Six years ago, listeners to a progressive radio network called Pacifica won a lawsuit that allowed KPFK members to elect representatives to their local station board, and through them, to determine who sat on the Pacifica National Board.  The demand for democracy was an eruption against a board of directors that considered selling one of the stations to finance a string of smaller Black stations in the South.  The settlement instituted the first democratically-run radio network in the U.S., another groundbreaking advance in the network's long history.  Such are the contradictions of democracy. 

Today, that democratic outburst has fallen victim to a single slate of candidates supported by "The Committee to Strengthen KPFK," a powerful amalgam of Local Station Board members, station staff, and new faces, and endorsed by attorney Carol Spooner, one of the key figures in the original effort to democratize Pacifica.  And they have injected the influence of a financed elections and Democratic Party politics into an institution that prides itself on being "powered by the people."  The Committee and procedural violations threaten to confuse and discourage candidates, and endanger the quorum necessary for election certification.

Lack of oversight, improper procedures, and an insider Committee so arrogant that rules seem meant to be broken, are spreading a viscous taint on the credibility of any election outcome.  At the same time, a blackout on election violations is so thorough, the determination to make quorum so overpowering after the near-failure of previous elections, that much of the electorate is unaware that infractions have occurred.  Even candidates who file complaints receive, at most and only occasionally, an acknowledgment that their complaint has been received.

Already, in the fifth week of the campaign, the Committee To Strengthen KPFK has wantonly violated several of the eleven simple rules laid out for fair elections.  The KPFK candidate webpages and broadcast archives, under the control of Committee member and station webmaster Ali Lexa, been used for numerous inequities in publishing candidate information.  And the procedures and timetable of election events distributed to the candidates and posted on the station website for voters has been altered with little or no notification to the voters and the candidates.  To date, no sanctions have been announced to repair the damage to independent candidates or to inform the voters.

In spite of its long list of rules violations, the Committee didn't hesitate to inject the election with the influence of privately financed campaigning, purchasing a high-gloss, multi-colored mailer sent to KPFK members, at a cost of $6,000 to $7,000 according to Committee director and candidate Grace Aaron, even as the donation-based station suffers a marked downturn in contributions.  The Committee To Strengthen KPFK has taken the first step to becoming a non-profit corporation itself, by affiliation with the International Humanities Center, which has adopted the Committee as one of its projects, providing the group with a tax shelter and anonymity for its donor or donors. 

The Pacifica National Board, recognizing the serious disadvantage the mailer poses to low- and moderate-income independent candidates, and that "spending of large sums of money in Pacifica campaigns runs counter to the noncommercial nature of the Pacifica Radio Network while underscoring the discriminatory nature of campaign financing so prevalent and objectionable in mainstream elections," moved on November 1 to begin a process to find remediation for the disadvantaged candidates.  The discussion of specific remedies began at the KPFK Local Station Board meeting on Wednesday, November 7.  Candidate Jubilee Shine told the local board, ""I am here to represent workers.  I'm a roofer and a union activist.  I couldn't get $7,000 for a flyer for this campaign.  I couldn't raise $300."  In order to implement the remedies, the board discussed the possibility of a further election delay, to December 21. 

Aaron formed the Committee to spearhead a campaign to remove progressive, lesbian, and African general manager Eva Georgia in light of a sexual harassment suit filed against her and the network.  In July, the Committee presented a petition calling for her removal to the Pacifica National Board, the culmination of a five-year campaign to oust Georgia with a plethora of accusations that began even before a staffer denied her the keys to her office when Georgia officially took over leadership of the station.  The Committee invited local media to the board meeting held in Los Angeles, and the event was reported in the LA Times, Throughout the summer, the press was fed accusations, and articles without context appeared in the LA Weekly (twice), where reporters salivated over the charges of Black lesbian sexual misconduct.  Meanwhile, the PNB, the CEO, and the CFO stood behind Georgia with unreported public statements of support.  The lawsuit is still pending, and Pacifica insiders seem confident that Georgia will be vindicated in court.

Aaron chaired the LSB in 2006 until her term ended and she was voted out.  During her tenure, she forced the local board into numerous closed sessions to present sundry charges against Georgia.  One, an expense report purported to show Georgia's misuse of station funds but discredited by the Pacifica CFO, Lonny Hicks, was circulated widely among station staff despite its confidentiality.

Aaron, along with Committee members and the slate's other two returning candidates, Lamont Yeakey and Donna Warren, during earlier elections were members of a slate known as Progressives for Independent, Responsible Community Radio.  PIRCR and slates at other stations in the network were organized by Spooner from Pacifica members who had opposed ensuring elected representation for underrepresented communities in the new Pacifica Bylaws.

The Committee To Strengthen KPFK and Spooner, after roundly condemning Georgia for bringing a lawsuit down on the network, are contemplating their own lawsuit against Pacifica for refusing to include their partisan mailer with the ballot mailing, according to Committee member Ian Masters in his November 4 broadcast (since edited out of the archived version of the broadcast).

Slate members Ricco Ross, Linda Sutton, Dan Wang, and Ahjamu Makalani, according to their election materials, are all active in the Progressive Democrats, a caucus of the Democratic Party, raising alarm bells about mainstream party funding and takeover of the "fiercely independent" radio station.  Makalani, who has moved from the Peace and Freedom Party and the Green Party to vice chair of the Progressive Democrats,  explained that they were supporting  John Edwards in the national elections because, "Kucinich wasn't a viable candidate." 

Other Committee candidates include Aaron, Summer Reese, Donna Warren, Lamont Yeakey, Lich Doan, Sarkis Ghazarian, Sergio Monteiro, and Shel Plotkin. Popular radio show hosts Shawn Casey O'Brien, Don Bustany, and Eben Rey are running with on the Committee ticket for staff seats on the local board.

Meanwhile, candidates without insider connections, largely newcomers to KPFK's election process, are left to slug their way through the morass of confusion, violations, and unannounced changes, in what is turning out to be something akin to a no rules wrestling match.

The elections are supposed to operate under the terms the new Pacifica Bylaws and the summaries provided to candidates in the 2007 Fair Campaign Provisions for Listener Candidates and for Programmers, Staff and Management , with the enforcement of the National Election Supervisor, Casey Peters, and Local Elections Supervisor, Liliana Sanchez. 

The Violations

Apparent violations by the Committee to date include:

• Committee candidate Donna Warren was on the KPFK Evening News of October 2, a week after candidates were prohibited from appearing on air.

• The Committee To Strengthen KPFK was provided with access to a mailing house and the use of the KPFK membership list held by that mailing house, while many other candidates were unaware that such a service was available and nearly all are unable to afford those services.  That list was used to send a mailer endorsing those candidates to the voters, unduly affecting the outcome of the election.

• The Committee To Strengthen KPFK used a website for four weeks that had “KPFK” in its URL, in direct violation of a prohibition against using the station call letters in an election-related URL.

• Ian Masters, program host and signatory to The Committee To Strengthen KPFK, in his broadcast of October 14 concluded that some candidates did not adhere to the mission of the Foundation, a clear disparagement of the candidates and violation of the rules for programmers.

• Masters during his broadcast of November 4 called some candidates “psychotic,” while he deemed The Campaign To Strengthen KPFK "sane" and "reasonable,", alleged that “pinche ethno-fascists” were disrupting the elections with "lots of race-baiting."  (The archived version of this broadcast was edited to remove the offending remarks.)

• Jon Weiner, program host and signatory to The Committee To Strengthen KPFK, includes a hyperlink on his show’s webpage from the KPFK website to his personal website , where he endorses the Committee slate.  Campaign rules prohibit using the station website to link to any endorsement.

