Kill KPFA Files 15th Lawsuit in 90 Days - Wins The Blue Ribbon

Kill KPFA has filed in Alameda Superior Court against the Pacifica Foundation AGAIN, bringing the total number of grievances, complaints and lawsuits filed against the nation's only independent radio network to 15 since November 15th.

Today's lawsuit attempts to cancel the foundation's national board meeting and was filed by former board member Dan Siegel's law firm Siegel and Yee. Siegel is an advisor to Oakland mayor Jean Quan and cannot serve concurrently as her legal advisor and on Pacifica's boards, as the foundation bylaws prohibit political appointments for sitting board members.

Costs to the foundation should the silly lawsuit succeed are likely to top $25,000.

In the meantime, KIll KPFA's board service seems largely to consist of creating a big cardboard graphic of a check and carrying it about Berkeley.

Kill KPFA has yet to solicit "pledges" to cover the costs of their lawsuit blizzard nor to replace the $100,000 in interest and dividends lost by Ms. Rijio''s hiding of a $375,000 check in her desk for more than a year, or to replace the $750,000 KPFA cash reserve that was blown in 2 years of deficit operations from 2008-2010.

In good news, despite the inane calls for "boycotting the fund drive" and "keeping control of the airwaves" by the Kill KPFA crew, the fund drive is approaching 25% of the goal and the Thursday Morning Mix with Project Censored had the most successful fundraising hour of the drive, raising $7,4000 on Thursday in the 8-9am slot.

KPFA's 1st quarter financials for the period October-December 2010 were released and show the first in-the-black results for some eight consecutive quarters, thanks to the November reductions in head count and the successful week of fundraising in December 2010.

In other news, Berkeley City Council members Linda Maio, Laurie Capitelli and Kriss Worthington complained of misleading coverage from KPFA's News Department and requested an on-air correction from news co-director Aileen Alfandary in these emails sent a week ago:

From: lindamaio [at] yahoo.com
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2011 10:06 PM
Subject: Correction needed

Below is a transcript that was sent to me of Aileen Alfandary's characterization of the Council's vote and, by extension, the Council's sentiments. If it is accurate, it must be corrected. The Council, in its vote, did not take sides. My vote was not "prompted" by the layoffs. Kriss's wasn't, Laurie's wasn't. Kriss, you will recall, wanted to add more specific language that we were neutral. We thought that went without saying but I can see now it was well advised.

I am copying several of my colleagues so they may communicate their own sentiments. These are mine. I don't have email for Aileen so am asking for your assistance. I will do what I can, through messages to my own friend and constituent lists, to correctly convey my own position. My vote was made purely out of concern for the viability of the station. No labor action, however meritorious, is worth losing the station or the network over.

Thank you for your help in getting this straightened out.
Linda Maio


From: Laurie Capitelli
To: lindamaio [at] sbcglobal.net
Worthington, Kriss; Capitelli, Laurie
Sent: Fri Feb 11 08:33:38 2011
Subject: Re: Correction needed

I strongly concur with Linda's concerns. The council vote was a message to all sides in the dispute to move forward with mediation hopefully starting with fresh eyes and a true desire to get past the events of the last several months. I believe all the councilmembers hope this dispute can be resolved and we can go about creating a model that will sustain KPFA long into the future.

Laurie Capitelli
Berkeley City Council