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

The case is officially titled Burnstein v. Pacifica, Alameda Superior No. RG11562056, filed 2/18/11.
You can get the full complaint in TIFF format, what most of us can access, one page at a time at
http://apps.alameda.courts.ca.gov/domainweb/service?ServiceName=DomainWebService&PageName=itree&Action=2560346
If Pacifica was served right away, they have 30 days to respond. As stated above, the attorney for the Thug Hallinan Gang, including representing himself, is Dan Siegel of Siegel & Yee.
The plaintiffs suing Pacifica are
Malcolm Burnstein
Pamela Drake
David Gans
Suzi Goldmacher
Conn Hallinan
Matthew Hallinan
Jack Kurzweil
Laura Prives
Tanya Russell
Lewis Sawyer
Dan Siegel
Andrea Turner
Margy Wilkinson
Rychard Withers

PLEASE NEVER VOTE FOR THESE PEOPLE AGAIN.
The complaint is entitled Verified Petition for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief; Application for Temporary Restraining Order (TRO). The first 5 pages are the complaint; the rest are exhibits, mostly bylaws.

All city councils and county Boards of Supervisors should stop wasting time and tax dollars telling radio stations that they do not own what to do. There is nothing to mediate and it is not for them to tell the radio station what and when to mediate. The City of Berkeley, like all other cities and counties of California, has a major homeless problem. When is the City of Berkeley going to exercise its right to eminent domain to take over empty buildings, especially apartments and houses, to house the homeless?

The main problem at KPFA is that has been under constant attack from the US government since the day it was born, April 15, 1949, and the latest government attack is the Democratic Party's Thug Hallinan Gang's promotion of a Republican Party operative, Brian Edwards Tiekert, as part of their agenda to destroy KPFA and Pacifica financially.

Thank you for the alternate name for the Thug Hallinan Gang, Kill KPFA. It matches the hoodlum smirk of Jack Kurzweil in the video of the Feb 12, 2011 LSB meeting at:
http://www.blip.tv/file/4758519

There is a more extensive article on the budget that is food for thought at
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/02/19/18672495.php

BIG factual error in Linda Maio's email: KPFA News did NOT report that Linda Maio's "vote" on the Berkeley City Council's KPFA resolution -- or anyone else's for that matter -- was prompted by the layoffs.

The report said "the resolution was prompted by the layoffs" -- that is completely correct. The RESOLUTION folks, not Linda's vote. The whole reason the council was discussing a resolution on KPFA, for the 2nd time, was that the city's own Labor Commission passed a resolution on the Morning Show layoffs, and then other council members brought similar resolutions about the labor dispute to the council floor for debate.

The subsequent discussion and resolution were, yes, prompted by the layoffs. What else would the resolution be "prompted" by?

Here's the KPFA News story so you can listen for yourself:
http://www.savekpfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/KPFANews2-9-11.mp3

Maio, Worthington and Capitelli seem to be parrotting mega-spin doctor Tracy Rosenberg, who made this up, sent it in an email to these three council members, and then published it as a "story" in her own Media Alliance letter.

Truly pathetic.

The best hour of the fund drive was the $11k-plus that Mitch Jeserich raised on Thursday. The "Morning Mix" is averaging $2200 less per hour than the Morning Show did in the same timeslot--which will wipe out any savings from your vindictive layoffs of Brian Edwards-Tiekert and Aimee Allison. And the only reason Pacifica's dealing with so many grievances and lawsuits is because *you keep voting for Pacifica to do illegal things*, *you keep insisting on defending those illegal actions in court*, and *you keep losing.*

Tracy Rosenberg: The Original KillKPFA.

. . . she shouldn't publicly libel former employees who have non-disparagement clauses in their severance agreements. Unless she's TRYING to get Pacifica sued.

Which, given her track record, maybe she is.

What is best about the hate messages above is that they expose the Kill KPFA/Thug Hallinan Gang for being the government agents that they are. Blaming the victim is an old fascist tactic, and this Democratic Party gang, promoting its Republican Party operative, Brian Edwards Tiekert, does that every chance it gets. Those of us who oppose US imperialism at home and abroad, and its twin parties of war and fascism, the Democrats and Republicans, will never give up in the defense of KPFA. The hoodlum behavior, the threats of violence, the sneers and the hate speech on this website by the Kill KPFA/Thug Hallinan Gang are all clearly part of a government operation. They were the Pat Scott gang in the 1990s, and now they are the Kill KPFA/Thug Hallinan Gang, filing a lawsuit a week against a station they claim to represent. That alone should disqualify the whole stinking, rotten Kill KPFA gang from sitting on any station board, local or national. If anyone does not know how terrible these people are, start by reading the autobiography of Bettina Aptheker, Intimate Politics. The Northern California chair of the Communist Party she refers to as having repeatedly raped her is Mickey Lima, the father of Margy Wilkinson. Her encounters with all other CP men, including her ex-husband, Jack Kurzweil, are horrifying, to say the least. The constant acrimony in that organization is what they are continuing to perpetuate at KPFA, accomplishing nothing, and causing tremendous grief. The whole follow the leader routine, right or wrong, that we see on the part of Kill KPFA, was standard procedure in the CP. The Kill KPFA gang is a group of mentally ill doddering old thugs. There are simply no better words.