• Lich Doan is running as a listener candidate although he was regularly announced as assistant producer for Background Briefing from June 1 to August 31, and he continues to be announced as the assistant producer for that show, giving him regular on-air name recognition and disadvantaging candidates without similar access to the airwaves.  Candidates are disqualified for listener seats after 30 hours of work for the station in the three months prior to the start of the campaign.

• Ajhamu Makalini, a write-in candidate according to The Campaign To Strengthen KPFK, did not have the requisite fifteen signatures for his nomination form but has been allowed to participate in the on-air and in-person forums.

KPFK website and archives inequities:

• Candidate Lich Doan’s statement included two references to his endorsement by Mr. Masters for the first month it was posted, an unfair advantage to candidates who did not use staff services to promote their candidacies.  Staff services are forbidden to candidates.

• Candidates Bayard Condon and Jubilee Shine have their names inaccurately posted on the website, and Joaquin Cienfuego’s name is misspelled on the ballot, so that their names on the website do not match their names as listed on the ballot.

• Candidates Bayard Condon, Reza Pour, Schyna Pour, and Alise Sochaczewski’s answers to the candidate’s questionnaire have not been posted on the station website, while other candidates’ answers have been available for weeks.

• The English on-air candidate forums for November 1 was not posted to the archives of station broadcasts until November 5 and the Spanish forum of the same date is still not available, although the forums for October 30 and 31 were available immediately after broadcast.

• The English-language forum of October 29 as originally posted edited out the responses of candidate Leslie Radford, and, when that was brought the attention of the Local Election Supervisor, the forum was hyperlinked to a non-existent file.

• Candidate Lawrence Reyes’ email address and telephone number, included in his candidate statement, were not included in the station website posting of his statement, and candidate Radford’s website was not included in the station posting of her statement, and these inequities continued for weeks into the campaign.  Other candidates’ statements that included email contacts and website addresses, notably addresses to the Committee's website, were posted properly.

• The number of viewings of each candidate statement is revealed on the list of candidates on the KPFK and Pacifica Foundation website , producing a bandwagon effect for some candidates, and this number can be artificially increased by repeatedly reloading the statement webpage.

Procedural infractions:

• The deadline to submit ballots was moved to November 26, but not all voters have been notified of the extension, so that some voters inevitably returned their ballots on the date indicated on the ballot without access to all information about the candidates or remedies of grievances that may occur after the original ballot deadline. The extension of the deadline also shortens the time to extend the election to assure a quorum, endangering the elections altogether.

• Unannounced changes to the published timetable, including more than a week’s delay in mailing the ballots, delaying the on-air candidates’ forums, delaying broadcast of the candidates’ on-air announcements, and extending the return date for ballots, have caused some candidates hardship in planning an election campaign.  

• No announcements have been made to the candidates of election events, changes to the election materials and election deadlines, any sanctions resulting from election violations, or the Pacifica National Board motion regarding elections passed and referred to committee, so that candidates are reliant on word of mouth to participate fully in the election process.  Links from Pacifica's homepage to Election News in English and Election News in Spanish lead to Washington, DC candidate statement.

• No time has been provided for a question-and-answer call-in period between candidates and station listeners as required by the Bylaws.

• Until November 5, no carts were aired regarding any election events, election materials, election deadlines, or any sanctions resulting from election violations, so that voters are denied timely election information and reminders on the airwaves, endangering informed voting and making a quorum.

• On-air announcements recorded by candidates did not begin to air until November 5, although the election timeline requires that broadcast begin immediately after the fund drive which ended on October 20.

• English-language forums will be rebroadcast while Spanish-language broadcasts will not, and neither candidate statements nor ballots are available in languages other than English.

• In-person candidate forums have been announced on the air only a handful of times, the announcements occurred only a day or two prior to the forum, and the address of the first in-person candidate forum was not posted on the station website until some hours before the forum, while announcements directed voters to that website for the address of the forum.

• The Local Election Supervisor appointed candidate Grace Aaron to convene the first in-person candidate forum and refused to intervene when that forum became contentious.  The Local Election Supervisor did not attend the second candidate forum, leaving the host to moderate the event.  In both cases, the lack of leadership diminished candidates’ communication with voters.

 

Leslie Radford has expertly encapsulated the multifaceted paralysis of governance at KPKF and the takeover by monied interests of the Democrat party that has squashed democracy, instituted self-censorship of programming content and corporatized listener representation/ownership at the radio station.

Volunteerism (the life-blood of listener-sponsored radio) has succumbed to a slick, glossy politicized professionalism exercised by Democrat Party hacks.

Leslie Radford has expertly encapsulated the multifaceted paralysis of governance at KPKF and the takeover by monied interests of the Democrat party that has squashed democracy, instituted self-censorship of programming content and corporatized listener representation/ownership at the radio station.

Volunteerism (the life-blood of listener-sponsored radio) has succumbed to a slick, glossy politicized professionalism exercised by Democrat Party hacks,

The station needs a diversity of ideas.

We know, in watching "free" elections under US capitalism, that there is no such thing. Wealth/ class, race, and gender play tremendous roles in limiting the available choices of candidates, and the media are all too happy to tell us who is a "credible" candidate.

We see much the same thing in the KPFK elections. Those who have long controlled the station in their own interests- so-called "progressive democrats and west side liberals have tried for years now to maintain the death grip on privilege that they have at the station. Some of them fought tooth and nail to prevent affirmative action in KPFK's elections, in an effort to ensure their continued dominance of the station, of what it broadcasts, and for whom it broadcasts. The same group of readily identifiable power players sought to eliminate KPFK's South African lesbian general manager, waging a a campaign of vilification that lasted literally, for years, form _before_ she ever set foot in the station until very recently when, at last, after years of harrassment, she had had enough, and resigned. The same "players" sought to make sure that the poor would have no voice in KPFK's future, and did all in their power to defeat proposals that would allow people to vote - even if they can't afford to subscribe to the station - by signing up under a system of waivers. Apparently, they never heard of the infamous poll taxes in the Old South that made it effectively impossible for poor people of color to vote, Apparently, they didn't understand that that bastion of injustice, th US Supreme court itself, had outlawed the practice, and apparently they were too tied to their own privilege to see clearly the comparison between the poll tax and the subscription fee that would "allow" one to vote in the white dominated atmosphere of KPFK's elections.

Or rather, perhaps they understood these matters clearly- all too clearly, and acted simply and consciously in their own naked self interest.

Perhaps they understood all along that the drive to get rid of the former general manager began with those who had been part of the hijacking of the station and mainstreaming it- people loyal to the old Schubb / Cooper regime that had purged virtually all radical programming form the air, and had certainly banned all radical programmers of color, and who had gone so far as to ban the pronunciation of Spanish place names with anything other than their English pronunciation.

No, these defensive an narrowly intersted people are not hard to identify. In past elections they called themselves PIRCR- People for Responsible Independent Community Radio.

NOW THEY GO BY"THE COMMITTEE TO STRENGTHEN KPFK."

AND THEY ARE TRYING TO BUY AN ELECTION AND CHEAT THEIR WAY TO VICTORY

Jon Weiner has just informed me that he has asked the KPFK webmaster to remove the link from KPFK to his website where he endorses the Committee.

But Air America is owned by rupert murdock.

........the company is owned primarily by Green Family Media, made up of New York real estate investor Stephen L. Green and his brother Mark J. Green, who closed on the purchase of the network on March 6, 2007 for US$4.25 million. The Greens' purchase of Air America Radio followed the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on October 13, 2006.

never happened.

