SaveKPFA Candidate Mark Hernandez, Caught with his "Hand In the LSB Minutes Jar".

Mark Hernandez was Secretary on the LSB during one of my terms as Chair. A staff Concerned Listener/SaveKPFA allied LSB Rep named Eric ( I am leaving his last name off at his request) didn't show up for meetings about 60% of the time. He should have been dropped but the CL/SK folks on the LSB kept excusing his absences. Eric told me later that he didn't ask to be excused since he no longer worked at KPFA but was working at another radio station. Why did they continue to excuse Eric when they knew he was gone? The next up on the list to replace him was Miguel Molina.

At a meeting in June 2006 the SK/CL folks forgot to excuse Eric and Mark Hernandez changed the minutes to show he was excused. I knew that they had not excused Eric when I saw the minutes and raised the issue. Max Blanchet, who kept attendence records and others agreed with me. Hernandez said he would listen to the audio of the meeting which was on his lap top and get back to us. He never did since Mark knew he had been caught. Below is an article I wrote at that time exposing Hernandez's playing fast and loose with the minutes.

Do we want some one who was caught changing the minutes for political gain back on the LSB? Do we want people on the LSB (SaveKPFA folks) that would put such a person on their slate? NO!

Hernandez also spoke against a motion in support of the Berkeley Honda Strikers along with Sarv Randhawa, another SK/CL long time LSB/PNB member who has finally been outed as a Republican.

One final interesting thing about Hernandez, He likes to red bait. When I was chair we organized a Town Hall meeting as required by the bylaws. The SK/CL majority has never put one on. SK/CL talks local control but that means their local elite, not the listeners, so they don't want or need to do any Town Hall meetings since they wouldn't pay any attention to what listeners want since they have the "CORRECT LINE" and must lead the masses. Hernandez made this comment about our sides participation in the Town Hall Meeting. He accused us of bringing in "busloads of communists" to dominate the meeting. I find it very interesting that SK/CL ,who has many ex-CPUSA and current Committee of Correspondence members among them have allied with a red baiter who wouldn't support a strike that every progressive in the Bay Area supported??? Is this just an opportunist move to get Fresno votes? I will let you decide.

I believe Hernandez would best be described as a right wing libertarian . I never saw or heard anything left or progressive from him.
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MARK'S MAGIC MINUTES

Transcript by Richard Phelps, LSB Chair, for July, 06 part of meeting regarding correcting the minutes on Eric listed as an excused absence. Mark’s comments are substantially complete. Some irrelevant comments are left out since I am not a swift transcriber.

Marnie: There’s an error in the uh minutes regarding the absences from last, that meeting, Eric’s name was not even mentioned that day and he was not excused.

Mark: Mr. Chair.

Max: This is my recollection as well. I had him down as a zero. Not an excused person in my chart.

(Interruption by unidentified person.)

Chair: She doesn’t have the floor, Mark you are next.

Mark: The motion made was to excuse all absences.

(Several people then said no, that’s not true.)

Chair: I know, I made careful note of it. I’m going to call on myself for my recollection. I just want to say that I remember explicitly that nobody asked for him to be excused and I wondered why? Several other people were brought up and approved but Eric was never put up to be excused.

Max: To explain my chart, if you attend you get a 1, if you are absent and you are excused by a vote you get an E and if you are not excused you get a zero. That ‘s the way my chart is and that is very explicit.

Mark: Mr. Chair, I ask the indulgence of the board. I am going to play it back in a few moments, that we table this for about 10 minutes.

Chair: And then?

Mark: I can play the motion for the board.

Chair: You are going to have to play the whole discussion, because it has to be in context…if we are going to listen to that we have to listen to the whole discussion about excused absences.

Mark: Mr. Chair, the final motion is the motion that is made and that is what is voted on.

Chair: Well, No, we have to hear the context because Eric’s name was not mentioned.

Mark: Mr. Chair, the motion that is passed is the motion of record. It does not matter, we do not take notational transcripts. We do not have the Federalist Papers which we can go back to and take word for word examination of the details of the arguments.

Chair: That’s not my point Mark. My point is it might say they are all approved but the point is you have to go back and see who was mentioned as approved because Eric was not mentioned. That’s the distinction I want to make clear. Nobody, none of the people over here ever said that I want Eric excused. It was never raised. I have a memory that is very, very good and I was surprised that nobody did, so the fact that it might say that all those mentioned are excused is fine but then you gotta go back and listen to who was asked to be excused. That’s the context I am talking about.

(After some discussion we were about to vote on the amendment to the minutes regarding Eric’s absence)

Brian: Point of Information.

Chair: Yes

Brian: Did Mark Hernandez ask to table or was that informal?

Chair: All right, we’ll table. If he can get that up so we can hear it that is fine. But like I said, I want to hear the whole thing not just the last 30 seconds.

