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Pacifica IS also KPFK, so let's not ignore what going on

by kpfk loyal volunteer Saturday, Mar. 29, 2014 at 5:42 PM

Pacifica is struggling with who is it's new Executive Director with much dramatic flurries, acting outs, resistances, alliances, and stories barely coming out, even on internet. A few reports of happenings is being sent out to the 'rest of us' by Tracy Rosenberg, a former termed out PNB member. We here in LA are playing dumb and treated as if we were even dumber...muted actually. see her site for other stories and commentators too.

Pacifica is an entity that is separate from KPFK..but that doesnt answer the questions of what is happening to both, because they are intimately connected anyhow....no matter what you call 'it'.



Like Pacifica-people hate "corporations", while not admitting a non-profit corporation is one too. So definitions confuse and give permission to act out and demand too. Pacifica is a group of a few people who like to be 'leaders' and are selected, pretending to be elected, but PNB members represent whom ?



The recent KPFK website requesting all to sign petitions on line with just a few words and without actual factual information/ history/ herstory included is to pad and stuff a pretend-list to look like it could be legitimate.



A poor way to prove that the latest attempted termination [ of PNB's exe director now] under such dire and secret circumstances and without names named is unreasonable request.



Someone somewhere wrote there was a 1 vote majority on PNB to fire the recently hired exe. Is this true ? Out of how many votes ? Out of how long an internal discussion?



to claim a MAJORITY is a joke, when it is 5-4 and when it is 246-244 or when it is 1 to what at PNB?



And The many obfuscations on any other articles re this most recent firing on PNB found on line sound like revengeful spites publicized as part of someone else's campaign - called negative advertising elsewhere.




What's different about people at holy Pacifica corporation and it's radio-stationed children ?




That same question has been asked of the LA LSB members too repeatedly with no one on bd able to give a 'district' or community that exists in real life that they 'represent'...so they only speak for themselves which makes the whole process dubious and contentious.



Must be same at other stations, no doubt. LA is not worse but more open to be questioned that some other localities who have other reputations anyhow.



Pacifica IS a group of people who have positions in which they exert POWER and PRIVILEGE and sometimes have very biased, slanted, extreme political versions of reality. PACIFICA is the holder over the local stations in some confusing ways with bylaws that often need clarification or revision by a parlimentarian , that can uncoil the tight wrap held by a few people with titles.




Pacifica is an entity and can raise money and like any non-profit can pay it's staff and operations and legal costs and not pay taxes, what a deal ! And was it not a few years ago that Pacifica was taken over as if it were a company-store, that some wanted to sell away for other reasons of their own choosing ?




With lawsuits then hard fought to bring the corp back into it's more original intentions. Remind us of how mergers or usurpations happen to non-people too. It's sorta like being abducted, kidnapped, stolen and maybe saved...to then sadly arrive to this state of upset-affairs ?




Problem- a letter signed by 9 PNB members out of 20 [per Pacifica.org site that has intrusive banners that prevent reading of page but guesswork is that ea station has 4 reps - tho none of those reps report to the local station fully and do not represent any group of any size of member/sponsors]...9 write to ask vendors etc to continue to trust an organization that by any visible on line articles looks like a mud-slinging-contest.




Who would be foolish enough to believe these 9 have a majority or the power to promise anything ? Someone please explain how a few make up an authoritative position unless they have fancy titles that give them that power of position ?




How confusing ! and more confusing are the loyalists of various factions making on line statements that cannot be checked or fact-proved either. Would a land-earthquake help the situation ? Or a flood, mud slide or anything that looks real instead of seeming to be a farce theater?




Where are the rest of the 20 PNB members on all these fighting and police calls ? http://www.pacifica.org/pnb_members.php [while having unclosable banners for donations and whatnot ] lists 20 members and are they all taking sides or agreeing to what 9 or 8 of one side does or claims ?




It is confusing when it is not even 1/2 nor 2/3 nor a majority that takes action or seems to 'represent' the whole. Is this not correct that there are 20 active PNB members who are equally responsible for cleaning up this fight-club act ?