What is absolutely verifiable is that I was NOT a member of the Local Advisory Board under Schubb. I came onto the interim LAB, after Schubb was gone and the lawsuit was won. This note opens with a lie that can be checked easily by anybody with web access.

No board would send a member in to "counsel" anybody if it involved a lawsuit, and I never had such a conversation with Ms. Manilla, nor would I. But since I wasn't even on the board, the author must have someone else in mind.

Georgia is accused of sexually harassing one woman, the only such charge that's been filed, as far as I know. I don't know the amount of damages sought, but "millions" sound utterly ludicrous to me.

I didn't know the minutemen had such good friends in KPFK--or does the Committee To Strengthen KPFK have such good friends among the minutemen?

Indymebia should not be trying to influence the KPFK elections. Leslie Radford's front page article is full of distortion and lies - and, guess what, she's a candidate. This is interference

It is highly unethical that Los Angeles Indymedia has decided to influence the KPFK Local Station Elections by posting a rant by one the candidates on its front page. To correct the injustice, Indymedia should now allow all of the other candidates the same opportunity. Short of that, Ms Radford should be disqualified.

I think Leslie Radford not only drank the Kool-Aid but now she's trying to get everyone else to chug-a-lug as well.

The outlandish actions Eva Georgia perpetuated on a regular basis were monumental and not just the rantings of rogue staff members as Radford would have you believe.

AFTRA Union members supported a vote of "no confidence in their General Manager" and yet these people who claim to support letting the little guy speak, tried to get the information stricken from the record!

Adding insult to injury - after all of the lawsuits and money that has been spent - Georgia got paid over $60,000 to go away! (http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2007/10/what_eva_georgia_cost_kpf.php)

Reading this fear fueling paranoia on IndyMedia today from blindly obediant people who backed Georgia as if she were Jim Jones is chilling to say the least.

Anyone who disagrees with them are immedetialy labeled right wing, racist or some operative within the CIA.

I am very concerned for the station at this time and don't know how long it will last if these people take over completely.

And I am beyond frustrated that the fine folks at IndyMedia thought that Radford's rantings should be posted on the main page. Don't you people know that she is running for the LSB?

In her letter she says, "Candidates Bayard Condon and Jubilee Shine have their names inaccurately posted on the website, and Joaquin Cienfuego’s name is misspelled on the ballot, so that their names on the website do not match their names as listed on the ballot."

Is she insinuating that due to a spelling error there is a conspiracy against these people? Maybe if you look at the full list of candidates for the LSB with your left eye closed you can see a clearly defined image of the messiah as well. Come on, wake up people.

nice effort at deflection Ms Radford (or should I say officer Radford). Clearly, if Eva Georgia was already GM, we're not talking about the unelcted LAB during Schubb's reign, but rather the unelected LAB afterwards - which you did sit on. And, as for my source, let's just say it's first-hand. Go ahead, Indymedia, do some journalism, find out the truth - that way, Ms Radford will be exposed as the blatant liar that she is

First of all, I identified myself in the "author" line of the article as a candidate.

I corrected the verifiable error in the comments above, and the writer concurs. The rest is fiction, but not fiction that anyone can prove or disprove, and I have no interest in getting into back-and-forth where I'm supposed to provide evidence that I *didn't* do something. That's absurd on the face of it. So far, no one has pointed to a factual error in the article itself. I will be happy to address those.

But if you would like to continue to smear me, go ahead. This is an intelligent readership--they'll make the distinction between smears and attacks. I'll bet they never knew that the crap inside KPFK was this vicious, but here goes.

Let me give them some background. Many of the same crew from the Committee that opposed Ms. Georgia and (I'm pretty sure) are slamming me here first came after me when I opposed ratification of Pacifica bylaws without guarantees of representation by oppressed groups. We lost that battle, but I stand behind it.

Pacifica is a "minority-owned" network for purposes of Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding, although it's listenership is largely white. That means, to this day, the national board has to be a majority peoples of color according to CPB rules to get CPB funding.

As I hear it, the Pacifica struggle began with GM Mark Schubb, abetted by Marc Cooper, purging mostly Black programmers from KPFK. Shortly afterwards, the national board floated a plan to sell the Berkeley station to finance a string of smaller Black Pacifica stations across the South. Carol Spooner led a listener revolt to demand that the listenership elect the local boards, which would, in turn, elect the national board--the "majority minority" national board.

I came into KPFK after Spooner had won the lawsuit, as the new Bylaws were being hammered out. And that's where I "earned" the animosity of Spooner and her local minions, supporting representation for the various communities of color, gender "difference," and the differently-abled.

You can meet one of those purged programmers, Dedon Kamathi, returned to the air by Eva Georgia, tonight at a candidates' forum at the Lucy Florence Coffee House, Gallery and Theater, 3351 West 43rd Street LA at 7:00 p.m.

And I'll be there, and I bet whoever is writing these comments will also be there. Let the fireworks begin (again).

Personal attacks are the last refuge of scoundrels. The name calling diatribes and efforts to create an atmosphere of scapegoating against Leslie Radford here are consistent with what has gone on in KPFK and Pacifica for years.

Since PIRCR and its new front group, "The Committee to 'Strengthen' KPFK" have long been on record - in formal votes - as opposing affirmative action remedies to balance representation on local boards for disenfranchised communities, since they have long been on record as opposing waivers for the poor so that they can participate in the station's elections, and since the election violations they have engaged in are indisputable, they have no recourse but to attempt to slander Radford, and hope, as they do it, that you, the reader, are gullible enough to not see through the ploy.

Notice the obvious. None of them deny the elections violations, nor the effort to turn the elections into a "he who has the money Rules" game _ they can't - they've been condemned by the Pacifica National Board for trying to buy the elections, none of them deny their opposition to affirmative action or fee waivers for the poor, none of them deny the long term effort to drive out the former GM, nor that it began before she even took office (Not that the former GM was saintly, by anyone's standards - I had marked differences with her). All they have left is to slander the one who has exposed what they cannot and do not deny.

Ok here comes the Spin Democratic/Repulican Party like Operations attacking the Truth that is undenialable that Ms. Radford inform us about. As these type of Arrognant Money Power Hungry slate with an Agenda that is is hidden from Public viewing as it is an attempt Take Over of KPFK to polish off Grassroots Voices with there Glossy mailer just as the Repulicrats do to ask for your vote and then act in there OWN Interest as the staff is doing now. The Quelling of Dissent and Craving out of Consent to Govern only for there own interests as Listener Democracy is Explioted for the Staff own ends($) as the Information being put out by those earning a Salary that i help paid, Paid Staff play Ring Around the Pony with Air time gaining a Salary and with Impunity controling the Information that is put out on KPFK wherther its thru Editorial Commentary by those whom already have shows or Station paiding Jobs and doing commentary or appearing as Guest on shows hence Censoring the possiblity of New fresh ideas and voices and De-constructing of serious National Security State issues, accepting the Pharmaceutical lies that so call Aids Drugs cure Aids while allowing this lie the Pharmaceutical Industry Laughs its way into the Bank without being Check or Challenged by the unPaid/Paid Programmers Censoring the Alternative Views of people as this Industry has engage in modern Human Genocide as it has done the same on 911 Truth as some of these same programmers and Slate of candidates condone the so call Humanirian Bombing of Bosnia during Clinton Sleazy and greasing Rein. So now here we come again with now a Second Hi-jacking attempt being wage by the so call Flashy Deep Pocket and Arrogant Committee To Strengthen KPFK these are Remants of the Chubb and Cooper Crowd whom have been Engage in a Lenghty Undermining of KPFK efforts to remain free and Independent and grassroots then Slandering the K-GM refer to LA Weekly as link to the great Fact Base Article Ms. Radford wrote. The relationship's are very cozy by most of the Listed Endorsers of this Arrogant Slate of mindless Mainstream Party Officals and the ongoing relationships with Marc Cooper and Chrubb for those whom had no idea these where the supporters of suppressing Dissent and Grassroots Democracy in Pacifica and hence making the conditions Possible for a Hi-jacking of our station and network. Ask yourself one question why will the Rich want to invest so much money to take over a Local Station Board knowing most of us struggle to support our station with our modest incomes and even the Poor contribute as much as there can or Volunteer. So my question to you all is Why Has The Rich and Powerful engage in an attempt to unduly Posion our Grassroots Election Process? Also, are we to Keep Our Station Power By The People or over-Power by the Rich and Well-Connected with a Clear Agenda to Lock Communities and new Voices out as these actors and thinkers only are looking out for there own interest and not of those of the Main Stake Holders the KPFK Listener Supporters. Honest

