KPFA: Getting A Little Nutty Out There

Much thanks to everyone for the their phone calls and emails and so on.

The first and most obvious thing to say is I can't get you a recall ballot. Neither can Save KPFA. There aren't any. Prior to having any election, including a recall election, there are a number of things that have to happen. They include hiring a recall administrator, getting statements for the ballot, and cleaning up the database prior to sending ballots. None of that has happened, so common sense indicates there are no ballots and won't be until all of those things happen.

I have no idea why Save KPFA is lying to KPFA listeners at such tremendous expense (a 1st class mailing of 22,000 postcards? - can't they donate to a charity instead? Sheesh. What a stupid waste of money).

It's clear the database is still unclean as postcards went to a number of KPFA staff members, who have to be purged from the list prior to mailing ballots, or you've sent ballots to a bunch of people that aren't eligible to vote in a listener election.

A few quick comments on the "allegations", such as they are.

The war on KPFA was declared by Save KPFA. Panicked by a trend of declining listener support between 2004 and 2009, a period in which KPFA lost 25% of its subscriber base and listener support revenues, the board treasurer Edwards-Tiekert, a news reporter by trade, prepared and presented 2 catastrophic budgets to KPFA's board. Both budgets predicted hundreds of thousands more in listener support than KPFA had been getting. The budgets were enthusiastically passed by Save KPFA boards who are more interested in recalls than they ever were in budgets. When the obvious happened and KPFA faced half a million dollar operating deficits in both 2009 and 2010, KPFA spent all the money they had and then some. That was the fiscal crisis. KPFA lost more than 1.1 million dollars in two years.

You didn't hear about it. The Save KPFA board never told you because they were trying to cover it up.

All the sound and fury about small amounts of money by people who lost half a million dollars and then apparently unfazed, went ahead and lost a half a million dollars A SECOND TIME IN A ROW.

Great credit goes to Arlene Engelhardt who improved KPFA's financial position by $550,000 in 12 months, a remarkable turnaround in a deeply troubled economy, and a person who has been vilified by people who wouldn't have jobs today if she had not exhibited the courage and clear thinking and ability to make hard choices when confronting a financial crisis she did not create.

You will not lose KPFA, listeners. But you almost did.

The Save KPFA agenda seems to be to recall me. not because of anything I've done, but - as they say - because I've "supported Pacifica" and they want to spur recalls all across the nation.

Pacifica has had 6 executive directors since 2002. KPFA has had 5 managers. KPFA hasn't had a program director for 7 of the last 10 years. Is what we really need to do "get rid of" another executive director? That's our vision for the future? Recalls in all 5 signal areas? Is that the future you want? Or is that kind of future, itself, the very definition of "adverse to the best interests of the foundation"?

Here are some comments from Marc Sapir, a listener in Berkeley, that do a nice job summing things up.

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For the first time in 4 years radio station KPFA and its parent Foundation (Pacifica) are financially above water, new programming here and around the U.S. is bringing in new communities on the air, new voices of resistance, and new listeners from minority and other impacted communities. The morale of the unpaid staff majority at KPFA (150 strong)—many of whom have long felt ignored and even belittled by old timers and past managers--has improved under interim managers and the future for the entire Network’s growth—due in part to the addition of about 50 new affiliate stations around the U.S.-- is looking brighter. Just one year ago the auditor of the Pacifica books indicated that the Pacifica Foundation was in serious danger of financial collapse by the end of 2011. Here is an excerpt from his report:

"For the past three years the Foundation has sustained losses of $433,161, $2,701,432, and $1,974,849 for the years ended September 30, 2008, 2009, and 2010 totaling $5,102,442. Also during this three year period working capital has decreased from $2,835,309 at September 30, 2007 to a deficit of $(810,528) at September 30, 2010. These conditions and events have given rise to a substantial doubt about the Foundation's ability to meet its obligations as they become due without substantial disposition of assets outside the ordinary course of operations, or restructuring of debt, or externally forced revisions of its operations or similar actions."