Please, anyone !, share with the rest of us ignoramuses who only pay and pay and pay and search and cannot understand - what is happening and what is legitimate in terms of numbers acting for the whole body ? Am I just confused? then many many more are more so.”
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ECJLA

by Eric C. Jacobson Wednesday, Apr. 02, 2014 at 5:43 AM
ECJLA@AOL.COM

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/us-usa-pacifica-radio-idUSBREA2Q06Q20140327

As you allude, Reuters reporter Laila Kearney has an excellent brief article on the Pacifica crisis at the above link. I added a lengthy comment to her article because I believe that there is an "elephant in the room" issue that all friends of the Pacifica network need to understand: And that is the rather obvious intention of the recently empowered current Pacifica National Board ("PNB") majority faction to attempt to "liberate" the 5 constituent stations from the Pacifica Foundation.

The Pacifica Foundation is a single entity that owns the (highly valuable) broadcast licenses of the 5 Pacifica stations in Berkeley, Los Angeles, Houston, Wasington DC and New York City. This same new (and hopefully temporary) rogue majority faction has also made clear that it intends to wholly or partially liquidate the assets of the New York City station, WBAI, and distribute the profits to the other four stations.

The expression "No one ever voted for this" is literal in this instance: As you also discuss, at the turn of the century Pacifica had another crisis that resulted in the establishment of its current democratic governance structure. As you undoubtedly know (but other readers might not): the Pacifica National Board is comprised of delegates sent from the democratically elected members of the Local Station Boards (LSBs) at the 5 stations. The "electorate" for LSB elections is comprised of listener sponsors of the stations (ie. donors who, as you state, loyally "pay and pay"). Paid and volunteer staff at the 5 stations have separate elections for a small number of members on the LSBs.

I point out in my comment to the Kearney (Reuters) article that at least the current members of the PNB from the Los Angeles station (KPFK) (about which I have personal knowledge) have NO MANDATE to vote to violate the institutional integrity of the Pacifica Foundation by balkanizing it and turning its stations into separate self-governing entities. NONE WHATSOEVER. I have voted in every KPFK election where members of the LSB are chosen for 12 years, and no candidate for that position every once mentioned in their campaign statements favoring such a course.

For example, 3 of the 4 delegates to the PNB from the KPFK LSB are from a slate entitled the Grassroots Community Radio Coalition. (All 3 are members of the newly empowered PNB majority.) Their 2012 platform is found online here: http://www.gcrc-socal.org/#
It contains language generally favoring more autonomy for KPFK but also pledges "solidarity" with the other 4 stations in the network. Here is the exact message in these regards the KPFK LSB Grassroots Coaltion candidates ran on less than 2 years ago, placed in context with 2 of their other important platform planks:
----------------

* For Spanish & Bilingual Programming

Spanish, bilingual and intra-lingual programs to communicate the progressive voices of Spanish-speaking communities and to bring these issues to English-speaking listeners as well.

* For Local News & Public Affairs

Greater autonomy and local decision-making, harnessing local resources and addressing local needs for our radio station, including restoring locally produced daily newscasts and training in news and radio production.

* For Building Pacifica's Impact

Leverage our progressive base in the spirit of solidarity with all Pacifica stations and affiliates, to strengthen our capacity to shape public discourse and bring issues before the public.

* For Accountability to Listener-Sponsors

Fiscally transparent, responsible, and self-sustaining best practice non-profit management: people, not infomercials or corporate underwriters, supporting progressive people's radio.
----------------

Their third platform plank bears repeating with some emphasis added: These Grassroots Coalition candidates for the KPFK LSB said they were "FOR Building PACIFICA's impact" and would (if elected): "Leverage our progressive base in the spirit of SOLIDARITY with ALL Pacifica stations and affiliates."

You are quite right to urge KPFK listener-sponsors to intervene in this current crisis because (as mentioned) 3 of the 4 KPFK LSB members (from the Grassoots Coaltion slate) are in the new majority faction on the PNB that have conducted what I call this "cuckoo coup" against Summer Reese.

Alas, as I wrote in my comment to the Reuters article: "the goal of Ms. Reese’s detractors and opponents is essentially to dissolve the [Pacifica] Foundation and re-constitute each station as separate fiefs (under the control of the current rogue Board members). ... [The agenda] of the rogue Board members includes cannibalizing the Foundation’s NYC station WBAI (whose broadcast license is worth many millions of dollars) and distributing the proceeds to the other 4 stations.

