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KPFA Local Station Board “townhall”—unmasked yet still shameless
“Protector”-controlled KPFA Local Station Board holds a rigged and shameless “Town Hall”.
The KPFA May 18th Local Station Board Town Hall featured previously suspended KPFA Local Station Board member, Sherry Gendelman giving a report about what she called a “listener 501c3 non profit”, Pacifica Safety Net.
She is President of this “organization”. If you can call it that.
If you read the article at the bottom, she can’t even file the paperwork correctly to keep its non profit status current. The reports of PSN’s finances are dubious to say the least. It’s hard to believe she’s a lawyer.
Yet she and her “organization” (which included another KPFA LSB member Donald Goldmacher) saw fit to file a Petition with the Federal Communications Commission to deny WBAI (a sister station out of NYC which like KPFA also belongs to Pacifica Foundation) its broadcast license due to the way it was fundraising.
WBAI has been struggling ever since a previous Pacifica National Board signed a very onerous loan agreement due to the loss of its transmission tower in Sept 2001.
These “Protectors” /Pacifica Safety Net/ New Day are shameless.
These 3 organizations have been tag-teaming like obnoxious and toxic wrestlers for years attacking WBAI and Pacifica Foundation for its “mismanagement”. At every LSB meeting and at every opportunity, people like Carole Wolfley, Secretary of the KPFA LSB, have been accusing WBAI of draining Pacifica of its resources yet Pacifica Safety Net was draining Pacifica’s accounts with lawsuits that actively asked the courts to put Pacifica Foundation into receivership to push it towards Bankruptsy.
Luckily they have failed. (for now).
Guess in whose coffers Pacifica’s assets could have ended up in if Pacifica Safety Net had been successful?
KPFA “protectors” have sided w/ plaintiffs like previous Executive Director Vernille against Pacifica Foundation which ended up boomeranging and forcing KPFA to have to pay the $305,000 award to Vernille.
The more you dig the funnier it becomes:
When Pacifica Foundation sought a delay in having to pay the award due to pending litigation, the KPFA Business Manager even declared in a deposition that she was opposed to this delay effectively setting into motion the extraction of this money from Pacifica.
But the money came from an apparently previously undisclosed KPFA account. The fact that the Marshall’s discovered the account apparently surprised the Business Manager and Cristina Huggins, the then Chair of the KPFA LSB and who now is the Treasurer.
These are the actions of people who would rather bite off their own noses to spite their face.
All the while, they were claiming that there wasn’t any money for LSB elections. Was it a coincidence then that they forced thru a motion extending the terms of the members on the Pacifica National Board and LSB members who were past the 6 year mark and cancelled (not postponed) the elections? —a violation of the bylaws.
It was only until some of us took Pacifica Foundation to court for these violations that it forced an election, in which they still managed to commit fraud, by disqualifying the opposition at both the KPFK Los Angeles and KPFT Houston station as well as more shenanigans at the other 3 stations.
At this same “townhall” Carole Wolfley, defended Sherry Gendelman’s action’s of sending the FCC to go after Pacifica yet I pointed out that she was hardly the person who should be reporting on this since she was biased; she herself had also sent a letter to the FCC. it seemed like it was something she was going to leave out in her report to the listeners.
The Protectors/Pacifica Safety Net/New Day tag team wanted to bog down Pacifica under the weight of lots and lots legal paperwork, with requests for document collections going back years, so as to suffocate it under the FCC filing. Those are typical corporate tactics.
The FCC didn’t give WBAI an 8 year renewal, just a two year one with conditions for all of the stations to fulfill, plus $25,000 fine.
Sherry Gendelman, Carole Wolfley and Donald Goldmacher actually acted proud of this achievement.
At this “townhall” Wolfley gave participants leading questions that prompted listeners to ask why KPFA should “stay” in the Pacifica Network, as if KPFA and its non-profit status didn’t really (and actually) belong to Pacifica Foundation.
