"Cooking The Books" Community & Staff Challenge KPFA/KPFK On Morning Mix Cancellation

It is outrageous that any member of KPFA's management, including Richard Pirodsky, can tell the community that the weekends do not raise money for KPFA. THAT MEANS THE WEEKEND PROGRAMS MUST CHANGE. This writer can remember a children's program at KPFA where the children came to the studio and participated in the children's program. We also had LIVE classical music chamber groups in the studio, as well as LIVE jazz. Currently, neither such program exists at KPFA. I guarantee KPFA that if we heard much more classical music at KPFA such as the only classical music program at KPFA, now heard on Sundays, 5 a.m. to 9 a.m., all money problems at KPFA would disappear AND THE POLITICS WOULD TURN LEFT. This classical music fan would also like more socialist programs, including but not limited to basic Marxism-Leninism economics programs on KPFA.

The KPFA website should have an ongoing SURVEY OF LISTENERS, asking us what we like at KPFA and what new programs we would like to hear.

The Morning Mix was DESTROYED BY KPFA MANAGEMENT with NO INPUT FROM THE LISTENER-SUBSCRIBERS. That demonstrates total contempt for the listeners on the part of Mr. Pirodsky and his reactionary friends, like the illegal lawyer for Pacifica, Dan Siegel, who just gave $1,000 to this awful program from Los Angeles that replaced the Morning Mix. You should read the Motion to Disqualify Siegel, the points and authorities, declarations and all the exhibits, including the $13,000 fine issued by the Court of Appeal against Siegel for contempt of the discovery process at
http://www.mediafire.com/download/yn0v59ng51hxskt/2014.05.20+FINAL+Mtn+to+Disqual.+S%26Y.pdf

Democracy Now is repeated every weekday morning on KPFA at 9 a.m., 2 hours after its initial 6 a.m. broadcast. Once is enough for that bourgeois show; we can read the transcript and view it at
http://www.democracynow.org/

On its current path, KPFA and all the rest of the Pacifica network are soon gone. There is no need for yet another bourgeois station in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Dan Siegel's abuse of the discovery process is described at
What Majority? at
http://www.unitedforcommunityradio.org/?p=1048

The Court of Appeal decision, affirming the superior court's decision in Moreno v Ostly, Court of Appeal No A127780, Alameda County No. RG07339821, may be found at:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/tracy-rosenberg/what-majority/10202079308125574
Then go to:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/oq0354df10o0q22/Atty+Labeled+%27Sexual+Predator%27+Wins+%241.pdf#39;Sexual_Predator'_Wins_$1.pdf

KPFA Is Supposed To Be Against Greed And Exclusion, And So, What Their Directors Did Against College Students Is Revolting
http://thoughtcatalog.com/nolan-higdon/2014/05/kpfa-is-supposed-to-be-against-greed-and-exclusion-and-so-what-their-directors-did-against-college-students-is-revolting/
MAY. 16, 2014 By NOLAN HIGDON
This article was constructed in part from a large amount of interviews with individuals in the community and associated with KPFA. They were a mix of both on and off the record interviews taking place in person, on the phone, and via email.

KPFA 94.1 FM

Through the 1940s, a generation of Americans were inspired by the progressive rhetoric of the Democratic Party’s New Deal, which expanded the size of government to improve the nation, and President Franklin Roosevelt’s universal promises of the Four Freedoms (freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of speech, and freedom of worship). World War II veteran Lewis Hill was inspired by the era. Hill had witnessed New Dealers defend diversity and community voices in radio through federal government enforced limitations on media ownership with theCommunication Act of 1934. Keeping in that spirit, Hill co-founded KPFA, the first listener-supported radio station in the United States, and later the Pacifica Foundation Radio network which he headed until his suicide in 1957. KPFA is one of the five independently operated, non-commercial, listener-supported radio stations on the Pacifica Network.

KPFA’s mission statement, written in part by Hill, promises “cultural diversity and pluralistic community expression…a lasting understanding between individuals of all nations, races, creeds and colors, To promote freedom of the press and serve as a forum for various viewpoints, To maintain an independent funding base.” Sadly by 2014, KPFA is straying from its mission due in large part to a cadre of people who pursue personal profit and largely ignore the millennial generation, those born between 1982-2004.The behavior of this cadre is undermining the work of KPFA’s volunteers, staff, and commitment to diversity. Their malfeasances have led to a divide at the station that is collectively threatening KPFA’s existence.

On March 19, 2014, I attended a talk from Dr. Peter Dale Scott hosted by KPFA at the Hillside Club in Berkley. Even at his increasing age, Scott still has a sharp mind only rivaled by his wit and knowledge. KPFA event planners gathered a profitable, but not terribly diverse audience for Scott. The crowd was nearly filled with older white people. College students without tickets were being turned away at the door from the sold out event.KPFA charged $15 tickets to see Scott, which is expensive for many college students. Furthermore, even if students avoided the sell out andbought tickets in advance (online) for $12, it carried a $13.41 service fee bringing the total to $25.41.