"The catalyst for this attack on the citadel of Pacifica’s institutional integrity was to have been the ever-worsening financial woes at WBAI. Through extraordinarily diligent and difficult work, Summer Reese stabilized WBAI by making some very hard choices, including relocating broadcast facilities to less expensive quarters and (because there was no other choice given Pacifica’s finances) letting go most of paid staff there last year.

"The very day the Board terminated her she had dispatched severance pay to the laid off WBAI staffers. In short, the Board terminated Summer not for any short-fall in performance, but because she had done her job too well and foiled the pretext the Board majority had planned to use to break up the Pacifica union."

I'll close with another oddity I don't mention in my comment to the Reuters article: the 2012 election to the KPFK LSB was voided because purportedly too few listener-sponsors voted. The idea this resulted from "apathy" from the listener-sponsors is far-fetched. A more than sufficient number of KPFK's listener-sponsors have an "occupy" movement orientation and would not have bypassed an opportunity to vote on the stewards of their only progressive radio station in Los Angeles.

The 2012 KPFK LSB election was grossly mismanaged by local station staff and management, (to put it charitably). One on-air public affairs personality who is entirely derisive of Pacifica's democratic goverance structure, had the temerity to urge listeners to his "drive-time" show not to vote.

This KPFK "electile dysfunction" in turn allowed LSB incumbents to retain seats they would have vacated and (even worse) caused the elevation to the current KPFK LSB of candidates from previous LSB elections who had not garnered enough support to be elected, but had been designated as "alternates". One of those alternates (from the Grassroots Coalition) now serves on the PNB which just took the radical step of firing Ms. Reese, who is bound and determined to "save the union" of Pacifica. Go figure.

I hope KPFK listener-sponsors will get engaged in this crisis and lobby the 3 KPFK LSB delegates on the PNB who support the "cuckoo coup" to reverse their support of the shameful, destructive agenda of the Save KPFA crowd (at the nearly equally factionalized Berkeley station). We have to act if we wish to stop these zealots from going through with their (immoral) plan to employ what Dan Siegel openly calls "associational Darwinism" (whereby WBAI will be sacrificed to enrich the coffers of the other 4 stations).

Having never once hinted that they intended any such radical attack on the "family jewels" of the Pacifica network when they sought the positions of power they currently hold, "rogue" may be too kind a label for KPFK's members of the current Pacifica National Board majority. It pains me to say so (since I like them and voted for 2 of them multiple times), but their recent votes on the PNB have been reckless and irresponsible. I urge them return to return to their senses, and ask other KPFK listener-sponsors to send these 3 PNB delegates the same message.

I hope IndyMedia will continue to pay attention to this important developing story.

Eric C. Jacobson
Public Interest Lawyer
Los Angeles, California
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And more relevant information here now...

by active listener Wednesday, Apr. 02, 2014 at 2:07 PM

Eric Jacobson provided helpful information about LSB's and how our own KPFK is so directly involved in the whole mess. Thanks for the clear info and Reuters link.

The LSB members in LA do Not equally nor openly support KPFK, in it's past or present functioning. Often there appears to be an Unstated agenda or alliances that are not revealed openly in meetings, confusing the Public Members who attend and who want to open transparency about LSB discussions and disputes alike.

The only notes taken by the LSB secretary are motions and votes and actions, so whatever all else is said and the public comments + the much interrupting and snide remarks are not ever recorded on paper to prove what is going on in what are "public meetings". As if no one but the votes and authorized [non] representatives decide, but the entire scene is thus falsified in the "minutes" - tho there is an audio version of the whole 4-5 hr meeting available. I have not heard of one person ever mention listening to this long and maybe not well audible recording, done by the parliamentarian regularly and in good faith.

The hidden games and sorry misrepesentations at KPFK's LSB and inside the station with it's own management[s] is surely contributing to what then occurs at the PNB levels.
And the KPFA LSB now seems to have done a big one, with various acts that were described as 'illegal' by Ms.Reese in her "Something's Happening" pgrm interview.
Confirmation is necessary by authorized actually hired to work with Pacifica attorneys and auditors and other staff that know and can with documented information confirm or deny all that is heard elsewhere....'hearsay' is what the TV likes to teach us is not sufficient to believe anything but then anyone can write on a blog or make a petition and it 'looks like' it is not hear-say nor nay-say nor 'what did he say?' but in written form Appears to be actual, real. Not so.

the old story of put it in writing and that makes it so. Like religionists often claim profusely too. But that was in the days when the elite only were literate and claimed truth by their positions and ownership of scribes and books and written history. No more. Especially on the internet.
Yet we often fall for the very very old story handed down as a folk truth. Not true.