This kind of incitement to secede from Pacifica Foundation has been going on for years in most of the mailings sent out by the KPFA Protectors to KPFA members and during almost all of the KPFA LSB meetings.
Wolfley boasted about KPFA’s finances as if KPFA had never needed help financially in the past nor had ever had to rely on support from the other stations.
She brought forth a novel idea of “proportional representation” on the Board of Directors because KPFA had more members than the other four stations.
That only works if you are willing to work with the minority.
Past & present practice is the best evidence:
Wolfley, and the majority “Protectors” on the KPFA LSB have been abusive towards the minority Rescue Pacifica members (7) on this 22 member board and have consistently ignored, vetoed, censured, and even expelled LSB members that don’t agree with them. (Full disclosure: I was expelled by the KPFA LSB until I was reinstated by the Pacifica National Board)
The minority members on this Board, 7 of us who belong to Rescue Pacifica hadn’t even been included in the planning of this LSB townhall.
Another shameless report came from Zack Kaldveer, boasting about the article he wrote about how US media is biased against Palestine yet forgetting to mention to the listeners that he had sided with his “Protectors” gang and had voted DOWN an Emergency resolution in solidarity with Palestine at the previous KPFA LSB meeting in March. In the middle of a Genocide.
Again. Shameless.
To quote a statement I read on X from “Black in the Empire”—
“Only in America can a man who worked with Segregationists to fight busing, wrote and pushed the laws that lead to Black mass incarceration, and be providing the weapons for a genocide give a commencement address at a Black college, like nothing ever happened.”
The only thing more shameless that KPFA could possibly do worse than this town hall would be to try to get its listeners to vote for GenocideJoe—oh wait—
What would we ever do without “Progressives”?
Elizabeth Milos is an elected member of the KPFA Local Station Board and part of the Rescue Pacifica slate.
She is also a member of UPTE members for Palestine & a previous delegate to the SF Labor Council.
For more info: RescuePacifica(dot)net.
See attached for Emergency KPFA LSB Resolution in Solidarity with Palestine that was voted DOWN by the “Protector”-controlled KPFA LSB.
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2024/05/19/18866421.php
She is President of this “organization”. If you can call it that.
If you read the article at the bottom, she can’t even file the paperwork correctly to keep its non profit status current. The reports of PSN’s finances are dubious to say the least. It’s hard to believe she’s a lawyer.
Yet she and her “organization” (which included another KPFA LSB member Donald Goldmacher) saw fit to file a Petition with the Federal Communications Commission to deny WBAI (a sister station out of NYC which like KPFA also belongs to Pacifica Foundation) its broadcast license due to the way it was fundraising.
WBAI has been struggling ever since a previous Pacifica National Board signed a very onerous loan agreement due to the loss of its transmission tower in Sept 2001.
These “Protectors” /Pacifica Safety Net/ New Day are shameless.
These 3 organizations have been tag-teaming like obnoxious and toxic wrestlers for years attacking WBAI and Pacifica Foundation for its “mismanagement”. At every LSB meeting and at every opportunity, people like Carole Wolfley, Secretary of the KPFA LSB, have been accusing WBAI of draining Pacifica of its resources yet Pacifica Safety Net was draining Pacifica’s accounts with lawsuits that actively asked the courts to put Pacifica Foundation into receivership to push it towards Bankruptsy.
Luckily they have failed. (for now).
Guess in whose coffers Pacifica’s assets could have ended up in if Pacifica Safety Net had been successful?
KPFA “protectors” have sided w/ plaintiffs like previous Executive Director Vernille against Pacifica Foundation which ended up boomeranging and forcing KPFA to have to pay the $305,000 award to Vernille.
The more you dig the funnier it becomes:
When Pacifica Foundation sought a delay in having to pay the award due to pending litigation, the KPFA Business Manager even declared in a deposition that she was opposed to this delay effectively setting into motion the extraction of this money from Pacifica.
But the money came from an apparently previously undisclosed KPFA account. The fact that the Marshall’s discovered the account apparently surprised the Business Manager and Cristina Huggins, the then Chair of the KPFA LSB and who now is the Treasurer.
