local Station Board as she is enormously popular. See the Oct 11, 2010 results at
http://asteriarecords.com/electionarchive/AL/KPFA%20Round26.htm
THE HATE PACIFICA GANG SHOULD BE RECALLED IN THE NEXT ELECTION. They are:
Margy Wilkinson, Conn Hallinan, Mal Burnstein, Pam Drake, Renee Geesler, Suzi Goldmacher, Matthew Hallinan, Jack Kurzweil, Laura Prives, Tanya Russell, Louis Sawyer, Dan Siegel, Andrea Turner and Rych Withers. For the entire list, see
http://lsb.kpfa.org/members
We have enjoyed Tracy Roseberg's many posts on this website, keeping us informed. She is a very intelligent young lady who needs to be encouraged to stay on the KPFA Local Station Board and the Pacifica National Board. See
On AT&T/T-Mobile merger, supported by CWA, the Hate Pacifica union at KPFA, but opposed by the KPFA audience:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/07/05/18683846.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/07/05/18683845.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/06/07/18681291.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/04/05/18676438.php
On KPFA finances, etc.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/07/02/18683612.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/06/27/18683132.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/06/27/18683127.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/05/01/18678635.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/04/26/18678113.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/04/15/18677268.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/02/23/18672880.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/02/19/18672495.php
There is much more, as we all know.
As to the Hate Pacifica Gang, their leading light is Larry Bensky, former programmer at KPFA, and former editor of the CIA's Paris Review. Here is more:
1. His attacks to callers on air:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/09/25/18659813.php
2. Supporters of Pat Scott Gang and union busters American Consulting:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/09/21/18659436.php
3. More horrors of supporting Concerned Listeners gang:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/10/22/18626386.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/15/18472757.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/10/29/18324348.php
4. His opposition to Peace & Freedom and Green Parties:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/04/27/18495315.php
5. His use of name lists in violation of Pacifica election rules:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/21/18462672.php
6. His opposition to the 9/11 Truth Movement
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/10/18459899.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/09/15/18311830.php
7. His anti-labor outlook on labor programming:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/04/14/18154241.php
8. His contempt for free speech:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2004/11/13/17051361.php
9. His attack on William Blum's book exposing the CIA and a reminder that Bensky was editor of the CIA front, the Paris Review, at
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/06/27/17498851.php
10. His ridicule of the fact of history that Nazis influenced the anti-Communist witchhunts of the 1940s-1950s as of course they were first and foremost anti-communist:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2004/04/05/16762211.php
KPFA lost $575,000 in 2009-2010
KPFA lost $585,000 in 2010-2011
KPFA misplaced a $375,000 check in a drawer for 14 months, until the check had long expired and apparently did 14 consecutive erroneous bank reconciliations on their money market account without noticing the funds had never been deposited.
KPFA lost a $980,000 cash reserve in less than 2 years, booting it out the door to temporarily maintain an employee head count they could not afford, endangering the stability of the license and barely making payroll in the fall of 2010.
This kind of financial irresponsibility and carelessness is no advertisement for so-called local control, which had nothing to do with local and everything to do with a small cadre of staff doing whatever they wanted with no regard for fiscal care, accountability or even basic sanity.
When called on their actions and subjected to responsible management, they proceeded to cry "union-busting" and "scabs: - only to waste a bunch of listener funds on frivolous Labor Relations Board complaints and arbitrations - all of which were rejected.
Their track record can only indicate they shouldn't have control of the toilet paper supplies.
KPFA's survival depends on responsible management and listeners came closer to losing the whole thing than they recognize.
Now after losing all of their labor relations complaints and the arbitration, they are carrying on about recalling board members: a process that will cost at least $25,000 and inevitably fail.
Unless you want to take money and throw it off a bridge, just tell them to knock it off and do something useful - like cover the deterioration of the american economy, the military-industrial complex or the radiation crisis.
Christ. What a self-indulgent waste of time.
2009 and 2010 results (those huge losses) are audited. 2011 will be when it is finished. The year is not finished.
The way that organizations work is that they keep records of all financial transactions in ledgers. Periodically you add up all of those transactions and issue financial statements. That is how you tell if you are operating at a surplus (more coming in than going out) or at a deficit (more going out than coming in).
It's not witchcraft.
KPFA's current financial success is clear from the financial statements posted here on a quarterly basis. More money coming in than going out. For the first time in quite a while. Damn good news.
It is easier for people to assess what you are saying when you make it clear you don't give a crap whether or not KPFA is solvent, can keep it's doors open and can pay the bills.
The vast majority of KPFA's 22.000 listeners do care if the place is solvent or not and know that it gets awfully hard to pay bills with monopoly money.
You can't operate at a deficit forever. Two years was long enough.
Tracy and her management friends can twist her numbers any way she likes, the facts remain.
The only reason most are still supporting the station is they hope sanity will prevail in the end, after listeners get a chance to actually have a voice and a vote. That's why the morning programming has lost HUGE amounts of money this last year, and people have switched their giving to other program slots.