So informed experienced individuals who know or can Report something more we all need to know and consider about the messes that are interfering even more with KPFK and Pacifica's health and financial stability, please WRITE UP now, for all others to agree or question or discuss further.

And repost whatever parts of these comments and article can be shared Elsewhere also, to expand the conversations and declarations made by those who have long held sway with their own [not always accurate but interested anyhow ] blogs and internet writings.

What else are we missing in this toppling weird picture ?

who else knows something that is not intended to side to any 1 or other [only 2 ???] side ?

Let there be Light at the center of this tunnel, and cave of infighting for Queenship of Pacifica Fdtn. as it is made to appear - as if the ruler, with 2 females contending now, are going to rule this whole fractionalized factionalized cracking non-profit Corporation.
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KPFK's LSB is No Longer Duly Constituted and Cannot Ethically "Rock the Boat" of Pacifica

by Eric C. Jacobson Thursday, Apr. 03, 2014 at 8:12 AM
ECJLA@AOL.COM

http://www.kpfk.org/jold/images/documents/election-report12.pdf (kpfk 2012 local station board general manager's report dated May 14, 2013 [mis-dated 2012].)

Commenter "active listener" makes a clarion call for informed persons with first-hand institutional memory and relevant knowledge of (in my summation of his plea:) "what the hell is going on" relative to KPFK's role in the current crisis, to step forward and share what they know with the wider KPFK community. He is especially interested in trustworthy "evidence" substantiating such accounts.

Here's a bit more of what I know and believe, and some of the experience and evidence I base it on:

I was peripherally involved in wresting Pacifica from the clutches of neo-liberal opportunists during the last major Pacifica crisis in 2001-2002. That "take-back" was a stellar achievement and afterwards I felt I had the luxury of stepping back from the (let's face it, enervating) Pacifica fray for most of the past decade.

I attended a few KPFK LSB meetings in the 2002-2003 period following the take-back. I generally approved of how the first few Local Station Board elections (which I voted in diligently and strategically) were implemented. And I have remained generally satisfied with the "proof in the pudding" for KPFK, namely the program content on the station ever since.

One of the reasons for my satisfaction with the post-take-back course of KPFK was that I knew Casey Peters personally. Casey was the supervisor of the first few KPFK LSB elections. (He and I had run for separate seats on the LA Community College District Board of Trustees in 1993 and had appeared at multiple candidate forums together. And a decade later I had run into him at various anti-Iraq war protests. We were more acquaintances than friends but I had seen him acquit himself well during our common serious endeavor, had complete confidence in him and knew that the KPFK LSB election process was in excellent hands.)

I recall personally attending the vote count for the first post-take-back KPFK LSB election run by Peters. The ballots were opened and the count was conducted under many watchful eyes at the Peace Center building in Los Angeles (where Lydia Brazon's Humanitarian Law Project, as well as the late Don White's CISPES, also had offices).

Since their advent in 2003 Pacifica governance elections have always been cumbersome and messy. Administering them has been expensive, a difficult trade-off given Pacifica's strapped financial condition (overall) due in large part to the financial mistakes made by WBAI stewards on the watch of the Pacifica National Board ("PNB") "ancient regime" in the 1990s. The way Pacifica elections were designed and implemented left much to be desired. A small example: broadcasting LSB candidates' statements and debates on the air was probably a bad idea. Frequent promos directing listener subscribers to a dedicated website with videotaped candidate statements would have been better. (Non computer users could be mailed audiotapes.) The elections were also made too frequent and irregular (2 years on, 1 year off), and called for an unrealistically high quorum for elections conducted by paper ballots mailed-and-returned-by-mail. And their (nearly irrational) factional nature has generated more heat than light over the years. Plainly, Pacifica's elections need mending, but just as plainly NOT ending.