These are the actions of people who would rather bite off their own noses to spite their face.
All the while, they were claiming that there wasn’t any money for LSB elections. Was it a coincidence then that they forced thru a motion extending the terms of the members on the Pacifica National Board and LSB members who were past the 6 year mark and cancelled (not postponed) the elections? —a violation of the bylaws.
It was only until some of us took Pacifica Foundation to court for these violations that it forced an election, in which they still managed to commit fraud, by disqualifying the opposition at both the KPFK Los Angeles and KPFT Houston station as well as more shenanigans at the other 3 stations.
At this same “townhall” Carole Wolfley, defended Sherry Gendelman’s action’s of sending the FCC to go after Pacifica yet I pointed out that she was hardly the person who should be reporting on this since she was biased; she herself had also sent a letter to the FCC. it seemed like it was something she was going to leave out in her report to the listeners.
The Protectors/Pacifica Safety Net/New Day tag team wanted to bog down Pacifica under the weight of lots and lots legal paperwork, with requests for document collections going back years, so as to suffocate it under the FCC filing. Those are typical corporate tactics.
The FCC didn’t give WBAI an 8 year renewal, just a two year one with conditions for all of the stations to fulfill, plus $25,000 fine.
Sherry Gendelman, Carole Wolfley and Donald Goldmacher actually acted proud of this achievement.
At this “townhall” Wolfley gave participants leading questions that prompted listeners to ask why KPFA should “stay” in the Pacifica Network, as if KPFA and its non-profit status didn’t really (and actually) belong to Pacifica Foundation.
This kind of incitement to secede from Pacifica Foundation has been going on for years in most of the mailings sent out by the KPFA Protectors to KPFA members and during almost all of the KPFA LSB meetings.
Wolfley boasted about KPFA’s finances as if KPFA had never needed help financially in the past nor had ever had to rely on support from the other stations.
She brought forth a novel idea of “proportional representation” on the Board of Directors because KPFA had more members than the other four stations.
That only works if you are willing to work with the minority.
Past & present practice is the best evidence:
Wolfley, and the majority “Protectors” on the KPFA LSB have been abusive towards the minority Rescue Pacifica members (7) on this 22 member board and have consistently ignored, vetoed, censured, and even expelled LSB members that don’t agree with them. (Full disclosure: I was expelled by the KPFA LSB until I was reinstated by the Pacifica National Board)
The minority members on this Board, 7 of us who belong to Rescue Pacifica hadn’t even been included in the planning of this LSB townhall.
Another shameless report came from Zack Kaldveer, boasting about the article he wrote about how US media is biased against Palestine yet forgetting to mention to the listeners that he had sided with his “Protectors” gang and had voted DOWN an Emergency resolution in solidarity with Palestine at the previous KPFA LSB meeting in March. In the middle of a Genocide.
Again. Shameless.
To quote a statement I read on X from “Black in the Empire”—
“Only in America can a man who worked with Segregationists to fight busing, wrote and pushed the laws that lead to Black mass incarceration, and be providing the weapons for a genocide give a commencement address at a Black college, like nothing ever happened.”
The only thing more shameless that KPFA could possibly do worse than this town hall would be to try to get its listeners to vote for GenocideJoe—oh wait—
What would we ever do without “Progressives”?
Elizabeth Milos is an elected member of the KPFA Local Station Board and part of the Rescue Pacifica slate.
She is also a member of UPTE members for Palestine & a previous delegate to the SF Labor Council.
For more info: RescuePacifica(dot)net.
See attached for Emergency KPFA LSB Resolution in Solidarity with Palestine that was voted DOWN by the “Protector”-controlled KPFA LSB.
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2024/05/19/18866421.php
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Lew Hill said “Anyone can understand the rationale of listener sponsorship—that unless the station is supported by those who value it, no one can listen to it, including those who value it. This is common sense.”
Each station needs to be self-supporting, and the Pacifica National Board should empower the Executive Director to take appropriate action when they're not.