My name is Ricco Ross, I am one of the candidates running for LSB and it is really disheartening to read all of the negatively about the station which is about so much more to our community . It has been informative as I didn't really know much of the specifics re all the in fighting and you have prompted a conversation that is revealing. Having said that, Leslie I don't know you from Adam and like wise you doesn't know me. To some how imply that because I am a Progressive Democrate, active and a voting member of the Democratic Party (which I must admit lacks a spine to say the least.) and am trying to do all that I can to help change the governments position of looking after the "haves" and forgetting the "have not's", somehow makes me an unworthy candidate is something I strongly take objection to. Because I am tired of complaining and have gotten off my back side and become an activist "...raises alarm bells about mainstream party funding and takeover". ? Wow, that is some leap and if you can make such a leap there, I now have to question any and everything you say. I have met the other candidates on and off my slate and in my opinion all of us seem to truly want the same thing. Which is the best for KPFK. Some of us are from different slates, back rounds and some from similar back rounds, but from what I have heard, we seem to have a common goal, all be it different views of how to achieve that goal. We all want the best for KPFK and as some of us will be elected, we might want to start trying to work together now, because there may be different slates running, but in the end there will only be one LSB.

Ricco,

For the record, there's only one slate in these elections, the Committee To Strengthen KPFK.

What really interests me here is that you're talking and listening, you're getting your feet wet at KPFK, and that you're moving into activism. You might talk to Rodrigo or Kimberly or Lydia or Bill--all LSB members who are leaving. They all believe in KPFK, at least in its potential, and they've all struggled to do what is best for the station.

And I'd be happy to sit down over a cup of coffee with you if we can get our schedules together, and you can question me all you want--my veracity, my views of KPFK, my background there. Email me--my address is above.

As far as knowing you, I only know that you're a Democrat, and that's what I commented on. I'm pretty sure that most KPFK listeners want to know that four members of PDA have suddenly appeared on the KPFK scene.

Your concern with the article seems to be that I've linked the entry of local Democratic Party leaders along with a sudden influx of cash into the KPFK election to alarm bells I've heard from friends, who've heard them from friends, who've heard them from friends--a whole swath of people who are wondering what's happening. I didn't create those alarms, but they don't seem to be much of a leap to me.

I expressed the concerns I'm hearing (and feeling) to Ahjamu after the Santa Monica forum, and he seemed to hear what I was saying. If we can talk, maybe you will grasp some of what raised alarm bells for me, too.

--Leslie

Like thousands of "Yours in Struggle" documents that I've read about Pacifica matters in the past six years, this one starts off with a lie, or, to be more generous, dis-or-misinformation.

The listeners did not "win" a lawsuit. There was never even a Trial. In fact, the Evidence to that lawsuit is still being hidden away, buried, far outside the reach of any current staff or Directors. The former Plaintiffs and all the EDs to date and all the PNB members to date and the national staff have all spent the last five years pretending that those 43 boxes of historical documents are better left to a quite encounter with an industrial strength paper shredder.

The truth is, the Evidence was never presented to any jury and the lawsuit was settled out of court. No one won. Boy, is that an understatement.

It was settled for a couple of reasons:

1. The malicious lawsuits had bled Pacifica of money to the end point.
2. The campaigns of harassment had "removed" several of the key Defendants so that remaining body was not cohesive enough to pull together support for the last 30 days before Trial.
3. The interim Chair had delusions that he could negotiate a "peace" within Pacifica and he trusted that the Plaintiffs would be honest in their execution of that settlement. Boy, was he wrong.

The facts of the case were never "won."

Having left the first sentence in dismay, I scanned some of the other paragraphs. Leslie's claims about about the Committee to Protect KPFK being up and running for a month on a kpfk address is also a lie. Her attempt to lump all the slate candidates into one monolithic ideology is also a lie. Her suggestion that there is "dirty money" in the campaign is a lie. And so on, and so on.

Nalini

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and
do not necessarily reflect those of the LA Indymedia Center editorial
staff.
The article has been feature for the purpose of debate and not as an
endorsement or promotion any viewpoint or candidate.

I have in my pocket a ten dollar bill. my left hand wants 7 of it, my right hand wants three of it, and my toe wants 12 of it. My cat is hungry and my toe really want to buy a bike.

I am not saying that the kpfk struggle is a battle between one person, I am saying that its a crazy-ass-conflict whose rules of engagement and whose internal logic creates further madness.

This fight over the tools of simulation and simulacra and commodified rhetoric is a drain. This KPFK stuggle has drained the progressive scene of some meaningful action and actors.

I DO NOT KNOW the ins and outs of this struggle, but I have seen how this prolonged dogfight has killed a lot of grassroots projects and potentials and created really inflated rhetoric on all sides. The "politics" seem rotten on all sides... the politics (the way that people end up acting "politically").
I think all the idea that all the politicians in this fight are wonderful people.

Turn the station.

The problem within Pacifica is the effort by political groups to control without sharing.

Unfortunately, Spooner has decided to support "visionaries" whose goals are to agendize Pacifica at all stations, and spout selected viewpoints, and no others.

Worse, this encourages the sectarians at WBAI to clutch the station ever more tightly, lest they have to give up and share with anyone but their own single point of political view.

This drives away anyone who may be "on the Left" that does not subscribe to or embrace those beliefs, isolating Pacifica even further from what was its once considerable support base.

Radford's an idiot, pushing her own agenda, but she "gets it" more than most of the people involved and scrabbling for these seats.

Don't elect "activists"; they are activists for a reason, and unless you want your station being their bully pulpit, you don't need them in control.

Don't have "litmus tests" or anything that filters out "objectionable" political views; it's the diversity of viewpoints that made Pacifica the legend that it has lost by focusing too tightly on niche issues.

Don't elect "long time listeners", because they will want to turn back the clock to whenever they first started listening, and ignore the current realpolitik and are mostly ignorant of the newer technologies to spread the Pacifica message.

Save the station, save the network, save the progressive viewpoint. Keep the political viewpoints diverse and out of power.

The important claim that everyone seems to be missing is that the audio
files were censored to exclude certain comments from the files. Can
anyone attest or offer evidence to confirm this highly disturbing claim??

My name is Michael Pimental. I am a founding member along with Tracy
Larkins and numerous others of the KPFK lisdteners group. I then left
for Houston and became a member of the Pacifica Listeners Union and the
Houston Committee for Peoples Radio which wrote bylaws, held an election
and elected the Houston Interim Local Advisory Board of which I was a
member.. Which the Pacifica interim National Board voted to have merged
with the then appointed board and therby recognized the unique
democratic efforts of local listeners and volunteers which followed the
pattern of KPFA.