Brian: Mr. Chair, maybe we can take on the consent calendar.

Chair: Yes, why don’t we take on the consent calendar, any objection, while Mark is trying to find that let’s go to the consent calendar. (and we did)

(Mark never got back to us to play the prior meeting discussion.)


Here is a transcript, also by Richard Phelps, from the June 06 meeting, the section on excusing absences. First is the only part Mark wanted us to hear, followed by the discussion that preceded the motion:


Chair: Anybody want to a make a motion regarding the peoples named?

Sarv: comments off mike

Chair: Sarv moved to excuse those people whose names have been mentioned, any second? ( it was seconded) any objections? No Objections. Ok.

(After the above motion Sepideh sought clarification.)


Sepideh: Who are the people named?

Chair: Sherry, Jane, Willie Ratcliff, and Debbie and Rosalinda are on their way.

Sepideh: La Varn is on her way, she is 5 minutes away.

Here is the discussion from the beginning up to the motion:

Chair: And just another reminder for everybody out there, if you came in late the sign up sheet for public comment is right here, if anybody wants to sign up. Ok. Uh I have been advised by Willie Ratcliff that he will not be here because of a Juneteenth celebration….anybody know of anybody who is absent, Willie asked to be excused…

Max: Jane Jackson

Chair: Yes, she’s out of town I believe.

Bonnie: A, Sherry Gendelman is out of town this weekend. I believe Debbie is on her way here and Rosalinda had a meeting for her work this morning and should be here soon.

Chair: Anybody want to a make a motion regarding the peoples named?

And we are back to where we started. It is easy to see that if you just played back the motion:

“Chair: Sarv moved to excuse those people whose names have been mentioned, any second? ( it was seconded) any objections? No Objections. Ok.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You would not know who was excused without hearing the prior discussion to get the context of the motion, who was mentioned to be excused. One could try to construe this motion to mean that all absent would be excused, but only if you ignore the specific language:

“those people whose names have been mentioned”

and didn’t listen to the rest of the short discussion.

So why was Mark Hernandez so adamant that we only listen to the motion? Despite having the recording of the meeting Mark wrote in the minutes that Eric’s absence was excused. You can decide for yourself what you think this means about our Secretary’s trustworthiness to be the keeper of our records.

Other facts to consider: Mark Hernandez never asked to play the pertinent recorded part of the meeting for the LSB after he listened to it during our last meeting, after Mark asked to table the discussion so he could play it back for us. Mark had the June meeting recording available to him for review when he did the June minutes. Mark has always voted to excuse Eric and almost always votes with those that have fought to keep Eric on the LSB despite the fact that Eric’s attendance is around 40 % and he has not attended a meeting since January 7, 2006. Eric has not been an active member on any committee of the LSB or PNB. Eric hasn’t worked at the station since early April, 2006 and for several months prior to that he worked sporadically in a manner that would not qualify him as a staff member. He is not listed on the recently released Unpaid Staff list. Eric has not communicated with the LSB on the LSB list for some months and has not communicated to the LSB his intention to remain active on the board despite the controversy over his attendance and the facts supporting his being ineligible to be on the LSB.

The Bylaws state:
Article 3 MEMBERSHIP, SECTION 2. TERM.
A Listener-Sponsor membership term shall expire twelve (12) months from that date on which said Member: (A) contributed a minimum of $25 to any Foundation radio station, or such minimum amount as the Board of Directors may from time to time decide; or (B) volunteered a minimum of 3 hours of service to any Foundation radio station. A Staff membership term shall expire: (A) on that date on which s/he is no longer a member of a radio station Unpaid Staff Organization or Bargaining Unit, or if the radio station has no such organization, then on that date on which s/he failed to volunteer a minimum of 30 hours in the preceding 3-month period; or (B) upon termination of employment as a non-management employee of a Foundation radio station, as applicable.

The evidence is clear that Eric is not a staff member of KPFA/Pacifica and thus is not eligible to represent the staff on the LSB. The evidence is clear that he has not been eligible since April 2006 and probably prior to that.

Mark Hernandez recently tried to get out of his getting caught misreporting the vote in the minutes by saying that since Sarv Randhawa’s statement was inaudible on the recording that we don’t know what his motion was. That is wrong both factually and legally. I heard it clearly and repeated it over the mic and Sarv did not say “hey that is not what I said”. And Mark was sitting right next to him and did not ask for a correction and Mark lives for the times he can correct me, as anyone who has been to a meeting or two knows. Also, when Sepideh asks for who was excused I didn’t mention Eric and neither Mark Hernandez or Sarv Randhawa said anything, not “what about Eric” or “my motion includes all absences.” So it is clear that this is a months old attempt to cover up Mark Hernandez’s being caught changing the minutes to benefit his faction.



Richard Phelps
Chair, KPFA LSB