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East Bay Media Activism & Independent Media

What is going on at KPFA/Pacifica?

by Long time listener
Mon, Mar 17, 2014 7:24PM
Last week, I believe Friday, 3/14/14, the 6 p.m. news announced Summer Reese, a director of the Pacifica National Board that oversees the 5 stations that include KPFA, was terminated from employment immediately. Today, the 6 p.m. news announced she had been padlocked out, had the good sense to have the padlocks removed, and the infamous Margy Wilkinson, who sits on the Local Station Board, has allegedly volunteered for the same position. Meanwhile, there have been no LSB elections as was required. The KPFA website states that the Pacifica National Board postponed the elections, instead of doing fundraising for the elections. THE LISTENER SUBSCRIBERS RECEIVED NO NOTICES OF ANY OF THIS.
Last week, I believe Friday, 3/14/14, the 6 p.m. news announced Summer Reese, a director of the Pacifica National Board that oversees the 5 stations that include KPFA, was terminated from employment immediately. Today, the 6 p.m. news announced she had been padlocked out, had the good sense to have the padlocks removed, and the infamous Margy Wilkinson, who sits on the Local Station Board, has allegedly volunteered for the same position. Meanwhile, there have been no LSB elections as was required. The KPFA website states that the Pacifica National Board postponed the elections, instead of doing fundraising for the elections. THE LISTENER SUBSCRIBERS RECEIVED NO NOTICES OF ANY OF THIS.

Here is the self-perpetuating board, which supposedly will have elections sometime this year, maybe.
http://www.kpfa.org/lsb/board-members
Carole Travis
Listener Chair 2012 2015 1st
Ramses Teon-Nichols
Listener Vice Chair 2012 2015 1st
Barbara Whipperman
Listener Treasurer 2012 2015 1st
Craig Alderson
Listener
Secretary 2012 2015 1st
Tina Bachemin
Staff 2010 2014 1st
Mal Burnstein
Listener 2010 2014 1st
Brian Edwards-Tiekert
Staff 2012 2015 1st
Paula Erkkila
Listener 2010 2014 1st
Jose Luis Fuentes
2012 2015 1st
David Gans Staff 2010 2014 1st
Donald Goldmacher Listener 2010 2014 1st
Kate Gowen
Listener 2012 2015 1st
Mark Hernandez
Listener 2012 2015 1st
Cynthia Johnson
Listener 2010 2014 1st
Janet Kobren
Listener 2010 2014 1st
Jack Kurzweil
Listener 2010 2014 1st
Joy Moore
Staff 2012 2015 1st
Samsarah Morgan
Listener 2012 2015 1st
Andrea Prichett Listener 2012 2015 2nd
Mel Sanders KFCF rep 2012 2015 1st
Louis Sawyer Staff 2010 2014 1st
Franklin Sterling Staff 2012 2015 1st
Dave Welsh
Listener 2010 2014 1st
Burton White Listener 2012 2015 1st
Margy Wilkinson Listener 2010 2014 1st

Summer Reese's title is Interim Executive Director. You can read about her and the lack of elections at
http://www.kpfa.org/lsb/news/lsb-minutes-october-2013

Padlocks are a police state mentality tactic. Margy Wilkinson is the infamous LSB member who supported having a Republican Party law firm represent her pet reactionary host, Brian Edwards Tiekert. Her statement on the 3/17/14 evening news was that she is concerned about the signal at other stations, and that is her excuse for taking over Summer Reese's job. You can hear this story at 6:30 p.m. online, at http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/101042

THIS IS ALL PROFOUNDLY INSULTING TO THE LISTENER-SUBSCRIBERS. Why is there no emailed newsletter? If the elections are so expensive, why isn't there a special fundraiser for the elections? If a station is having problems with its signal, why isn't there a special fundraiser to improve that signal?
For more information: http://www.kpfa.org/lsb/board-members
Add Your Comments
§you got your facts wrong
by peter
Tue, Mar 18, 2014 12:29AM
Pacifica dismisses interim ED; KPFA's latest fund drive success....MORE HERE:

http://conta.cc/1gGPYZO
Add a Comment
§Peter's facts even more wrong...
by Socialist not Privatist
Tue, Mar 18, 2014 12:52AM
The link from Peter is a site with multiple problems. Consider this over-arching one though: there are no comments, no dialog there except from those who agree with that group who took their name from many of us who used it for something meaningful in the 90s. (Same as many of them use Paul Wellstone's name for one of their main supporting tributary groups and then diluted it with some kind of GMO version of things... No way to publicly ask questions there...it's their slick "as-if" style. More coming soon. Here's a site with information: https://www.facebook.com/UnitedForCommunityRadio
For more information: https://www.facebook.com/UnitedForCommunit...
Add a Comment
§Wow! What a load!
by Old Lib
Wed, Mar 19, 2014 1:54AM
Reese had a probationary period to fulfill; she had been an interim executive director and the Pacifica chair for nearly two years, collecting a paycheck. The last Pacifica board, which supposedly left office in January 2014, approved her postponement/cancellation of elections, gave her a three year contract and made her official five months before she was terminated.

Probationary employment is typically six months, and probationary employees at considered at-will, even if there is a contract.

Reese is supported by Tracy Rosenberg, who has held on to the Pacifica Treasurer post, even though she 'termed out' with the prior board in January. Rosenberg is also spreading a false rumor that a cabal is planning to sell a Pacifica station, but unless former executive director Reese forges the documents, it still requires a vote of the membership, the decline of which was overseen by Reese and Rosenberg.

This might explain why, despite state law saying otherwise, Reese is preventing members of the Pacifica board from entering the Pacifica offices by using her own mother as a human shield to do so.

The KPFA board is not unelected, but it did have to fill termed out seats (including Rosenberg's) under the Pacifica by-laws with the last election's runners-up. The reason that this was done is because Reese made the choice to violate the by-laws and postpone the elections, both by not selecting an elections supervisor, and by missing the two deadlines for conducting an election, as well as not making any public announcement. After the fact, the recently departed board simply rubber-stamped her actions instead of doing their duty to oversee and direct their employee.
Add a Comment
§Bensky & the Gang are causing grief again
by Long time listener
Wed, Mar 19, 2014 4:49AM
First, to keep up with what is going on, see
http://2014.supportkpfa.org/ and
https://www.facebook.com/UnitedForCommunityRadio

Second, we are again getting lies from the government operatives who criminally put padlocks on the doors of our listener-sponsored Pacifica radio network offices. Old Lib in the past has been the pen name for the former KPFA programmer and long time government operative Larry Bensky. Here is more on Larry Bensky:
1. His attacks to callers on air:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/09/25/18659813.php

2. Supporters of Pat Scott Gang and union busters American Consulting:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/09/21/18659436.php

3. More horrors of supporting Concerned Listeners gang:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/10/22/18626386.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/15/18472757.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/10/29/18324348.php

4. His opposition to Peace & Freedom and Green Parties:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/04/27/18495315.php

5. His use of name lists in violation of Pacifica election rules:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/21/18462672.php

6. His opposition to the 9/11 Truth Movement
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/10/18459899.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/09/15/18311830.php

7. His anti-labor outlook on labor programming:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/04/14/18154241.php

8. His contempt for free speech:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2004/11/13/17051361.php

9. His attack on William Blum's book exposing the CIA and a reminder that Bensky was editor of the CIA front, the Paris Review, at
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/06/27/17498851.php

10. His ridicule of the fact of history that Nazis influenced the anti-Communist witchhunts of the 1940s-1950s as of course they were first and foremost anti-communist:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2004/04/05/16762211.php

For more information: http://2014.supportkpfa.org/
Add a Comment
§KPFA/Pacifica Exec. Director IS Summer Reese, why
by Principles above Principal
Fri, Mar 21, 2014 12:56PM
I don't like the "hate Pacifica Gang" poster's jumping to conclusions. But some of the points he/she makes are undoubtedly valid. Here on indybay is another article posted with Summer Reese's contract which makes it clear that she is NOT in a probationary period, unlike the false claims that the over-throwers used in their 1 a.m. un-announced meeting, no discussion allowed, when those left on the phonecall finally had a split second to "vote her out" as if that vote had any legitimacy. See https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/03/19/18752828.php
here on indybay and the other website linked here.

For more information: http://unitedforcommunityradio.org
Add a Comment
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