I must insist with a very firm grasp of the matter under discussion
that there was NEVER ANY other interim LAB, thus Leslie can not claim to
have been a member of an "interim" board as the board that she joined
was the same board, chaired by David Adelson, lead plaintiff in the LAB
lawsuit, that had existed throughout the hijacking and before. Indeed
Davis Adelson recruited a number of the hijackers in that role as LAB
chair, he also oversaw Leslie Radford's appointment..

There are indeed many contrived notions contained in this piece and the
comments appended and I won't adress them all but first I must address
the initial claim :

"After a struggle for democratic elections that nearly destroyed a
progressive radio network, local elections at KPFK are besmirched by
unchecked money, influence, and confusion."

"Six years ago, listeners to a progressive radio network called Pacifica
won a lawsuit that allowed KPFK members to elect representatives to
their local station board, and through them, to determine who sat on the
Pacifica National Board. The demand for democracy was an eruption
against a board of directors that considered selling one of the stations
to finance a string of smaller Black stations in the South. The
settlement instituted the first democratically-run radio network in the
U.S., another groundbreaking advance in the network's long history.
Such are the contradictions of democracy."

This should read in the articulated understanding of those who know

'After struggle for control of the network by operatives of certain
democratic party interests that eventually placed the lead plaintiffs
in a California lawsuit in control of the network, local elections at
KPFK are besmirched by the fact that the network continues to resent
community participation in controll of the network'

'Six years ago, people claiming to represent listeners and financial
supprters of a progressive radio network called Pacifica settled a
lawsuit that allowed KPFK members to elect representatives to somthing
called a local station board, and through them, to determine who sat on
the Pacifica National Board. The demand for democracy was not supported
by the Pacifica Campaign. The settlement allowed a group of nutballs to
rewrite Pacifica's bylaws which saw the spawning of the first
democratically-governed radio network(if you can call it that) in the
U.S., another groundbreaking advance in the destruction of Pacifica.
Such are the contradictions of democracy.'

Other than the numerous and deliberate mischaracterizations about the
members of the other slate and their motivations and actions as well as
the grievances aginst the election process. she failed to focus on the
relevant issue to indy media that a "Free speech radio network" and
it's station KPFK is deliberately altering audio files and censoring
certain speakers comments from their web archive. If true this is more
relevant than any other claim in her list of claims that rate from who
cares to, oh yeah that sucks.

The claims about money and the mailing are a real yawner. California law
has allowed this kind of communication between members of a non-profit
for many years and the fact that the candidates weren't aware of this
and are now complaining thru Leslie speaks poorly of their ability to
represent any communities of size or to even serve on such a board
effectively, whereas those that she besmirches are well known members of
a multifacted multiracial community called KPFK.

The other respondents are not well informed as to the fact that the
whole damn Free Pacifica movement was being manipulated and controlled
by the left inteligentsia and radical democratic party operatives from
the moment that the LAB lawsuit was filed, long before Carol Spooner and
her "RELATOR" status as confered by the California AG ever came into play.

After the suits merged their efforts there was no hope of really getting
Pacifica back to it's roots, only a hope that those that cared enough
would get stuck in all this madness in order to divert their energies
with control remaining in the hands of the liberals that support the
Satanic system of neverending credits and donations of credit.

Slasher

Interesting that Nalini has joined this discussion apparently defending the election process when I understood that she opposed the use of elections at all to determine the leadership of a non-profit.

Nevertheless, she raises some questions. "Win," I suppose, is in the mind of the player. In the settlement, the PNB had to relinquish control of Pacifica and the listeners got elections. Off the top of head, I can't think of a thing that board got except a 1/3 say on the reconstituted board as the bylaws were being rewritten.

The URL issue:

I said, "The Committee To Strengthen KPFK used a website for four weeks that had “KPFK” in its URL, in direct violation of a prohibition against using the station call letters in an election-related URL."

The rule <a href=http://www.pacificafoundation.org/elections/documents/view-document/2007-fair-campaign-provisions-candidates.html">says, "Candidate websites may not include the word 'Pacifica' or the station
call letters or frequency numbers in the URL."
Proof: I hope the url in the pic is visible here. It was changed a couple of weeks ago, but I managed to catch a screenshot before it changed.

"Monolithic ideology"? If you're referring to the PDA, I was clear that there are differences--that four members are Dem Party, and there are others whose affiliations except with the PDA members on the slate I don't know. But I hope they stand for *some* monolithic ideology , or why would they encourage voters to vote for a slate? Without something in common, the "slate" boils down to a group with a common publicity stunt, and I hope they stand for more than that. I'm not sure, though, since their platform is something I believe nearly every candidate would stand behind.

As to the money, until there is campaign finance disclosure in Pacifica, there will be questions.

Michael, you're mistaken. Lydia Brazon was chair when I came onto the iLAB, after Dave, after the settlement. But I agree with some of what you say after that.

Leslie Radford's "Premiere" candidate, Lawrence Reyes was banned from KPFK indefinitely by her own beloved Eva Georgia (see letter from Eva below).
The racist actions of this white woman (L Radford) include working hard to get Donna Warren, a black activist, and Lich Doan a Vietnamese activist thrown off the election, citing the fair campaign provisions. She is apparently completely ignoring the violations committed by her own pit bull. Mr. Reyes has made repeated threats of violence towards KPFK members including threatening handicapped individuals, women and fund drive volunteers.
Noting the very real threat of injury and liability to the station and Pacifica, the outgoing GM made the wise decision to ban this individual from the station.
Don't be swayed by the Cointel project of Ms Radford. She is working hard to confuse and disorient those of you that care about KPFK. Along with her team of unwitting provocateurs like the dim witted, screaming shrew Tracy Larkins, they will do everything they can to confuse or disenfranchise people that want what's best for the station. So they can make sure the listenership remains small and they can continue to have power and control over a increasingly marginalized station board.

If you want to make the right decisions, research all the candidates. There are several slates going around. Including Leslie's, which was advertised in Change Links. There's nothing wrong with looking at any of them, but make your own decisions. Be independent.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Eva Georgia
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 12:20 PM
To: Armando Gudino; Sue Welsh; ellarinas; Operations; Bob Conger; Jack VanAken
Subject: letter re Lawrence Reyes
To Staff
This is to notify all KPFK staff and interested parties that as of July 19, 2007 Mr. Lawrence Reyes was placed on three months probationary status, during which time he was not to have engaged in any uncontrolled outbursts of anger or threatening conduct on station premises, or face immediate banning. It should also be noted that Mr. Reyes at that time had voluntarily agreed to refrain from participation in the upcoming October fund drive.

Seeing as Mr. Reyes displayed uncontrolled rage in the station on August 13, during the Programming Oversight Committee meeting, which incident prompted his removal from the PrOC as a member, and due to numerous complaints and concerns expressed by staff and volunteers, it is hereby noticed that Lawrence Reyes is prohibited from entering KPFK premises for all station business, be it volunteer or committee activities,
indefinitely, pending review by KPFK's interim General Manager, once appointed.

Moreover, I am requesting that Pacifica's National Elections
Supervisor, Casey Peters, be notified of a possible violation of the Fair Campaign Provisions for Candidates #4: "No candidate may engage in any act of physical violence or threats of violence against
another candidate or any members of the Pacifica community." which is retroactive to July 25, in the event that Mr. Reyes should apply for candidacy in the Local Station Board election.