Elections are critical for Pacifica for the same reason they are critical in all other contexts; as vehicles of accountability and fidelity of incumbent leaders to their constituency (here the Pacifica listener-sponsors). We cannot risk a re-run of the self-serving, "sell-out" behavior of the late 1990s self-perpetuating Pacifica National Board ruling elites.

Empirically speaking (alas until NOW) in the "big picture" sense, Pacifica's elections-based governance had been a SUCCESS. To my knowledge, no one has ever campaigned for a (powerful) LSB position in order to place Pacifica in the service of what the late, great Alexander Cockburn called "the neo-liberal inferno" (much less the "neo-conservative" one). (That is precisely why mainstream detractors such as Ian Masters heap so much derision on Pacifica's system of checked-and-balanced, quasi-gridlocked elections-based power. It works to ensure that Pacifica will NEVER be made over in Masters' own genteel, middle-of-the-road image. God forbid.)

And no one within the electorally-produced Pacifica power structure (alas, until NOW) has EVER advocated abolishing the Pacifica network 5 station union much less selling off any of Pacifica's crown jewels (the station licenses) in lieu of creatively, thoughtfully and responsibly addressing Pacifica's fundraising challenges. This latter challenge falls under JFK's motto, which I will update: "Our problems are man-made and woman-made, therefore they can be solved by men and women." Namely, the men and women of the Pacifica community, once we maturely overcome or at least downgrade in priority our counter-productive disagreements and schisms and heed Rodney King's motto, "Can we all get along?"

And Pacifica's elections (as all elections tend to do) have provided avenues for a few highly talented people to fulfill the Greeks' definition of happiness (paraphrased by President Kennedy): "the full use of your faculties, along lines of excellence, in a life affording them scope." Here in Los Angeles in 2007 we can boast of having attracted and elevated far-and-away the most fitting, articulate, capable, hard-working and dynamic leadership figure the Pacifica Foundation has seen since its earliest years, Summer Reese.

Although democratic governance has been messy, apart from its failure (as YET) to find an optimal way to raise sufficient funds (given our left-leaning non-commercial ideals) and grow our audience as widely as we ought to have done, Pacifica's governance system has to have been doing something right (or at least doing little-to-no-harm): KPFK's programming (and to my knowledge that on the other Pacifica network stations) is fairly good and overall in reasonably close alignment with Pacifica's mission statement. (KPFK interim program director Alan Minsky pointed out in today's LA Weekly that the miniscule listenership figures the Weekly reported in its recent article on the Pacifica crisis greatly under-reported the actual number of listeners. Obviously, though, much more needs to be done to bring Pacifica's programming to a much larger audience. That too is a soluable problem. Elections can be part of that solution, if and when they produce, "one, two, many" Summer Reese's with constructive ideas about how to do so and the aptitudes to implement them.

Alas, here in L.A., instead of mending the election process, KPFK "ended" its LSB election in 2012. KPFK's LSB election was the only one out of the 5 station network that failed to reach a quorum that year. Although I did not (then) see anything necessarily sinister in it, I was very concerned about this anomaly at the time (as the lack of quorum wasted my own time and suffrage right as a KPFK listener-subscriber and attentive voter in that election). So much so that I mentioned it to Bernard Duncan in person at the station when I was there at their Fall 2013 sale of surplus premium items, knick-knacks, etc..

I told Duncan it seemed quite hypocritical for us to be championing the views of economist Richard Wolf, who emphasizes enterprise democracy as the solution to the abusive nature of capitalism, while we jettisoned our own experiment in membership-wide governance elections at one of Pacifica's most venerable stations. He seemed to cordially take my point, and took off down the hall to attend to his duties.

But, the recent "cuckoo coup" against Summer Reese co-led by KPFK's delegates to the PNB "changes everything" and makes it necessary to closely "review the bidding" of KPFK's 2012 "electile dysfunction" episode. It's no joke: because KPFK listener-sponsors failed to duly elect LSB members in 2012 a pall of illegitimacy has been cast upon the composition of the Pacifica National Board that purports to have terminated Summer Reese.

