Friends,

I've been reading all the KPFK election analyses, charges and countercharges, and arcane commentary, and I can imagine how confusing it must be to be plowing through this to fill out a ballot.  If your ballot is still on your desk or over there on the table, go grab it and a pen, and lay it out in front of you while I try to sort out what you've been hearing.  When you finish, fill out your ballot.  You need to get it to the station by Thursday, so if you're too late to mail it, grab yours and your friend's ballot and head to 3729 Cahuenga Blvd. West in North Hollywood.  Your choices in this election matter that much.

Full disclosure: I'm sitting here in the catbird seat on the Pacifica National Board, and I'm rooting for the candidates with the Ad Hoc Committee to Strengthen KPFK:

Kahllid A. Al-Alim (you need to write him in at the bottom of your ballot and mark him #1)
John Parker
Lawrence Reyes
Chuck Anderson
Fred Klunder
Ruby Medrano
Tej Grewall
Cuco (Refugio Ceballos)
Ian Johnston
Luis Garcia
Dutch Merrick
Sandi Stiassni

What You're Hearing Is What's Going On

Let me take a moment to break it down for you, because all of the confusion really does come down to what you want KPFK and Pacifica to be.

You heard some of the confusion in our fund drive: is KPFK going to keep its cutting edge in public affairs, or is it going to be a self-help station, geared to the narcissistic needs of those of us trying to cope with aches, pains, and wrinkles?  One side is betting that you're looking for "Ageless Answer" to firm up that sagging jawline.  I'm betting that you want to be part of the dialogue about our neighborhoods and our world.

One side, the Committee To Strengthen KPFK, was founded by Grace Aaron and now promotes her spouse among their candidates.  Grace was chair of the Local Station Board when Eva Georgia left us, and in February Grace became the Interim Executive Director of Pacifica and Chair of the Pacifica National Board.  Under her leadership, General Manager Sean Heitkemper resigned and two other general managers' positions were vacated.  The two largest stations, KPFK and WBAI, have interim appointees for both their general manager and their program director.  At the National Office, the Chief Financial Officer has been temporary for eight months and the Executive Director has been interim for over a year.  Our professionals are leaving in droves.

For the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, the preliminary balance sheet shows a total for net assets and liabilities of $9,253,098.03.  The audit for September 30, 2008 indicates the same total was $10,229,082.  When Grace tells you this board majority has turned a corner in the financial crisis, consider that the total for September 2007 was $8,613,848, and look at the direction of that turn.  The last significant budget cuts were staff layoffs in November 2008.  It was just last year that we in Southern California were shocked at the twenty-day fund drives at WBAI in New York.  Our just-completed fund drive was 25 days long.  So now you know why we heard KPFK's longest fund drive.

Where It's Coming From

Besides the programming changes you've heard, the exodus of management and the programmers you've wondered about, and the financial "turn around," there's a fundamental difference in vision.  One side wants Pacifica to be bigger, and the strategy to get there is to appeal to a broader audience.  That means less community programming and more national programming, broadcasting the same "flagship" shows across all five stations, like (you can fill in your favorite mainstream radio network here).  If you listen closely, you can hear that in our newly combined evening news broadcast dominated by KPFA in Berkeley, while KPFK's news department is left with a single full-time reporter.  The simultaneous pitching at KPFA and KPFK is another hint.  "Something's Happening" is bragging about its extra half-hour, while the morning Spanish-language news show "Informativo Pacifica" has been pushed to a late evening slot. The evening Spanish-language programmers are left to wonder where they're going to fit, and the predominantly Black late night music programmers worry that they'll have to give way.  Expect more programming changes, especially to the so-called "narrow interest" public affairs shows, in the weeks ahead.  When bigger means broader, it means something closer to the middle.  Amy Goodman has already put the Interim Executive Director on notice that she's not happy with similar changes at WBAI, and one of the CTSK candidates is openly suggesting that Amy is getting money to cover up the truth of 9-11.