Arlene Engelhardt is going to go down in Pacifica history as the worst ED ever, worse that Mary Francis Berry.
Resist it, it's bullshit.
The facts are that KPFA has more listener support this year than last year. That numerical result does not come from switching your donation booking from one time of day or the other. That comes from more people pledging more money. There is no other way for listener support to increase other than listener support increasing.
I realize that fucks with the Save KPFA narrative, but it's the facts. Maybe you just have to accept that a lot of people feel differently than you do. You know, the tolerance and understanding thing in the mission?
Stop it with the hate already. You guys had your chance and you tipped the boat over and lost a million dollars in two years.
Just listen to the programs you like, don't listen to the programs you don't, and get a life.
First, some programs, most notably Letters and Politics and the Evening News, have dramatically increased their fundraising. Second, over the course of six months, interim management increased the number of days KPFA spent in fund drives by nearly two weeks, which is hardly something to be proud of.
See the figures here: http://www.savekpfa.org/kpfa-listeners-vote-with-dollars
There have also been lots of new members signing up to boot the Pacifica collaborators out of office.
Guess it doesn't fit your narrative, huh duh?
Let's try this again. If you donate $100 at 8am or you donate $100 at 10am, you've still only donated $100. There is still only $100 in money. The only way you have $200 is if more money is donated. Switching money around doesn't make more money. The only thing that makes more money donated is actually having more money donated.
Pacifica was extremely smart to add a fundraising period in December. December is the month of the year with the highest charitable donations - by a mile. KPFA virtually doubled it's average fundraising take by - duh- fundraising in December, booking $60,000 a day when February and October fund drives book an average of $30,000.
You had the most successful week of fundraising you had had in years, only 5 weeks after the AM changes that save KPFA keeps mindlessly proclaiming "cost money". It's patently absurd on it's face.
As for the silly recally-thing - you'd have to add 1,000 members to just break even on the 25K it's going to cost.
Let's assume KPFA members are smarter than that. If they aren't, we ain't never going to change the world.
As Pacifica embarked on its new democratic path it became clear is that everyone that fought the hijackers didn’t do so for the same reason! Most listener activists and some staff supported the new democratic process and welcomed the involvement and input of the listener/subscribers who are the regular audience and the financial supporters of the station and Pacifica.
At KPFA some staff and their supporters sought to defeat the hijackers so that they could control KPFA and make the decisions about who/what gets air time and who gets the paid jobs. This latter group has used the power of the stations progressive reputation and the power of the microphone to maintain control and frustrate the new bylaws in many ways. The staff group I am referring to was identified by an e-mail from Brian Edwards-Tiekert to the other “insiders” that became public in 2005. You can read the e-mail at http://peoplesradio.net/Dismantle.htm. The author acknowledged its authenticity. Their group now claims that it never met to discuss “dismantling the Local Station Board (LSB),” aka the democratic process, or “how do we make our enemies own the problems that are to come.” This group has been supported by their electoral counter part, first called KPFAForward (2004) and now Concerned Listeners (CL).
In the five-plus years under this leadership group KPFA subscribers have gone from 28,000 in 2003 to 20,000 now! That is a 28 percent decrease while they increased the paid staff by 50 percent. Bringing us a $300,000 deficit this year. At the same time they refused to do anything about the financial problems hurting Pacifica. Their conduct actually precipitated a major financial crisis at Pacifica.
Let’s see what these folks have done toward “dismantling the LSB.” In 2003 the KPFA Program Council, made up of paid and unpaid staff and listeners, voted to move Democracy Now! (DN!) to Prime time, 7-8 a.m. and move the morning show to 8-10 a.m. There was/is significant listener demand/support for this time change. It is common practice and common sense to put your most popular/dynamic program in prime time. In May 2004 the LSB voted to move DN! to prime time as per the Program Council’s prior vote. This has never been implemented. Why?
In 2007 GM Lemlem Rijio, quietly ended the Program Council. The LSB’s CL majority ignored the previous Resolution codifying the Program Council and did nothing to save the Program Council.
In 2007 GM Rijio took away the official status of the Unpaid Staff Organization (UPSO). UPSO existed to represent the unpaid staff at KPFA, more than 200 people. These are the people who do the majority of the work that goes on the air.
The CL slate literature for the 2006 and 2007 LSB elections was silent on the important issues of the Program Council, UPSO and the DN! move to prime time
In 2009 the CL LSB majority voted to meet only once every other month, instead of every month as all the other stations do and KPFA had done for five years. They ignored the backlog of work to be done and how it delayed the selection of LSB members to important PNB committees.
Over a year ago they took the link to the LSB page off the front page of the KPFA web site. They don’t announce the LSB meetings on the front page of the web site and often don’t announce them on the air as required by the bylaws.