ARTICLE FOUR. DELEGATES
SECTION 2. ELIGIBILITY; NOMINATION OF DELEGATES
A. ELIGIBILITY

Any Listener-Sponsor Member in good standing, except radio station management personnel or Foundation management personnel or staff members, may be nominated for the position of Listener-Sponsor Delegate for the Foundation radio station with which s/he is affiliated by the signatures of fifteen (15) Listener-Sponsor Members in good standing who are also affiliated with that radio station, provided, however, that no person who holds any elected or appointed public office at any level of government, federal, state, or local, or is a candidate for such office shall be eligible for election to the position of Delegate. A Delegate shall be deemed to have resigned the position of Delegate if s/he becomes a candidate for public office or accepts a political appointment during his or her term as a Delegate. This restriction shall not apply to civil service employment by governmental agencies.

Does anyone know when and where the hearing will be held ? If they are demanding that Daniel Siegel be seated on the National Board it would have to be sometime this week .

The short answer is March 1 at 9 a.m. in Dept 31 is a hearing reservation but there is nothing on the calendar yet. By February 25, this hearing should be confirmed for the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) to be heard on March 1 or any other date and time.

Here is how to access things at Alameda Superior Court.
1. If you do not know the action number, but know the date the complaint was filed, go to
the domain web page at
http://apps.alameda.courts.ca.gov/domainweb/html/index.html
2. At the top of your screen, you will find Public Reports (Filings). Click on it.
3. You will get 3 variables to choose: Location of the court, Case Type and Filing Date. Just about all cases are filed at the Rene Davidson Courthouse, so leave the default as is.
Most cases are UNLIMITED. Limited cases are the old Municipal Court cases which are now in the Superior Court but called Limited. A case like this is always UNLIMITED.
4. Date: The original post gave us the date of 2/18/2011 which when you insert and click Submit will give you a list of cases filed that date and there you will find Burnstein v Pacifica as an UNLIMITED case, giving you the action number of RG11562056. Click on it and you will get all kinds of information described below.

IF YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ACTION NUMBER, it goes quicker.
1. Go to the domain web page as above
http://apps.alameda.courts.ca.gov/domainweb/html/index.html
2. Type or copy & paste the action number: RG11562056
3. You will find lots information.
4. The first thing you click on the Left Side is the Register of Actions. There you will find the Motion Reservation, a procedure unique to Alameda County. Since the horror of Prop 13 passed in 1978 causing a decrease in property taxes, with no increase in the progressive income tax on the rich, all of the courts have had severe cutbacks and the heavily used big city courts came up with all kinds of procedures to cope with staff cutbacks. Alameda County has the Motion Reservation procedure.
5. If you want to view anything listed, Alameda County is probably unique in all California counties in scanning all of their public documents to the court website so the public can view them in the TIFF column. Fortunately, KPFA and Pacifica are in Alameda County, so all of these lawsuits are easily researched!
6. The next thing you click on the Left Side is Future Hearings. You will see that currently, there is no hearing date. That should change by February 25.
7. On February 28, 1 day before the March 1 probable hearing, you can click on the Left Side the Tentative Rulings to see if and how the judge may rule on the TRO. This is also a legacy of Prop 13 as if both sides agree to the Tentative Ruling, then they do not have to appear in court, saving court time for which the taxpayers pay. Sometimes there is no tentative ruling which simply means all parties or their counsel have to appear in court. Most of the time, one party opposes the Tentative Ruling and notifies all other parties by phone that they are appearing in court.
THESE HEARINGS ARE PUBLIC. However, the legal jargon may be confusing or irritating and you probably have to sit through lots of other cases before the one you have been waiting for is heard. The 9 a.m. time slot is for all cases in the morning in Dept 31. In a heavy case load county like Alameda County, that means a thundering herd may be heard!
8. If you want to know what took place at a hearing, you can click on Minutes or the Rulings and CMC (Case Management Conference) Orders on the Left Side or look in the Register of Actions, which will also have the Minutes, Rulings and Case Management Orders.
9. You can click on Parties on the Left Side to see the List of Shame of Plaintiffs stated above, or you could find them in the Complaint (Petition).