In the year ahead, your contribution will help KPFK will pay for extensive Arbitron statistics.  Arbitrons are the standard measure of the number of listeners to commercial radio.  Arbitron methodology is now under investigation by the House Committee for Oversight and Government Reform, which has cited "persistent problems"; with undercounted minority sample audiences, but that might not matter so much if KPFK's programming continues in the direction its heading.

Broader audiences mean bigger costs, and, for a year, rumors have been buzzing about how to pay for all these changes.  One of the most insidious is the mumbling about underwriting: having foundations and other non-profits pay for shows of their choice in exchange for mentions on the air.  You can hear underwriting on any NPR station. One Pacifica director (from another station) told me we need, "an audience that can afford us."  And maybe that's an audience that will donate to foundation underwriters.

Don't pick up your pen yet.  Lean back and imagine that the Pacifica National Office threatens to lock KPFK management out of our transmission tower and summarily replaces both the General Manager and the Program Director with friends of the Executive Director.  Imagine the new management's first actions, in just two weeks in, were firing your favorite paid staff and banning volunteer programmers.  You can stop imagining now.  That's the WBAI story.  In the midst of an economic depression and strapped with fixed expenses for its building and tower that are more than triple that of any other station, the National Office's solution is to overturn everything familiar at WBAI.  Perhaps you've heard that the Interim Executive Director has "saved" WBAI, that contributions, the money promised to WBAI, are up under the new management, but this weekend we heard that fulfillment rate, the number of people who actually paid that money, is down by close to 20%.

Some Uncomfortable History

Allow me a brief digression into recent history.  It's uncanny that the current actions of the leadership of Pacifica mirror, to a remarkable degree, the board of directors that was unseated in 2002 after demands for participatory governance: 

• Back in 1999, Pacifica National Board Chair Mary Frances Berry began a series of interventions in local stations following a widely broadcast concern that Corporation for Public Broadcasting funds were in jeopardy; in 2009, Pacifica National Board Chair Grace Aaron (also Interim Executive Director) begins a series of interventions in local stations after a widely broadcast concern that the network was facing a financial shortfall.

• On December 22, 2000, Executive Director Bessie Wash changed the locks at the WBAI station; on April 1, 2009 the iED orders the locks changed at the WBAI transmitter tower.  It was a decade earlier to the day, on April 1, 1999, that then Executive Director Lyn Chadwick fired KPFA's general manager Nichole Sawaya for refusing to cooperate in consolidating the Berkeley's administration and staffing into the National Office. Today, most of WBAI's finances are now managed out of the National Office.

• In December of 2000, Wash replaced WBAI's General Manager Valerie Van Isler with Utrice Leid; on May 4, 2009, the current iED replaces WBAI's General Manager Anthony Riddle with LaVarn Williams. 

• In December, 2000, Leid fires programmer Sharan Harper and progressive Program Director and popular Wake-Up Call host Bernard White, and locks them out of the station; in May, 2009, Williams fires programmer Ayo Harrington and progressive Program Director and popular Wake-Up Call host Bernard White, and locks them out of the station.

• On January 24, 2001, Leid issues a "gag order" prohibiting on-air discussion of Pacifica; on April 20, 2009, the iED issues an order that effectively prohibits any uncomplimentary comments about people associated with WBAI. On July 17, the order is extended across the network.

The Other Side

If you've followed me this far, I should assure you that there is hope short of another Pacifica Struggle.  There is another side, one that wants KPFK to be deeper, not broader.  We want to reach more progressive, future-oriented people.  That means community-based programming, more autonomy for KPFK, and greater diversity among our listeners. We want to find a thousand new $50 members, before we solicit a single $50,000 major donor.  Right now, we're the minority, but with your vote, we won't be in 2010.  Locally, we're the Ad Hoc Committee for KPFK Community Radio, and we need you to stand and vote with us. 

We have as our principles:

• Implementing the core values of the Pacifica Mission: voices by and for people not commonly heard in the mainstream media

• Greater autonomy and local decision-making for our radio station

• Fiscal transparency and responsibility: people, not corporate underwriters, supporting people's radio

• Local, diverse, multilingual, and young voices from and for our communities

• Spanish language programming to bring progressive messages to Spanish language communities

• Effective, participatory governance that is accountable to listener-sponsors and responsive to the diverse needs and interests of the Southern California listening community

And we have listener candidates committed to those principles

Pick up that pen now, and start filling in those tiny squares.  Some of you fought the Pacifica Struggle for this moment, the chance to change KPFK with a vote instead of a lawsuit.