That aborted election caused incumbent KPFK LSB members who would otherwise have had to vacate their seats due to term limit provisions in the Pacifica bylaws, to retain their seats, pursuant to (contradictory) provisions of the same Bylaws. And, due to resignations, "alternates" who had never been elected have been elevated to official seats on the KPFK LSB. (One of them now sits on the PNB.) And the harm was compounded by the (evidently prudent) decision of Pacifica not to hold elections (at all) in 2013 for financial reasons, and the fact that 2014 is a "bye" year for elections. Therefore, absent any type of intervention (such as via recall) or court-ordered interim elections, KPFK LSB members who last ran for the office in 2010 will serve until 2015 (a term longer than U.S. presidents)!

I did some research on the subject of KPFK's botched 2012 LSB election. What I found that is of greatest interest to date is a post-mortem report on the 2012 failed LSB election prepared (at the LSB's request) by then station manager Bernard Duncan in May 2013. It's here: http://www.kpfk.org/jold/images/documents/election-report12.pdf. The report discloses a litany of irregularities associated with the 2012 KPFK LSB election and makes it difficult-to-impossible for any objective reader to avoid the conclusion that the failure to achieve a quorum was (and I truly hate to use this phrase) "an inside job".

The Duncan report admits that KPFK's 2012 LSB election was carried out in technical violation of Pacifica's bylaws (eg. failure to adhere to the prescribed calendar of events), bristles with the hostility of KPFK's managers towards the entire election exercise, and includes a diatribe by KPFK's Local Election Supervisor (of all people) against the selection of LSB members via elections by the eligible listener-sponsors. WTF?

The 2012 KPFK local elections supervisor was a man who goes by the name of Soul Watson. "Soul Watson" turns out to be a nick-name. (I've never heard of an entire first and last name being a nick-name, but this is Pacifica). "Soul" is a native of Ghana whose actual name is Hasira Ashemu. He seems to be a solid progressive citizen of L.A.. See eg. an article he co-wrote and a thumbnail biography here: http://www.laprogressive.com/jay-z-harry-belafonte/ But from his comments in Bernard Duncan's report it appears Mr. Ashemu took the Local Election Supervisor job with an "ax to grind" against the entire elections exercise he was hired to supervise. (Either that or he "couldn't take the heat" and fled from the kitchen.) By his own admission he failed to meet his contractual obligation to provide a final report, and forfeited his last paycheck. He spins this (highly dubiously) as an act of conscience motivated by loyalty to KPFK listener sponsors who pay the freight.

The Duncan report is chock full of damning information that I won't attempt to fully synthesize here. But plainly, at a minimum, there is something very strange about someone hired to supervise an election having a contemptuous attitude towards the whole idea of such elections and strongly held private opinions about how KPFK should be governed (eg. with greater deference to its management professionals, he says. Hmmm.)

Mr. Ashemu was evidently hired by Pacifica's National Elections supervisor. A few tough questions come to mind:

How did Mr. Ashemu come to apply for the position? Was he encouraged to do so by anyone contesting the KPFK LSB election or their supporters?

Was Mr. Ashemu (someone who seemed to have immediately found himself "in over his head"), qualified for the position?

Was he purposely "set up" to fail by any person or faction involved in the election? Was he some kind of "pawn in their game"?

Was Mr. Ashemu (aka Soul) a prior friend, fast-friend or confederate of anyone in station management or any incumbent LSB members?

Was the 2012 KPFK election fiasco a "set up" of (that is, conspiracy against) the 1,500 (ONE THOUSAND, FIVE HUNDRED) KPFK listener sponsors who took their voting duty seriously, to deprive us of our Pacifica membership suffrage rights? (True, this was 300 short of the 10% of membership quorum. But 1,500 voters in an election for stewards of a Foundation that controls broadcast licenses worth many millions of dollars, are not "chopped liver". And it would be very interesting to know, even at this late date, even if it is just to gain a "sense of the KPFK listener-sponsor voters" which candidates the that 8+% of the KPFK eligible electorate favored. Was it candidates of the Grassroots Coalition that has just co-authored the infernal coup for which they had NO MANDATE WHATSOEVER? Or not?)

Life being too short, this "old news" would not necessarily be worth dredging up were it not for the illicit actions of the recently empowered Board in attempting to fire Summer Reese (a few weeks after she signed a 3 year contract and) without cause, and implement their outrageous, ultra-radical agenda of dismembering the Pacifica network. But until the coup is undone, the legitimacy of the KPFK LSB and how and why the 2012 election failed, will continue to be subject to sharp question.