It should further be noted that Pacifica's Bylaws state "...nor may air time be made available to some Listener-Sponsor Delegate candidate (s) but not to others. All candidates for election as a Listener-Sponsor Delegate shall be given equal opportunity for equal air time, which air time shall include time for a statement by the candidate and a question and answer period with call-in listeners." --Article 4, Delegates, Section 6, Fair Campaign Provisions. As a consequence of this requirement in the Bylaws it may become unavoidably necessary at some time for Mr. Reyes to enter station premises, subject to any possible ruling to the contrary by
the National Election Supervisor.

Eva Georgia
General Manager, KPFK

Lies and Slander, Eben ,the real Threat is that your Pit Bull atttack and threaten Lawrence and he has remain Humble waiting for a Just process as Eva gave in to her Staff Munity and on the way out Ban, Lawrence w/o a Process did you hear his letter to the LSB. I think the real Threat to your Comm to Try and Take over KPFK is that Lawrence will get elected. Eben perhaps you should refer people to your Racist Website do you really see a Human Being when you look in the Mirror.

Hey were your hands shaking with uncontrollable rage when you typed that message above?
Yeah we know about the pathetic letter he read that was supposed to be an apology. He can't even be honest in his account of the incident, about making violent threats to a volunteer during a fund drive. He made accusations and tried to blame the person he threatened. Some apology.
Don't you realize the whole incident referenced had multiple witnesses and was even recorded by the stations security camera? Stop lying about it. And this is just one of at least a dozen incidents where this bi-polar, unstable individual has threatened members of the pacifica family. Banning him from the station was done by a consensus of all station management, and noticed to the staff and public in the letter by Eva, above.

Dear Indymedia editors:

What you are doing here degrades this website, on 2 counts.

1. The disclaimer you've added to this article is absurd. This piece has thorough documentation (I've checked all the links ( as you should have, as well. I have never seen a story so well documented on LA Indymedia that was abused with this kind of disclaimer. For the most part, the facts in this article have not been disputed - they are indisputable. I can only suppose that you are hiding the fact that one of the LA Indymedia editors, who shall remain nameless, for the moment, at least, has ties to key members of the Committee to Strengthen KPFK ( including having worked on the prime time program of one such member)and that the disclaimer is actually a partisan effort to shield that group of candidates from the impact of their own abuses.

2. Speaking of abuses, I thought there was a rule against using the comments section of LA Indymedia to make personal attacks - or does that only apply when key members of the editorial staff don't have a personal stake in the issues at hand? Vicious personal attacks that have nothing whatsoever to do with the matters at hand have been allowed to remain in plain view, here, when normally the practice of the editors has been to "hide" them.

The personal attacks in question have all been against independent candidates, and every such attack has been allowed to stand. You, as editors, have left your own biases showing very clearly to anyone with eyes to see. I've refrained from naming the LA Indymedia editor in question, because it is disturbing enough to witness people being treated the way you are allowing them to be treated - against all precedent, without adding more sickness into the disease you are allowing to stew here. It is simply horrid that you let Leslie Radford be attacked his way without any justification or foundation, insofar as she is one of the best writers ever to grace your pages. You'd think at least you'd have respect for your own writers. Take a hint. Don't discount fact as opinion, and unlike KPFK, - FOLLOW YOUR OWN RULES. Don't allow this kind of abuse, and don't foster it by discounting valid reporting and allowing important local advocacy journalists to be smeared.

Years ago, in the days before back in the day, Pacifica waited three years for its license renewal while the House Un-American Activities Committee and the FBI tried to pin Communist conspiracy charges on the network.  A decade later, in a free speech fight that stretched to the U.S. Supreme Court, Pacifica fought for the right to broadcast George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" monologue.

Years ago, the police busted into KPFK and hauled the manager off to jail as the programmers aired the Patty Hearst tapes, secretly hand-delivered to the station, as I hear the story.

In 2003, General Manager Eva Georgia brought all the resources of the station to sponsoring international anti-war protest, and the station brought 60,000 people into the streets, the largest anti-war march in Los Angeles since Vietnam. This is the woman leading members of the Committee to Strengthen KPFK sought for years to drive out of the station.

Today, as I write this, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who smashed the South Central Farm encampment and tore up the food, is in the studio as a guest, and the host, a member of the Committee to Strengthen KPFK, wraps up with "You're a good man, Lee Baca."

What will KPFK become?

KPFK must serve the future, not the past. It should serve those who seek to preserve life and foster liberation, not those, like Lee Baca, who destroy  the hope of us all for a new and better world. The issues for activists of today and our future are enormous.  Dismantling a world empire.  Liberating the people from the social control of brutality, terror, surveillance, incarceration, and genocide.  Dismantling the machine of perpetual war.  Rescuing the ecosystem.  Overcoming Euro-american cultural supremacism.  Surviving technological, economic, and societal disintegration.  These are the defining challenges confronting the 21st century.  They demand leadership from those who will live with the consequences of the decisions we make now.  Will KPFK take the lead?

The question of KPFK's future has become an ugly "debate" at Los Angeles Indymedia. What you read in L.A. Indymedia comments is an authentic reflection of the culture at KPFK now: name calling, snitchjacketing, mocking people with literacy problems or learning disabilities, intimidating other independent media.  "Politics" today inside KPFK is little more than scapegoating, hunting down people who speak truth to power.  The Committee to Strengthen KPFK struck the coup de grâce: a petition denouncing the general manager because she was being sued,  and spreading unproven accusations to the mainstream media.  Eva left, after suffering through five years of what you see on L.A. Indymedia and much worse.  And now they're coming in for the kill, an election that will determine the next general manager.

I got sucked into the mire.  L.A. Indymedia asked me to repost an article from my website here, and I did, knowing full well that the vitriol at KPFK was toxic.  Nobody has proven that anything I wrote was wrong, but such is the outrage of a bruised privileged class.  They can take their unproven crap about the general manager to the L.A. Times and the L.A. Weekly, but how dare I tell the truth on an open publishing site?  L.A. Indymedia has caved: they distanced themselves from the article with a disclaimer the likes of which I've never seen there.  They allow personal attacks to remain in plain view, a part of the "debate" they called for.  But, knowing the pressure, the threats, I can hardly blame them.

Except that L.A. Indymedia is open publishing, people.  You wanna pitch some other story, you wanna try to spin the facts, you wanna promote your own candidacy or candidate there, go for it.

But the Committee hasn't done that and and won't do it.  Their supporters' debate of choice is anonymous smears, snitchjacketing, mockery, fear-mongering, implicit threats.

KPFK, bastion of radical free speech, at the end of this election in a little more than three weeks, could be the voice of a faction of the Democratic Party and their allies, the voice of those who posted their vicious attacks on L.A. Indymedia, the voice of Sheriff Lee Baca.

TAKE OVER THIS RADIO STATION!  Do it for Will Lewis, the former KPFK manager who refused to give the Hearst tapes to the FBI, for Carlin, for communists, for anarchist Pacifica founder Lew Hill, for radical-ass, in your face radio--take over this station.

My words here are carefully chosen: vote the fuckers out.  And vote in fresh, authentically radical voices. Vote for Kahllid A. Al-Almin , currently in jail framed by the LAPD.  Vote for Joaquín Cienfuegos of Copwatch, vote for Rufina Juárez who led the South Central Farm resistance, vote for Lawrence Reyes of the Puerto Rican Alliance and a former affiliate of the Young Lords Party.  Vote for Schyna Pour , a budding high school radical and daughter of anti-Shah Iranian Reza Pour .  Vote for Jubilee Shine who organized the rally to stop the minutemen from taking Leimert Park.  Vote for former student radical against the Shah Moe Mansour , driven out of his country decades ago.  Vote for anti-racist, anti-war activist Chuck Anderson who screams at the system from inside the darkness of Orange County.