How has the CL maintained its slim majority on the LSB? Here are some of the dirty tricks they have used to dominate the elections. In 2006 and 2007 GM Rijio refused to allow any election information to be broadcast when the ballots were sent out. Rijio’s justification was that there was a fund drive in progress despite election information being broadcast during fund drives at other Pacifica stations. In 2006 and 2007 CL spent thousands of dollars and sent out a slate mailer to arrive with the ballots during the election information black out, imposed by their ally GM Rijio. To top that off, in 2007 when they finally did run some candidate carts, they ran all 22 at once, with CL candidate Sherry Gendelman’s first.
After the 2007 KPFA election there was only one news story on KPFA about the election. Interviewed were Sherry Gendelman, Matthew Lasar, a CL endorser, and Dan Siegel and Larry Bensky both CL allies and supporters and both guilty of using station or Foundation resources to support CL or attack their opponents in violation of election ethics. No listener activist candidates were interviewed. Why is there a FOX in our newsroom?
In the upcoming election there will be ample airtime for the election since the new PNB majority has resolved that it will be so. Bonnie Simmons, a CL/Rijio group member, recently made a motion to rescind the Resolution to require ample airtime for the election. Does an open inclusive election scare them?
“Our leadership elite may still want to believe in democratic principles—they certainly profess that they do—but in practice they have shown themselves all too willing to violate those principles in order to gain or retain power”, Cornel West from his book Democracy Matters, page 28. If democracy matters to you, it is time for a new majority on the KPFA LSB.
Richard Phelps is a former chair of KPFA Local Station Board, a 35-year listener/subscriber and former AM and FM radio announcer.
http://www.savekpfa.org/endorsements-2
The SaveKPFA /formerly Concerned Listeners are using the term as they do "workers", "union", etc., as they formerly did "civility" and "financially responsible" as buzzwords to gain your adherence, when they either do not believe in these things themselves, or are using them incorrectly.
Pacifica stepped in to stop the nearly fatal hemorrhaging of funds as the SK/CL majority did not cut station expenses to match station income. After 3 years of such unbalanced budgets and the loss of 1.5 million dollars, they had to borrow money to meet payroll, and still had not presented Pacifica, the parent organization of all 5 stations including KPFA with a viable yearly budget. So they had to do what the other 4 stations, and Pacifica had already done, since being asked to 3 years previously - cut the paid staff.
Pacifica's Finance Committee was asked for suggestions by the new Executive Director, and drew up a list of paid staff in order of seniority (and other union requirements) and that is the so-called "hit list". The union required that layoffs be done according to the terms in its contract, and this is what was being /has been done, and affirmed correct by the courts!
But Save KPFA does not care for the facts, no matter how many times they are presented. It has different agendas it is serving, and the ends justify its means.
Tracy Rosenberg is one of our LOCAL representatives to Pacifica, which holds the broadcast license for the 5 stations and provides them with essential services, at great cost savings. The Pacifica National Board is composed of LOCAL representatives from the LOCAL stations and LOCAL affiliates, and it keeps the network on keel - that is its purpose. Thank goodness it saved KPFA, WBAI, and others from bankruptcy and sale - that's one of its responsibilities. Thank you, PNB, Tracy and Arlene (the ED), for doing your fiduciary duty.
The supposed case against Tracy is a tissue of lies. For more information check out the article "Save KPFA and Reality" at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/06/27/18683127.php
Also see "Who Actually Saved KPFA" at
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/07/19/18685256.php
For more from the "other side " see http://supportkpfa.org
Oh yap on and on and then edit. Let this be installment #1. I have to wrap up my crippled legs and get out into the world. Here's the link to the KPFA audit from a year ago. A new one is due soon Tracy Rosenberg is certainly the most competent KPFA board member I can imagine. And people like David Bacon are listed as supporters of her detractors? WAKE UP! It's so sad I woke up weeping. Scroll down to "financial..." http://danielborgstrom.blogspot.com/2011/03/links.html
The most important point I can still make today is: YES there unfortunately or fortunately does need to be an elected or democratically created board at KPFA/Pacifica. The alternative, as has now been demonstrated in radioactive billboard intensity is: otherwise self-interested broadcasters backed by "progressives" who feel so certainly that their strong-arm machine of "progressives" is the one and only narrow-path way to go are willing now to make up lies about finally immensely competent managers and board members simply to keep from transitioning from microphone hoggers to PAID trainers of new voices. PACIFICA AND KPFA NEED THE CHECK OF SOME TYPE OF ELECTED BOARD, no matter what blather is said otherwise, and no matter how hard it is. Instead of bemoaning its impossibility, how about starting with simply ONE mandated townhall type meeting -- "general assembly" as it were to begin to build this network and station. For myself, and I know many of my Supportkpfa.org allies, I'm absolutely certain most of the same excellent on-air personalities I love are those loved by Conn Hallinan and Margy Wilkinson. And I'm pretty damned sure the ones who drive me up the wall are the same ones as well for the most part. So let's quit this crap and get on with figuring out how to make it work. Also, Jan. 30 at 7 or 7:40 BFUU in Berkeley is having a "KPFA - what's going on" event. Our own Local Station Board (dominated by so-called SAVEKPFA) could not yet get a townhall going, but this may be a start. I'm sure they'll post their own announcement.