Now, today, KPFA and Pacifica have rectified their deficits, slowly improved their listener based income and are in positive cash flow as well. On the air there is better representation of the Latino community’s issues (with weekly volunteer programmer Andres Soto in the morning). There is better representation of the African American youth movements (because JR Valrey and Davey D are giving more hours to the morning mix and other shows and specials and collaborations with other programmers). There is a restoration of the Poor News Network--that past management had harassed and zapped--and in a more prime time drive time weekly morning slot with excellent professional quality work by their poverty-based program staff. There have been more specials and more out on the street coverage of the Occupy Movement by Mich Jeserich and others in part due to the supportive encouragement and collaboration by acting Station Manager Andrew Phillips and Program Director Carrie Core. In the midst of the world crisis, the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement many people and more youth are tuning in anew to KPFA because that is where the action and the whole story is being covered from the ground up.

The organic changes that underpin this rapid turn-around at KPFA-Pacifica, were resisted tooth and nail by some folks who fabricated an overblown anti-labor union-busting narrative against Pacifica leaders even before the beginning of any program changes locally had started. Long unhappy with the new by-laws giving a greater role to unpaid staff and listeners, they openly advocated that the Pacifica Network be broken up and that they would take control of KPFA in support of the small core paid staff group if they could achieve the collapse of Pacifica and its court mandated by-laws.

Having failed to break up Pacifica, having failed to make Pacifica’s director look like a union-busting corporate CEO, having failed to capture control of the national board, this group now tests the loyalty of their listener base to their narrative with this recall effort against Tracy Rosenberg, treasurer of the National Board (an elected KPFA station Board member). As their high cost mailing to listeners attests, a vote to recall Tracy Rosenberg is probably in the offing.

Much of the past year, the Save KPFA group and key staff supporters worked divisively (on and off the air) to gain adherents to two unattributed and unvetted and not fact based web sites (Save KPFA and KPFA worker) whose anonymous articles maintain a constant stream of hostility and negativity toward various perceived enemies like the elected Pacifica National Board and Pacifica Executive Director Arlene Englehardt, and now Tracy Rosenberg. Because they have regular contact with so many KPFA listeners through their web sites and e-lists, the outcome of this recall is not at all clear at this time. The recall effort gathered signatures in large part by using these web sites whose contents are so scurrilous that no organization or individual takes credit for the content. Neither the CWA Union nor the organization known as Concerned Listeners/Save KPFA will take any public responsibility for information in the articles posted on these web sites. And there is no way to contest disinformation or misinformation to those listeners who trust the web sites.

There are two reasons why a resounding defeat of this recall is important: First, it has become a measure of whether the CL/Save KPFA and CWA core paid staff can count on the uncritical loyalty of followers deceived by a fear-based narrative about Pacifica representing an imminent danger to KPFA. With Save KPFA holding a majority on the local Board, if this misplaced effort gains the support of most of the voters they will likely use that as a sign of public support to intensify their efforts to tear down the Pacifica Foundation which could mean an end to the vital independent national radio network building that is now taking place. As they have failed once, they may again not succeed, but growth and harmony for young movements in resistance such as ours are hard enough goals without people throwing in monkey wrenches. Secondly, the role of Rosenberg has not been trivial. Tracy is not a pushover. She is a fighter for what she believes in, as her leadership of an important non-profit (Media Alliance) and her excellent work as Pacifica Treasurer have shown, even in the face of withering criticism by the CL-KPFA group. The tactics used against her to try to undermine her credibility would cause some to quit trying to do the right thing, but she hasn’t stopped. For example, they invited her onto to the on-air Board Program where unbeknownst to her she would be faced with a prearranged attack tape recording and not permitted to respond to it. When Tracy objected to being set up that way the moderator made it appear that she was disrupting the program.

No individual is indispensible to any social movement, but some leaders are harder to intimidate than others. Tracy is one of these. So too are the current managers—Arlene at Pacifica and Andrew at KPFA who have been harassed almost daily the year long. Because of the contentious atmosphere, presently, almost no independent leftist leaders in the Bay Area not aligned with the current Board majority have considered running for the station board. I realize that no one faction is to blame for the years of bitter acrimony that have accrued there, but I think that the recall effort perpetuates this problem and so it must be turned back. Moreover, the recall effort, being based in easily refutable distortions of Tracy’s role and work, is a spike through the heart of efforts and hopes to see the Station’s governing board become a more amicable collaborative and collective working body that can actually improve our independent media source that the Bay Area needs and depends upon.















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