Don't vote for Grace Aaron, the head of the Committee to Strengthen KPFK, who led the public campaign of lies against Eva Georgia, or Aaron's supporters.  Don't vote for Donna J. Warren who brags about her twenty years with the Department of Defense as her qualification to run KPFK.  Don't vote for Ahjamu Makalani, vice chair of the California Democratic Party Progressive Caucus or Democratic caucus members Linda Sutton, Ricco Ross, and Dan Wang.

If you're not a voter, or if you are, spread the word on your facebook, your myspace, your email lists.  Use this article, use your own words, but tell people: the station is yours by all that's right in the world, and it's time to claim it.

The Committee and its supporters inside and outside the station won't let that happen, of course.  They've already concocted a joke of a lawsuit asserting that the station should have distributed their glossy, high-priced brochure in the envelope with the ballots or some such nonsense--after all, that's their privilege--so that, if they can't buy the election, they can void it.  If they win this fraud of an election in spite of your vote, or if they go to court to disqualify you, take over the station.

KPFK is your legacy, you've earned it through your struggle in the streets and in your communities.  Learn what KPFK was, dream of what it could be--the most powerful radio signal west of the Mississippi, capable of mobilizing sixty thousand people to take the streets from Santa Barbara to Riverside to San Diego.  The doors are open.  Take over KPFK.  Claim it, own it, make it yours.

This will be hidden. This SHOULD BE hidden. It will be hidden because it is an attack on Te LA Indymedia editor who backs the COmmittee to "Strengthen" KPFK It is an attack on Ana Kunkin, asking if Kunkin is a cop, and it asks that because Kunkin has left attacks up in plain view suggesting that an LA Indymedia writer is a cop. THAT KIND OF ATTACK IS NOT USUALLY ALLOWED HERE..iiT IS ONLY BEING ALLOWED BECAUSE ANA KUNKIN SUPPORTS THOSE WHO MAKE SUCH CHARGES, AND WHO LACK THE INTEGRITY TO DEFEND THEMSELVES FROM THE TRUTH IN ANY OTHER WAY.

Only cops benefit from snitch jacketing activists, so there is reason to suspect that anyone who does it, or who allows it, is a cop.

SO, THE QUESTION IS, IS ANA KUNKIN A COP?

IF THIS ATTACK IS "HIDDEN" WHILE OTHER SUCH ATTACKS ARE LEFT UP, YOU WILL HAVE THE ANSWER.

The man is competent, and would be an effective representative. He's also got an anger management problem, and seems to enjoy rage.

Whatever you may claim about Lawrence Reyes, he's not angry enough to sue Pacifica, and he may very well have grounds to do so. See below.

From: liliana sanchez <votekpfk@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 12, 2007 11:57 AM
Subject: letter in regards to Lawrence Reyes candidacy
T Ali Lexa <alexa@kpfk.org>

The challenge to Mr. Lawrence Reyes candidacy has been reviewed by the Foundation Counsel. The Reyes candidacy will be allowed to proceed.

The reasons given are:

1. No police report was filed.
2. The letter written by General Manager Eva Georgia banning Mr. Reyes from the station makes an exception for Mr. Reyes to be allowed to enter the station for election related recordings if he were to become a candidate.
3. A similar case of violence (not just threats) in Houston in 2006 resulted in the ban of the candidate from the studio but did not revoke his right to run for the LSB.
4. The probability that, if Mr. Reyes were to sue the Foundation upon being banned from his candidacy, the Foundation would likely lose the case and be liable for damages and expenses.

This ruling in no way condones Mr. Reyes alleged threats, nor does it alter the ban invoked by Eva Georgia. Lawrence Reyes and all candidates are reminded that violation of the Fair Campaign Provisions may lead to sanctions which includes their right to run for the LSB.

Liliana Sanchez
Local Election Supervisor

On 11 Nov 2007, Leslie Radford wrote:

>After a struggle for democratic elections that nearly destroyed a
>progressive radio network, local elections at KPFK are besmirched
>by unchecked money, influence, and confusion.

The struggle that "nearly destroyed a progressive radio network" was about much more than elections. Democratization was identified as a remedy to some of the complaints in the lawsuits and had broad support among listeners. After a settlement was agreed to by the parties in the lawsuits, there was a new struggle around the fashioning of elections in new organizational bylaws.

>Six years ago, listeners to a progressive radio network called Pacifica
>won a lawsuit that allowed KPFK members to elect representatives to
>their local station board, and through them, to determine who sat on the
>Pacifica National Board.

Democratization was one of the victories achieved by Plaintiffs in a Settlement Agreement. The lawsuits themselves were not won. Pacifica's failure to amend its bylaws and hold elections within the time frame agreed to in the Settlement threatened to abort the agreement and force the case to trial, surrendering the victory achieved. This was avoided through substantial compliance with the terms agreed to, under court supervision.

>The demand for democracy was an eruption against a board of directors
>that considered selling one of the stations to finance a string of smaller
>Black stations in the South.

This was a theory promoted by organizers for the plaintiffs, and used as propaganda to considerable effect. There was enough truth and evidence of truth to sustain the rumor, but the evidence was exaggerated out of proportion to its actual significance. In fact, a board expresses its will by passing motions and may often "consider" something only to reject it.

>The settlement instituted the first democratically-run radio network in the U.S.,
>another groundbreaking advance in the network's long history. Such are the
>contradictions of democracy. Today, that democratic outburst has fallen
>victim to a single slate of candidates supported by "The Committee to Strengthen
>KPFK," a powerful amalgam of Local Station Board members, station staff, and
>new faces, and endorsed by attorney Carol Spooner, one of the key figures in
>the original effort to democratize Pacifica.

Slates and parties are natural outgrowths of democratization, not rampaging monsters creating victims willy-nilly. Elections necessarily have winners and losers.

>And they have injected the influence of a financed elections and Democratic
>Party politics into an institution that prides itself on being "powered by the people."

Members have rights to campaign through advertizing. Advertizing is often not free. Members have rights to raise funds and spend them on campaigns. A delegate campaign funded by voluntary donations is as much "powered by the people" as a listener-sponsored radio station.

>The Committee and procedural violations threaten to confuse and discourage
>candidates, and endanger the quorum necessary for election certification.

Campaign advertizing typically increases voter response, so helps obtain quorum. Pacifica's quorum for listener-sponsor members is 10%, which is high in comparison with similar nonprofits.

>Lack of oversight, improper procedures, and an insider Committee so arrogant
>that rules seem meant to be broken, are spreading a viscous taint on the
>credibility of any election outcome.

This is hyperbole. Pacifica's elections are independently supervised to prevent partisan oversight. The Committee to Strengthen KPFK includes outsiders and insiders. It is not arrogant for members to demand the rights of members under law. The election rules were changed this year and some of the new rules have been violated in several station areas. Unless voluntarily corrected when an infraction is pointed out, remedy typically requires a favorable ruling on a formal complaint submitted to elections supervisors with adequate documentation of the claim of violation. The rule prohibiting station call letters in a candidate web address is of questionable legality and wisdom, but the CSKPFK is in compliance with this rule. The "vicious taint" and "stolen election" stuff is in the imagination of the author.

>At the same time, a blackout on election violations is so thorough, the
>determination to make quorum so overpowering after the near-failure
>of previous elections, that much of the electorate is unaware that
>infractions have occurred.

