Concerned Listeners Snub KPFA Voters

The one and only Meet the Candidates event, held in Berkeley Sunday night was a success in that there was good dialogue between the candidates that showed up and the 40 listener/voters. People showed up mostly from person to person communication and Indybay given very little on air promotion. Thanks go to Virginia Browning, JaNay Jenkins, and Les Radke for making it happen.

All seven(7) Peoplesradio candidates showed up. Some coming from as far as Santa Rosa and Vallejo.

Incumbant Sherry Gendelman was a no show, perhaps she didn't want to hear questions, from the voters who believe in free speech and fair elections, about her relationship with Dan Siegel and her public support for his election interference, or maybe it was her voting record she didn't want to defend?

Matthew Hallinan didn't make it and he lives only a few blocks from where it took place. Perhaps he didn't want to face the voters that may have read his Berkeley Daily Planet article that was in essence a personal attack on his opponents. Susan McDonough (she also skipped the on air forum on Saturday), John Van Eyck, Diane Enriquez, and Paul Robins also failed to appear. Antonio Medrano appeared along with Warren Mar. Mar made a comment during his opening statement decrying the low numbers in attendance. Perhaps he didn't know that the management that has consciously not promoted the election on the air is the same management Concerned Listeners has been supporting almost entirely without question. Medrano's verbalized positions were often much closer to peoplesradio positions than to CL's?

The I-Team had three out of four, Joe Wanzala not making it. And they continued to play verbal games about their "slateness". The "Voices" had only one representative, Sureya Sayadi. Steve Zeltzer is out of the country. And Jim Weber appeared.

Each candidate gave a three-minute opening statement and then we rotated through small groups of voters responding to questions. It is too bad we didn't get more on air promotion and that we didn't have more of these in other parts of our broadcast area earlier in the election cycle.

Richard Phelps