Now, let's (charitably) suppose that this is one of those rare instances when the presence of "smoke" doesn't indicate the presence of a "fire" (an inside job LSB "incumbent protection scam"). Let's suppose that the 2012 KPFK LSB election was simply met with such a high degree of apathy that it was impossible to reach a quorum even with the earnest, good faith best efforts of everyone involved. This is far-fetched given the "occupy movement" orientation of KPFK's core listenership and the fact that such people are not known for apathy, but let's be charitable and give KPFK's motley crew of incumbent managers and LSB members the benefit of the doubt.

That can only have meant (logically) that the vast majority of KPFK listener-sponsors were generally SATISFIED with the status quo (WHICH SUMMER REESE WAS A BIG PART OF going back to her first election to KPFK's LSB in 2007), and didn't want the boat rocked. Which is exactly what this infernal "cuckoo coup" did. The hold-over KPFK LSB members violated their (at least ethical) obligation to respect the pro-"status quo" message of the vast majority of KPFK listener-sponsors who did not return their ballot in 2012. Yet they proceeded with this infernal coup against the status quo.

Any way one looks at it, this coup has no legitimacy and has to be rescinded. What has happened is so extreme and crudely done that it is impossible for me to avoid the conclusion that Summer Reese is correct and that Siegel and Brazon (who were legal allies during the take-back effort) had a very daring, ambitious and outlandish goal in mind when they pulled this stunt, namely that they have in fact decided that the network's stations should be "liberated" from the Pacifica Foundation. And it makes one wonder why they aspired to "save Pacifica" in the first place during the 2001-2002 take-back struggle. Merely to (eventually) establish their respective local stations as personal fiefs?

I don't discount Dan and Lydia's excellent work in one of the original take-back lawsuits in the late 1990s (they were lead lawyer and lead client respectively). But if my conclusion is correct, this is nothing less than a self-aggrandizing power-grab of the precise type envisioned by George Orwell in Animal Farm.

And if that is in fact what is happening (and we will know soon enough) it simply cannot be allowed to succeed. There are provisions for recalling members of the KPFK LSB, and concerned Pacifica listen-sponsors will have to organize quickly and employ them. I fervently hope that that will not be necessary and that the protagonists of this reckless adventure will call off their "cuckoo coup" sooner rather than later.

Eric C. Jacobson
Public Interest Lawyer
Los Angeles, California
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How much we dont know hurts us - all

by kpfk loyal volunteer Thursday, Apr. 03, 2014 at 12:44 PM

Wow…so much that most of us, even those most questioning and interested, have not heard, not known, or else we might have deserted this corrupted station in spite of interesting programming ‘on air’. The air where there is no sounds of internal dysfunctions nor the power playing done slyly, viscously, secretly, and continually. Sad. Strange. And now some historical information that sounds actual and researched. And experienced.

Most of “outside here” pay triple our dues in more than money ways, promoting the station for what it APPEARS TO BE, vs. what is happening internally and destructively in it’s bowels. Most of the volunteers attend days and nights to answer phones, fill envelopes, do whatever they can for free, no benefits included, because we assume, wrongly it appears, that there is some integrity and honesty and that what else is hidden ‘cant be that bad, can it ?’. But it is.

Thank you Eric Jacobson for this expose, and please post it elsewhere, copy and paste parts if not all, on other read sites of all sides of the Reese contentions –
www.2014.supportkpfa.org and even the savepacifica ‘other’ sided one, plus LA Weekly comments and Reuters or Tracy Rosenberg’s facebook notes or wherever else someone may read all or parts and either contest your information or discuss it or reveal more.

This is what has been missing and if it took Reese’s story to break open even just a bit of what is and has been occurring at our opaque secret society at KPFK and it’s Pacifica Fdtn holder, this is a positive ‘unintended consequence’ of value to all who pay, work, and listen to all 5 stations.
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Video interview with Reese 3/31/2014

by acute listener Thursday, Apr. 03, 2014 at 2:40 PM

repost of a video, it may need to be searched or found on URL below

Summer Reese is interviewed about the occupation and what she believes the issues are. The interview was done on March 31, 2014 by Steve Zeltzer. Margy Wilkinson, the present Chair of the Pacifica board, was unavailable for an interview on her point of view.

Production of Labor Video Project www.laborvideo.org
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