excepts - repost from :
http://www.unitedforcommunityradio.org/?p=2350 [some references of another media-info source re KPFK - that was also just posted here - refers to this article - see for full and more info there ]
"Controversy continues to rage at Pacifica’s Los Angeles station KPFK-FM, after former board chair Margy Wilkinson appointed former board member and factional crony Leslie Radford as the new permanent general manager at Pacifica’s LA station KPFK, one day before vacating her position as interim executive director.
Incoming ED John Proffitt was driving across the country to begin his tenure on May 11th when the hire was made. The manuever has thrown Pacifica into chaos and deeply depressed fund drive revenues at KPFK. As recently as 2013, KPFK was the network’s most successful fundraiser.
57 of the network’s staff (all but one of the paid workers) signed a letter objecting to the hire and demanded a meeting with the station’s local board to discuss the situation.
Their request was denied, with unelected board secretary John Garry (Garry is not a member of the board but was appointed as an ex-aficio secretary after none of the board’s 24 elected members volunteered to fill the position) using his title as an “officer of the board” to formally deny the meeting.
An informal meeting was held on May 27th in response to Uprising host Sonali Kolhatkar’s demand. Six local board members (out of 24) attended voluntarily, only one of them from the majority faction. [snip]
Radford’s first morning of work on June 1st is reported not to have gone smoothly, with a novice programmer breaking FCC on-air obscenity rules in the 5am to 6am hour, an awkward interruption of the 8:00am program Uprising, and fund drive receipts of less than $250 total reported three and a half hours after the fund drive opened for pledges at 6:00am.[snip]
Radford’s first memo to the station’s staff, declared the current fund drive which has been extended after barely reaching 1/2 of the budgeted goal, a “no goal drive”. Radford’s memo is probably a tacit admission that her hire has had a negative impact on KPFK’s fundraising, which had recently picked up after interim GM Zuberi Fields, who was passed over for the job, appealed to listeners to help bail the station out in April.
Rumors are flying that the station is preparing for 50% staffing cuts, which if true, would constitute an $850,000 reduction, larger numerically than the 2013 WBAI staff reductions. Such devastating cuts would be a disembowling of the unit with the highest listener support numbers in the network as of September 30, 2013 – in less than 18 months under the board majority..."