KPFA’s decision to turn away college students is at odds with their mission of “pluralistic community expression.” Student Alisha Gaines-Sherman of Ohlone College drove from Fremont, CA to the event after making arrangements for her 13-year-old son and full time job. Commenting on being turned away at the door, she explained “I felt intimidated…the majority of the crowd was older, experienced men and women. When I was denied entry, it felt like a secret club, who was not looking for new members,…” Fellow Ohlone student Yanyu Zheng took BART from Fremont to Berkeley to see the event and said she felt “rejected.” Student Berna Palavra of Las-Positas College in Livermore, CA drove from Dublin, CA and was denied entry by a woman collecting tickets. Palavra explained that the woman “was rude about it and told me I should have got my tickets earlier…” Las Positas student Christopher Hall drove from Livermore, CA and after passing through the “congregating elderly people” was denied access.

Much of KPFA’s programming rallies against exclusion and greed in contemporary society. However, greedy KPFA event planners denied access to a sector of the community they purport to serve: college students festering for knowledge. The very same day of the Scott event, libertarian United States Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) spoke across town at University of California, Berkeley with the exact same entrance fee of $15. However, in a stark irony, the libertarian pro-capitalist event was more inclusive than KPFA’s event. Tickets for Paul’s event allowed “Berkeley students, staff, and faculty FREE.” It is a glaring sign of KPFA’s recent problematic nature that events centered on champions of the for profit model, like Rand Paul, offer college students more access to information in Berkley, than KPFA.

KPFA could argue their event fees are what enable their large budget, but that would ignore the reckless and costly money management of KPFA. Bob Baldock, who organized the Scott event, has been KPFA’s events manager for 26 years. He earns half time pay for the full time job of events manager. He and his volunteers, control certain venues, such as the Hillside Club in Berkeley which has refused to deal with anyone else at KPFA. Baldock claims he sends event money to the station as well as the visual and audio from events which is used for premiums. Premiums are items such as DVDs which are sold by KPFA hosts and staff to raise money for the station. However, inefficient book keeping at KPFA prevents a verification of Baldock’s claim. Tracy Rosenberg, who sat on Pacifica’s National Board from 2010-2014, claims to have found $70,000 in KPFA event funds missing. She was told that it was missing because people were slow to enter it. However, after 5 months it had still not been entered. By January 2014, she found that the money from 27 events had not been entered into the general account for KPFA. Baldock argues that the missing money claim is “bullshit,” noting that “KPFA accounting, book keeping, and management never contacted me about missing funds.” However, Rosenberg claims that Baldock threatened to quit if a checklist for tracking KPFA events funds was required.

Baldock’s supposed money mismanagement is part of a larger economic problem that is threatening KPFA. The budget problems within the Pacifica Network are linked to KPFA. KPFA has about $3 million of Pacifica’s $13 million budget. However, Pacifica is losing money: they owe Amy Goodman and Democracy Nowthousands of dollars, $7million of their $13 million is in an unknown location, and their New York station WBAI is losing about $50,000 a month after a hurricane destroyed their studio costing them 2/3 of their employees. The fights over how to properly address the money problems at KPFA has led to two groups dominating their governing board: SAVE KPFA(formerly “Concerned Listeners”), who want a more NPR like national station and SUPPORT KPFA who want a more local and grassroots station.

However, some of the economic woes faced at KPFA are self-inflicted. Rosenberg explained that “There is a general perception around the station that some people fix numbers.” Baldock disagrees, claiming to have “never heard of any malfeasance at KPFA, just some rumors about Pacifica…There are no malfeasance going on at KPFA.” However, insiders at KPFA claim that staff members including business managers are reported to have brought files home to manipulate data. Similarly, it is reported that hosts falsely increase their reported fund drive earning to justify their access to a certain broadcast timeslot. According to witnesses and a never released internal report, hosts manipulate and inflate donor data by altering fund drive amounts, steal pledges from other shows, have fake callers pledge donations, and deliver checks to the wrong shows. One host told me off the record that “Corruption is so wide it may take down all of KPFA”because the “books are so cooked they cannot get a rational audit, and everyone is working for themselves.” However, blogger Ed Manfredonia claimsRosenberg is using KPFA’s money problems to distract from Pacifica’s missing money.

Individuals trying to reconcile accounting fraud have been removed from KPFA. Executive Director of Pacifica Foundation, Summer Reese was fired the day before she was supposed to receive KPFA’s accounting books. Public funding is given to radio stations like KPFA depending upon their budget and the strength of their radio signal. However, KPFA missed its deadline to receive public funding after it could not produce its budget for events and fund drives. All Pacifica stations turned them over except KPFA, costing the entire network over $1 million. Reese was fired in a late night vote with three people missing, shortly after the Save KPFA faction got a one vote majority on the board. KPFA member Chandra Hauptman claimed that with the firing, members of the “national board are attempting to consolidate their power with reckless disregard of the consequences.” The firing prompted 400 people at KPFA to sign a petition in support of her. Sonoma County attorney Carol Spooner called the firing a “gross abuse of their authority.” Reese’s contract guaranteed her $300,000 if fired without reason. Reese has been occupying national headquarters in Berkeley in protest of her firing, but refuses to sue Pacifica since it has enough economic problems.

