Save KPFA vs. Reality

Recall Petition "Charges".

1) The first charge has something to do with "drawing up a list" for last fall's layoffs. To be clear, the only list I am aware of is the union seniority list, which was not "drawn up" by me, but exists quite independently of me. The most dozen recent hires would have been the dozen employees on the lower half of the list (that is what seniority means). They are the ones who might have been affected by layoffs as Pacifica struggled to address KPFA's two years of $500,000+ operating deficits for the fiscal years ending 9/30/2009 and 9/30/2010 and return the unit to operational solvency.

2) KPFA has increased or matched its listener support numbers over last year in the May 2011 fund drive, the February 2011 fund drive and the December 2010 fund drive. (Those are the 3 fund drives that occurred after the change in the 8am programming).

KPFA has currently raised 78% of projected 2011 listener support at the 67% point in the year (as of May 31st which is 8 months into a 12 month fiscal year).

KPFA has already raised 84% of the listener support total for the previous 12 month period of 10/1/2009 to 9/30/2010, when it posted an operating loss of $585,000.

KPFA's financial position as of May 31 2011 is at least $550,000 improved from the financial position of May 31, 2010.

3) The motion the petition refers to was not written by me. It was authored by then-Houston PNB director Richard Uzzell. Then-PNB chair George Reiter asked me to introduce the motion under the Coordinating Committee report section of the meeting as the chair of the committee, so I did. His reasoning was the motion was time-sensitive and as an earlier Coordinating committee motion had expired, this motion needed to be dealt with by the board in a timely manner. As with any motion presented to the full board, the motion was subject to a vote by the Pacifica National Board. It passed.

4) The email question has already been exhaustively discussed here, but in a nutshell, the email was designed and authored by KPFA staff, provided only information about upcoming and archived shows and directed people to the KPFA website to make donations, which about 20 people did. I believe KPFA should be sending promotional emails on an ongoing basis to subscribers and I hope it will become institutionalized. What should be promoted is programming, not internal politics and board members sniping at each other. That is not a healthy outreach strategy :)

KPFA still has plenty of challenges ahead, but it is in much better shape than it was a year ago and that is good news. Wasting time and money on a lie-based recall campaign is simply hurtful to the station and should be rejected. It will weaken the financial position, exacerbate internal conflicts that need to chill out already, and distract the workers and volunteers and management staff and local and national boards from the productive work of programming, technology and fund development that needs to be done to ensure the future of this precious outlet.

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KPFA is soliciting donations to expand its signal in Downtown Santa Cruz. Make a donation by mailing a check to 1929 Martin Luther King Jr Way Berkeley CA 94704 Attn: Santa Cruz Transmitter Restricted Fund.

ATT/T-Mobile Merger Public Participation Hearing: July 7th, 2011 at 6:00pm
California Public Utilities Commission
505 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco CA 94104
Come and make your voice heard!