There's a Temporary Restraining Order hearing Wednesday, Feb 23, at 11 a.m.
It's in Dept 31, in the upstairs part of the post office bldg at 13th & Jackson, in Oakland
BART-- near the Lake Merritt and the 12th St BART stations

COURT WEBSITE AT:
http://apps.alameda.courts.ca.gov/domainweb/html/index.html

Action
Complaint - Partnership and Corporate Governance Filed
Civil Case Cover Sheet Filed for Malcolm Burnstein
Summons Issued and Filed
Motion Reservation Set for dept: 31 date: 03/01/2011 time: 09:00 AM
Hearing Reset to Motion 02/23/2011 09:00 AM D- 31
Temporary Restraining Order Reservation Set for dept: 31 date: 02/23/2011 time: 11:00 AM
Hearing Vacated: Motion 02/23/2011 09:00 AM D- 31

The best hour of the fund drive was the $11k-plus that Mitch Jeserich raised on Thursday. The "Morning Mix" is averaging $2200 less per hour than the Morning Show did in the same timeslot--which will wipe out any savings from your vindictive layoffs of Brian Edwards-Tiekert and Aimee Allison. And the only reason Pacifica's dealing with so many grievances and lawsuits is because *you keep voting for Pacifica to do illegal things*, *you keep insisting on defending those illegal actions in court*, and *you keep losing. MITCH JERISICH SHOW IS BROADCAST ON KPFK TOO SURE HE HAS TWICE HAS MUCH AUDIENCE THAN ANY ONLY KPFA SHOW. THE MORNING MIX IS ONLY ONE HOUR UNLIKE THE OLD MORNING SHOW WHICH WAS 2 HOURS . AND DONT HAVE THE SUPER 7AM TO 8AM HOURS SLOAT AND STILL IS MAKING ONLY 2200 LESS THAN THE BORING OLD CANNED MORNING SHOW. BE REAL

So basically - to sum it all up:

3 months of civil war by the station's staff and the Save KPFA cabal and not a penny has been lost on the AM program change.

$120,000 reduction in the show's overhead costs and $120,000 reduction in fund drive receipts (projected) plus an additional $150,000 in voluntary severances helping the bottom line.

Looks like a pretty sound move to me. Remove the civil war element and you'd probably already be ahead of the game in the 8-9am slot. In a few more months, you will be.

That is how you crawl out from under 2 years of $500,000 operational deficits.

Money Stuff doesn't know basic math. The scab-run Morning Mess is raising thousands of dollars less per hour than the Morning Show. That will add up to huge losses in that slot for this fund drive.

Furthermore, it is the illegal and unethical crap that Tracey Rosenberg has been instigating that keeps getting Pacifica in legal trouble:

a) Her attempt to overturn the LSB election at KPFA. Overturned by the court because it violated both Pacifica by-laws and the California Code of Corporations. How much did that stunt cost Pacifica?

b) The attempt to overturn the election at KPFK. Currently under injunction by the court, and also will not stand. How much will that stunt cost Pacifica?

c) The firing of Brian Edwards-Tiekart. Pacifica finally admitted they have no case and is reinstating him February 28, with back pay. As it should, because it wasn't a layoff for financial reasons, it was an attempted political purge. How much did that stunt cost Pacifica?

d) The attempt to unseat Dan Siegal from the LSB and PNB, Clear and long-standing case law will be the cause Dan rightfully remains on both bodies. Paciifca counsel isn't even trying the case himself, because he knows there is no chance of success. How much will that stunt cost Pacifica?

Get rid of Tracey Rosenberg and the illegal crap she keeps instigating and the legal fees go away. Reinstate the Morning Show and the finances get better immediately.

That's the real lowdown on "money stuff."

If you're paying thousands of dollars a month less for two hosts and a producer, then you don't need to make the same amount of money per hour. The constant whine is the older version of the Morning Show was earning 3x what it cost to produce. So is Morning Mix. It costs a lot less to produce.

As for the lawsuits, calm down. It's not Tracy's fault the Save KPFA/Concerned Listeners/JUC faction cheats like crazy and then hires high-paid lawyers to cover up their tracks and prevent Pacifica from enforcing the rules.

You can always beat radical democracy with money -- for a while. Look around. That is how the world works.

In the long run, Save KPFA will go down to defeat. And probably hysterical unpaid staffer will lose their program, but thems the breaks.

We really should swap things out once every twenty years.

Here's how the case written about above turned out: Another injunction against Pacifica

On March 18, an Alameda County Superior Court judge issued an injunction against Pacifica after it voted to unseat SaveKPFA-affiliated station board member Dan Siegel. The court rejected all of Pacifica’s contentions and ordered Siegel reinstated to both the local KPFA and national Pacifica board seats he holds.

Following Jean Quan‘s historic election as Oakland’s mayor, KPFA board member Tracy Rosenberg claimed that Siegel’s long-standing relationship as an informal advisor to Quan constituted a “political appointment” that disqualified him from serving KPFA or Pacifica. Rosenberg then used her position on the Pacifica national board to manipulate that board into stripping Siegel of his board seats. That action prompted a majority of KPFA’s local board to file suit against Pacifica.

This is the third legal victory for democracy at Pacifica, following two other injunctions in December and February against attempts by Pacifica to manipulate elections.

http://www.SaveKPFA.org