Infractions always occur, but not all claims are valid. Most of the electorate are unaware of the various claims and infractions that occur in every Pacifica election. At least one Pacifica election must apparently fail for lack of quorum for the PNB to recognize that the quorum requirement is too high, since this hasn't been fixed yet. Pacifica must obtain the approval of a quorum for a bylaws amendment to reduce quorum, so should not wait for an additional decline in membership interest.

>Even candidates who file complaints receive, at most and only occasionally,
>an acknowledgment that their complaint has been received.

Election Supervisors have been ruling on complaints received. Several candidates who have filed complaints have received notice that their complaints were denied. Some complaints have been accepted as valid and remedies applied or imposed. The website for tracking complaints never got built, so we don't know how many complaints and rulings there have been or if there is a backlog.

>Already, in the
>fifth week of the campaign, the Committee To Strengthen KPFK has wantonly
>violated several of the eleven simple rules laid out for fair elections.

The indymedia article's use of the KPFK logo in connection with its candidate author was itself a violation of the Pacifica election rules.

>The KPFK candidate webpages and broadcast archives, under the control of
>Committee member and station webmaster Ali Lexa, been used for numerous
>inequities in publishing candidate information.

There have been false claims of inequities and some honest errors. The station webmasters are naturally blamed for all errors in elections postings. KPFK is lucky to have a webmaster who cares about local governance.

>And the procedures and timetable of election events distributed to the
>candidates and posted on the station website for voters has been altered
>with little or no notification to the voters and the candidates.

Alteration to posted notices is public notice. Communication between elections supervisors and candidates has been poor.

>To date, no sanctions have been announced to repair the damage to
>independent candidates or to inform the voters.

Remedies are imposed only if formal complaint is made and found to have merit. Remedies may be imposed without public announcement.

>In spite of its long list of rules violations, the Committee didn't hesitate to inject
>the election with the influence of privately financed campaigning, purchasing
>a high-gloss, multi-colored mailer sent to KPFK members, at a cost of $6,000
>to $7,000 according to Committee director and candidate Grace Aaron, even
>as the donation-based station suffers a marked downturn in contributions.

Only a few of the items on Leslie's list actually qualify as alleged rules violations by slate members. Candidates finance their election campaigns privately because there are no public funds available for Pacifica's elections.

>The Committee To Strengthen KPFK has taken the first step to becoming a
>non-profit corporation itself, by affiliation with the International Humanities
>Center, which has adopted the Committee as one of its projects, providing
>the group with a tax shelter and anonymity for its donor or donors.

Association with a nonprofit actually increases transparency and accountability under IRS regulations. Pacifica elections are not subject to the various regulations and controls that apply to the financing of public elections.

>The Pacifica National Board, recognizing the serious disadvantage the mailer
>poses to low- and moderate-income independent candidates, and that
>"spending of large sums of money in Pacifica campaigns runs counter to the
>noncommercial nature of the Pacifica Radio Network while underscoring the
>discriminatory nature of campaign financing so prevalent and objectionable
>in mainstream elections," moved on November 1 to begin a process to find
>remediation for the disadvantaged candidates.

A Director from KPFK persuaded the PNB to attempt to intervene in the elections, but the Foundation bylaws mandate independent election supervision so as to prevent such interference. The PNB Elections Committee established a Campaign Finance Reform Subcommittee well before this Director brought an individual motion to the PNB.

>The discussion of specific remedies began at the KPFK Local Station Board
>meeting on Wednesday, November 7. Candidate Jubilee Shine told the local
>board, ""I am here to represent workers. I'm a roofer and a union activist. I
>couldn't get $7,000 for a flyer for this campaign. I couldn't raise $300."

Candidates may need to raise funds for their campaigns to compete effectively against other candidates. Candidates can reduce their individual fundraising burdens by combining resources with other candidates and forming a slate. Election campaign fundraising may be a reasonable test of the candidates' abilities to raise funds for Pacifica, if elected.

>In order to implement the remedies, the board discussed the possibility of a
>further election delay, to December 21.

The primary justification for the extension was the delayed mailing of ballots. I suspect that the mailing of KPFK area ballots by Pacifica was delayed because the mailing of candidate promotional materials in this station area was delayed by errors for which the Foundation would likely be found liable.

>Aaron formed the Committee to spearhead a campaign to remove
>progressive, lesbian, and African general manager Eva Georgia in light
>of a sexual harassment suit filed against her and the network.

This conjecture is inaccurate. There is some shared membership between the Committee to Strengthen KPFK and the unpaid staff petitioners who published an open letter, but it is obviously false to assert that they are one and the same, since the Committee includes paid staff and LSB members who stayed away from the open letter.

The sexual harrassment lawsuit was news which added momentum to long-standing complaints about KPFK management around other issues, many of which found their way into an open letter signed by some unpaid staff members. Dissatisfaction with station management undoubtedly contributed to the decision of some of these same petitioners to participate in organizing a slate, recruiting candidates, and writing a platform; but the Committee is not the same as the petitioners.

>In July, the Committee presented a petition calling for her removal to the
>Pacifica National Board, the culmination of a five-year campaign to oust
>Georgia with a plethora of accusations that began even before a staffer
>denied her the keys to her office when Georgia officially took over
>leadership of the station.

Five years of complaints led some individuals to eventually organize around the most recent petition just as some paid and unpaid staff had organized around previous petitions, but it is as incorrect to identify the petitioners with the Committee to Strengthen as it would be to identify the petitioners with staff. There are staff members who disagree with the petitioners and there are committee members who disagree with the petitioners. A group doesn't automatically adopt all of the opinions of each person joining the group, particular when there is disagreement.

It is true enough that neither the petitioners nor the candidate slate appear to include any of the knee-jerk Eva Georgia defenders who resisted any attempt to hold the KPFK GM accountable over the years, but this merely describes a common aspect of the two groups, not an identity between them. Georgia supporters similarly joined forces to combat the insurgents, but had a variety of individual reasons for doing so.

>The Committee invited local media to the board meeting held in Los Angeles,
>and the event was reported in the LA Times,

Individuals among the petitioners likely alerted the Times that they would address the PNB at its L.A. meeting. They apparently thought that publicizing their complaints was the way to accomplish some result other than increasing the GM's severance package.

>Throughout the summer, the press was fed accusations, and articles
>without context appeared in the LA Weekly (twice), where reporters
>salivated over the charges of Black lesbian sexual misconduct.

Sexual harrassment lawsuits are news. The public allegations in the lawsuit provided context for the reporting by local press of other claims against KPFK station management.

>Meanwhile, the PNB, the CEO, and the CFO stood behind Georgia with
>unreported public statements of support.

Foundation Counsel published a response to the lawsuit not well-reported by the local press. The PNB passed a resolution of support for Eva Georgia, also not well-reported by the local press.

>The lawsuit is still pending, and Pacifica insiders seem confident that
>Georgia will be vindicated in court.

Some Pacifica insiders appear confident of eventual vindication. Others Pacifica insiders are not so confident. Many have opinions as to the veracity or lack of veracity of the charges, but few have adequate basis for their conclusions, and this area of law is sufficiently complex that an employer can eventually face penalty or not independent of whether the alleged actions occurred or not.

>Aaron chaired the LSB in 2006 until her term ended and she was voted
>out. During her tenure, she forced the local board into numerous closed
>sessions to present sundry charges against Georgia. One, an expense
>report purported to show Georgia's misuse of station funds but discredited
>by the Pacifica CFO, Lonny Hicks, was circulated widely among station
>staff despite its confidentiality.

It