Rosenberg sues over KPFA recall, ballot count delayed

We have read all about the end of the recall on this website already as we heard about the lawsuit the day it was filed, July 31, 2012. The recall proponents finally got around to notifying their government operation on their savekpfa website on August 7. See
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/07/31/18718655.php

Their basic premise is that the delay caused the problem with the cutoff date! The delay was caused by Margy Wilkinson's refusal to accept an elections supervisor who was first chosen. Of course, when there is a delay, there should be adjustments for the cutoff date, but that did not occur. Here is what Wilkinson had to say:
August 5, 2012 Daily Cal at
http://www.dailycal.org/2012/08/05/ballots-of-kpfa-recall-election-sequestered/
"According to Wilkinson, the election’s delay to June 2012 makes it impossible for the election to have a legitimate record date. The Pacifica national board recall procedures state that a recall election’s record date should be the certification date of the recall petition, which is Nov. 2011 for this particular election."

"Consequently, it is difficult to hold an election that includes both former members who were supposed to vote in Dec. 2011 and current members, Wilkinson said."

“I believe in the broadest level of democracy. I would like everyone to have a chance to vote,” Wilkinson said. “However, I just don’t see any way that this could be possible.”

********
As we have learned from the above cited July 31, 2012 article, this "certification date" does not exist! The cutoff(record) date is 45 to 60 days before the ballots are distributed, ACCORDING TO LAW AND ACCORDING TO THE BYLAWS, not 8 months or 240 days! That's right, MARGY WILKINSON WANTS TO IGNORE THE CALIFORNIA CORPORATIONS CODE AND THE BYLAWS. So she makes up some non-existent Pacifica procedures. THE PROCEDURES OF PACIFICA ARE THE BYLAWS. This is what the Hate Pacifica Gang voted for to be the chair of the KPFA Local Station Board. PLEASE VOTE THIS GANG OUT OF OFFICE THIS YEAR.

To be a voting member, you need to pay at least $25 to KPFA. Go online before September 1, preferably today, to make your payment. See
https://secure.kpfa.org/support/

We have 14 positions to fill, and they must all be with opponents of the Hate Pacifica Gang and its recall. We want people in office who will repeal all recall provisions as there is no reason for any expensive recall when we have almost annual expensive Local Station Board elections. WE ARE NOT PAYING FOR RECALLS, FUNDRAISING CONSULTANTS, REPUBLICAN PARTY PROMOTERS, A PAID NEWS DEPARTMENT EATING UP OUR MONEY WHEN IT SHOULD BE VOLUNTEER, OR PROMOTIONS OF THE DEMOCRAT-REPUBLICANS INSTEAD OF PEACE & FREEDOM PARTY AND THE GREEN PARTY.

You can be a candidate for Local Station Board. August 30, 2012 is the deadline for nominating petitions. Please see the schedule and information at:
http://www.kpfa.org/kpfa-lsb-election-process-begins
and contact
Aharon Morris, Local Election Supervisor: 510.848.6767 ext. 212
or via e-mail at: election [at] kpfa.org

When we vote, we are voting to Never Forgive and Never Forget this phony, vicious, personal attack on our beloved Tracy Rosenberg.

Please watch the endorsements of the VoteIndyRadio website for people worth voting for in the October 2012 Local Station Board elections:
http://www.voteindyradio.org/

For updates on what is going on, please read:
http://supportkpfa.org/

Whoever the commenter above is, they obviously have an axe to grind and are completely ignorant of the facts.

Pacifica does have a recall procedure, and it is in compliance with the bylaws. It was used for the last recall at Pacifica. You can see it here:
http://www.savekpfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/PNBResolutionRecallProcedures090903.pdf

The problem was, Pacifica's national leaders are incompetent, and they hired an incompetent election supervisor. Everyone but them (apparently) knew the ballots had to go out by December 2011. SaveKPFA protested that repeatedly, and so did over a thousand listeners who signed the petition linked here: http://www.savekpfa.org/600-kpfa-listeners-tell-pacifica-quit-stalling-on-recall-vote

Rosenberg claims she "found out" about it right before the votes were to be counted. Even though she was on the board that scheduled the whole thing.

In any case, the judge will decide how to fix Pacifica's glaring error. It's obvious from the large number of ballots that came in (see SaveKPFA's website for the picture) that the turnout was huge. Those KPFA members have a right to be heard on this issue, as perhaps others whom Pacifica did not mail ballots to do as well. Whatever the case, all the votes should be counted.

This isn't Florida, 2000, is it?

And your accusations about SaveKPFA being a "government operation" are hilarious. Keep it up, please!

For those who want to see the endorsers of the recall, go here:
http://www.savekpfa.org/kpfa-listeners-look-for-your-recall-ballot-then-vote-yes

Rosenberg sues over KPFA recall, ballot count delayed

It’s been almost a year since SaveKPFA submitted over 800 signatures from KPFA listener-members seeking the removal of Pacifica Treasurer Tracy Rosenberg — the architect of Pacifica’s purge of the Morning Show. Against our wishes, and over our repeated protests, Pacifica delayed the recall election past December 31 — which was the date called for in its own rules and bylaws. That bought Rosenberg’s supporters six months to raise money for a “no” campaign mailing.