I work at a recycling center and just the other day someone threw a dead cat into the cardboard shredder.
A minority of KPFA members have focused on personal profit while ignoring the generational changes which threaten to decrease their audience size. The time for KPFA to veil its behavior as an extension of the 1960s free speech movement is vanishing as Berkley is increasingly gentrified and KPFA brims with selfish figures. The youth are not feeling welcomed by KPFA, which claims to serve their community. Rosenberg who is in her fifties says “the station is responsive to people 15 years older than me.” Baldock, when asked if KPFA serves the community responded “I do not like the phrase ‘the community’ because everyone has a different conception of what ‘the community’ is.” Regardless, the narrow-minded and self-interested few at KPFA are collectively undermining the station. Furthermore, infighting between factions serves the interest of the plutocracy who own 90% of media and welcome the demise of progressive stations like KPFA. The small, but disruptive members of KPFA who undermine Hill’s commitment to the community need to leave the station for the good of the community. The majority that remain and the replacements which will be needed can better serve the interests and concerns of KPFA’s diverse community no matter which generation they come from.

I fully support this campaign to get the Morning Mix programs back on the air . But a glance at the photos of the people at the rally show another problem . Age ! I only saw two guys that may be under 50 . Most were late 60's to Mid 70's . I think the listener base is only slightly more age diverse.
To paraphase a late great long dead Russian , What needs to be done to attract 20-40 yr old listeners ? Something ain't working .

Statement regarding the Morning Mix situation by Janet Kobren, KPFA LSB and Pacifica National Board director
Bringing community back into community radio is the slogan of United For Community Radio, the slate I ran on during the 2010 KPFA Local Station Board election. The Morning Mix airing during the morning drive-time is a quintessential example of that.
One of the reasons I have been involved with KPFA and Pacifica has been my strong advocacy of democratic media and local, community activist radio, and thus I am dismayed by the way the decision was made to replace the locally-produced Morning Mix with the L.A.-produced Uprising show. This was done basically by fiat, during an imminent change in KPFA management, without sufficient justification based on the unique Pacifica radio model, without proper notice to the staff and listeners, and without a process that should have included but did not allow for comprehensive community, listener, and staff input. I consider the approach and decision to be anti-democratic and not in the spirit of the Pacifica mission and bylaws.

And thus I urge KPFA management to rescind its decision to cancel the Morning Mix and instead not only reinstate the Morning Mix back into the grid during the 8:00-9:00am PT time slot, but also provide support to its unpaid hosts and producers and promote the Morning Mix so it can develop into an even more wonderful program.

Yes, KPFA needs to appeal to a younger audience, and get more young people on the air, but this rally took place between 9 and 11 am on Tuesday, a workday. Of course there were a lot of retired people there.

Richard Pirodsky say's
"Neither the listeners nor the station care whether a given programmer is an elder or a youth, uses a walker or jogs to work. The listeners care about programs they want being available when they are. The station cares about serving the listeners and generating revenue."

"Phil and Brian would have agreed that Sonali's program was good for use of the "match fund." Does the match make Sonali's show look better?"
KPFA unpaid staffer Richard Wolinsky published a comment on Facebook explaining the source of the temporaily inflated numbers being used to justify the programming change.


Richard Wolinsky Mark, I may be old but I still look good. Not a clone and not a crone. However, a couple of things. First, It's common to lie about matches. "Someone just called in" could be anything from someone calling in to Phil Osegueda saying, "hey, you think you could make a $500 match now?" So what do you say on the air? Not, "oh, Phil thinks we can make a match." What you say is, "We just got the word that someone has called in and pledged a match of $500." I agree with Richard Devereaux. It's kind of creepy, but people have been doing it since long before I arrived at KPFA. The truth is that if Dan Seigel hadn't called in the match, it's likely Phil and Brian would have agreed that Sonali's program was good for use of the "match fund." Does the match make Sonali's show look better? Yes 7 hrs · Edited · Like ·
How many "match funds" that came in during different hours of the day were directed to the LA program during its trial run in the 3rd week of May has not been disclosed by KPFA.
Here is some audio of one particular pledge from attorney Dan Siegel that was allocated to the 8:00am hour.
https://soundcloud.com/tracy-rosenberg/lawyer-buying-program
Siegel's firm, Siegel and Yee, has an employee on the national board, Jose Luis Fuentes, who replaced his boss on the national board in January. Fuentes made the motion to fire executive director Summer Reese a week after his arrival on the national board, and has relayed the rogue board majority's legal work in the PDGG vs. Pacifica lawsuit to his own firm.