Kahllid A. Al-Alim (you need to write him in at the bottom of your ballot and mark him #1)
John Parker
Lawrence Reyes
Chuck Anderson
Fred Klunder
Ruby Medrano
Tej Grewall
Cuco (Refugio Ceballos)
Ian Johnston
Luis Garcia
Dutch Merrick
Sandi Stiassni

Our staff candidates include Rodrigo Argueta, Fernando Velazquez, Omar Burdett, and Nadia Lee Richardson.

We're not alone.  Our endorsers include Yousef Abudayyeh (National Coordinator, The Free Palestine Alliance, USA*), Elahe Amani (Iranian women and human rights activist, mediator and artist), Yolanda Anguiano (LSB member*), Lydia Brazon (former iLAB Chair, former PNB Director, human rights activist), Bill Gallegos (Communities for a Better Environment*), Sherna Berger Gluck (LSB member, programmer for "Radio Intifada"*), Sundiata Griotts (African storyteller), International Action Center Los Angeles, Dedon Kamathi (programmer for "Freedom Now"*), and Hamid Khan (South Asian Network, programmer for "Beneath the Surface"*).

Did I mention Peggy Lee Kennedy (Venice Justice Committee*), L.A. County Peace and Freedom, Nativo Lopez (Mexican American Political Association*), Norma Martinez (programmer for "Informativo Pacifica"*), Elizabeth Mejia (programmer for "Insurgencia Feminina"*). Calvin E. Moss (Venice/Santa Monica Food Not Bombs*), Michael Novick (Anti-Racist Action-Los Angeles/People Against Racist Terror*), and the Puerto Rican Alliance.

Don't let me forget Jerry Quickley (former producer and host), Victor Rodriguez (Department of Chicano and Latino Studies, CSULB*), Pedro Sanchez (programmer for "Suplemento Comunitario"*), SEIU Local 721 Latino Caucus, Jim Smith (Free Venice Beachhead*), South Central Farmers, South Central Farmers Action Fund, South Central Farmers Cooperative, Southern California Immigration Coalition, Bernard White (fired and banned program director and host from WBAI), and Tim Wise (anti-racist speaker and author)

We're a nascent movement, the beginning of returning KPFK to its Mission, to its roots, and to its communities and to its future.  We'll be here for you after the elections too, and we hope you'll be with us.

Leslie Radford
Delegate, KPFK Local Station Board*
Director, Pacifica Foundation National Board*

*Oganizational affiliations noted for identification purposes only.

Eye-opening! I get it now, and I know how I'm voting. Thank you.

leslie radford bemoans the loss of 'la causa'

KPFK spends 11 months a year telling anyone who is college educated, middle class or, God forbid, white, that THEY are the cause and beneficiary of all social injustice in the world. Then it spends that 12th month begging these very same people for handouts to keep the station on the air. Us white devils who own homes would be far more likely to contribute to fine programming such as Amy Goodman and Ian Masters if we didn't have to sit through the insults of Lilah Garrett and Pocho Hour of Power to get to it. And enough with the cancer cures! Seriously, you are starting to sound like a bad infomercial.

Lilah Garrett?
The one which wrote this?
HAIL TO THE JEWS
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2007/11/210662.php
Which is the most racist crap I've seen from a person.

Leslie sounds like she is giving you her-story with selected comparisons to make HER point...everyone but her special group is in cahoots to ruin and sell out the KPFK station, of which she is only a small part.

She is ambious too, tho not stated. So her choice of preferred LSB mates is for her to get to be ED or anything higher than she has so far been able to climb, while she is deliberately pretending to only question others, and while disrupting the work PNB attempts to accomplish. Go to a PNB meeting yourself and find out what is actual vs. what is carefully presented. A very dissentful and confusing process, helped by Ms. Radford herself.