In a bizarre turn of events, Rosenberg has now sued Pacifica over that very delay. Her legal argument? That the gap between the voter eligibility deadline Pacifica set when it verified the recall petitions, and the date Pacifica actually mailed the ballots, is too long. Her suit asks for the recall election to be thrown out altogether, and asks the judge to make Pacifica pay her attorneys’ fees. Don’t expect Pacifica’s attorneys to defend this one too vigorously…

On August 1, an Alameda County Superior Court judge issued a temporary order to place all recall ballots under seal until a hearing on Rosenberg’s lawsuit, now scheduled for September 10. On August 4, SaveKPFA observers documented the retrieval of recall ballots from a Berkeley PO box this weekend, and their sequestration in a nearby safe deposit box. They report what appears to be a VERY LARGE number of ballots waiting to be counted (see photo at above). SaveKPFA offers a few thoughts on these latest developments:

Rosenberg could have raised her procedural concerns much sooner — perhaps even before ballots were mailed. The suit doesn’t appear to be the action of someone who wants a smooth election process, but rather that of someone seeking maximum delay.
Rosenberg filed the suit just before ballots were to be counted, and sought an order to prevent the counting itself (rather than to prevent Pacifica from acting on whatever the count was). This indicates Rosenberg expected to lose the vote count.
Any remedy likely to come from her lawsuit — including an entirely new election — is unlikely to produce a different result. So Rosenberg appears to be playing for time.

Rosenberg told the East Bay Express that the vote was too expensive, but KPFA listener-member Mark Spindler told the Daily Californian that “the question should be why is Pacifica teaming with anti-union attorneys” to use donations to fight listeners and staff. He added that Rosenberg “needs to be held accountable for what she has done, and this recall is the vehicle for that.”

This personal vendetta is costing the listeners over half of the $47K that was raised over the goal in the recent fund drive.

A large part of the delay of the voting was due to Save KPFA rejecting Pacifica's choice of recall supervisor last fall. Pacifica's choice was a person from the Center for Voting and Democracy (Fair Vote) who has helped at many of our LSB elections because he knows the proportional voting system set up under his organization (of which our late Les Radke was a member). This experienced proponent of fair voting was rejected by the SK as being "biased". As the late Les Radke pointed out, intelligent people will have opinions but 1 - you don't need an unbiased supervisor, just a fair one; 2 - our election supervisors are usually unbiased to begin with, but after trying to work with SaveKPFA/ConcernedListeners, who *do not believe in democratic elections*, are no longer on their side - which is what SK deems unbiased - *being on their side*.
When the PNB got around to choosing a replacement recall supervisor, Ms. Wilkinson demanded to meet the chair about their new choice - and likely turn *him* down as well, causing a further delay. The PNB decided not to permit this and to let their choice stand. There was a further delay when the new election supervisor ran into a computer problem and the original choice had to be called in to solve the problem.
In November SK sent out a very expensive mailing to all KPFA listeners, with their misinformation about Tracy, telling them to expect a ballot momentarily, when they knew this could not possibly happen, and to complain to Pacifica if they didn't get their ballot by that certain date.
Their actions were dishonest and manipulative, and have been all along.

For example, *why* did Pacifica spend so much money on expensive corporate-type lawyers? It was because SK was engaged in litigation against them! Most of which was turned down by the /NLRB etc. as being without merit! In other words, unnecessary.
In the meanwhile, they hired a Radical Republican law firm to pursue *their* litigation against Pacifica. Their former favorite LSB candidate, whom they had promoted as the #1 person to vote for, had married this law firm's head.

One of their members offered that they would support Tracy in the recall if she would admit to the charges. Dishonest and Manipulative. (She declined the offer.)

Since it appears that the Pacifica recall specifications differ from the state requirements for non-profits, which do you think will supercede the other?

Whether a lackey or a plant, Brian Edwards Tiekert is the Republican operative at KPFA, made known as such with his representation by a Republican Party law firm, Dhillon & Smith, whose principal, Ms. Harmeet Dhillon, is chair of the SF Republican Party, now married to former LSB member, Republican Sarv Randhawa. He, Mitch Jeserich and Lewis Sawyer, sued Pacifica over a staff election which, if there were a problem, could easily be redone as it only involved the 200 member staff at KPFA (most of whom are volunteers, by the way). It is Alameda Superior Court Action No. RG10549212. You can read all about Tiekert at the following and be sure to read all the links:
http://danielborgstrom.blogspot.com/2011/05/kpfas-republican-activist.html

Ms. Dhillon appears regularly on the San Francisco ballot. This year she is running for state senate against incumbent Democrat Mark Leno, a leading proponent of single payer healthcare and who happens to be gay. She may very well get less than 10% of the vote. You can read all about her reactionary positions at
http://www.dhillon2012.com/issues.html

This government operation that has been attacking KPFA since its birth on April 15, 1949, currently has as its Leading Light a former KPFA programmer and former editor of the CIA's Paris Review, Larry Bensky. For more, see:

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

If anyone associated with Save KPFA knew the difference between journalism and propaganda, they'd tell the truth.

The way to report the story is that Rosenberg was GRANTED a temporary restraining order due to irregularities in the recall election procedure, including sending ballots to current non-members of the foundation and not sending ballots to current members, in contradistinction of the rights of members to determine their future representation on local and national Pacifica boards.

As to *why* the recall election was delayed, it was primarily due to actions by the "Save" KPFA faction.
They are pretending otherwise.
Please see the comments at
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/08/07/18719104.php
"Dishonest and manipulative" and
"Reactionary Daily Cal Article Shows Wilkinson Position"