Leslie gives her version to sell a slate of people SHE wants in - to support her in her own chosen role. A smart woman and with the hope that Indy readers do not care or know the insides much, except to be anti-anything and oppositional to all establishments.To prevent the real current hard-workers that accomplish a subsistence level of living for Pacifica from continuing to do so.

How much easier it is to gain notorious power by positioning oneself as the rebel, the one opposed to those who do diligent work and obtain a position in management.

How much easier it is to disrupt, oppose, question, and accuse, to blame and create unrest, rather than to make positive changes and follow thru on diligent plans...to make the Pacifica stations live up to their financial as well as ideal goals.

To say it is only the minority groups that need to be represented at any Pacifica table and exclude everyone else w ho is not angrily decrying what they dont yet have, is a very slanted and easy place from which to COMPLAIN. And complainers feel powerful.. Tho they seldom contribute much at all. They do complain loudly anyway any where.

And Leslie is complaining, in her article above. Because she wants what she and her group want. Not because anyone deserves or has worked more effectively to obtain the priviledges of on-air or management positions.

The slate has been advertising in what the members hope are sufficiently only LEFT sided local sites , carefully avoiding any "other" alliances, for fear they will be contaminated with what the LA or USA populations as a whole represent and contain. Anyone not angry enough and vinidictive enough need not apply to work with these heavy-duty game players.

For in actual real-live LSB meetings, these are the same people who disrupt, continually dissent and question any and every motion proposed and generally keep all effective work from getting done. Deliberately. They see their role as being rebels and righteously claim that assumed HIGHER STATUS that they have not earned by other work of merit nor for the gain of KPFK or it's sibling stations either.

If the whole P system is cracking and falling down down down, unable to maintain it's buildings, equipment, staff [half are gone already ? ] and work for equality for ALL the peoples...not just those who select themselves as righteous or victims or accusers....then there will be some other kind of 'take over' or 'merger' and a big loss to all will occur.

This is not a prediction, but one scenario that occurs at other non-profit corporations, and Pacifica is one too. This is a concern that is never mentioned. Those who demand to be leaders are not necessarily experienced or equipped to be managers that effect positive results on such a grand scale as this one is.

Better to limp towards the next fully developed plan of action that will save these unsual radio stations than to be crumbling because the angry ambitious accusers of any current & past managements are not
able to take on the heavy real-work roles that is needed.

Easy to win a measly little election where none of the LSB are representing anyone but their tiny group cohorts.
Easy to accuse others and malign those who have worked to assist improving the condition of KPFK and Pacifica, and other stations.
EAsy to write words, as this is done here too, but how much more strenuous and difficult to do the daily practical actions to prevent failures from continually occuring.

And they have. And they may still, If this mean spirited group of candidates has won many seats.

We fear for our station and it's demise. But we will all be there silently standing to help bury it then. RIP KPFK. maybe.....

a major disappointment.
I contributed to the new transmitter
I gave to the station in the course of time $200 for a hope of a new voice.
And found the likes of Masters, still parroting the government script. My he forever kiss my ass.
They don't even carry gun n butter or taking aim. They are irrelevant
I do believe Leslie is a threat to this stasis and needs to 'promote herself' as this is what the opposition is doing with hidden funding. As yet unaddressed.

I found KPFK a few years ago and listen whenever possible. I tell all I can about itIn or about it and promote it any way I can. However, in June 2009 or thereabouts I realized I was not hearing from Mumia A. Jamaal any more. A loss, to be sure. Then I heard Jerry Quickley had been fired. To me, he was fantastic, with humor, street smarts and just plain smarts. Fired? Are you kidding? I also heard Ian Masters discussing, openly, nutcases and would be revolutionaries, with a certain edge to it. I am not happy. No way can I agree with Jerry Quickley's firing and alatho' I love Masters' interviews, I am not inaterestaed in hearing him every day. He is not funny in the way Quickley was and Quickley was a great fundraiser on air. I believe this new group is off base. KPFK will have a committed group of supporters with more progressive programming. Get Mumia back! What's KPFK gonna sell if it just becomes another NPR? Thank you for your work!