THE NEWS
After three years of litigation, and six figure legal fees paid out of KPFA’s bank account, the KPFA Protectors have abandoned their Safety Net lawsuit. A settlement agreement signed on June 5, 2023 and filed with the court dismisses the entire action with prejudice (meaning it cannot be re-filed), and stipulates no conditions except that the defendants (Pacifica Foundation and former board members Grace Aaron and Alex Steinberg) shall not make any subsequent claim for malicious prosecution.
All parties pay their own fees, so KPFA is permanently relieved of all the money paid out (which at last report was well over $100,000 and has probably increased significantly since then) and donors to the Safety Net/Protectors get nothing. The 2020 KPFA Local Station Board, dominated by the Protectors, refused to censure members Goldmacher, Turner, and Huggins for filing the lawsuit and the three plaintiffs (plus Protector Craig Alderson who bailed on the lawsuit midway through) have not announced any plans to repay the station and network in whole or in part for the abundant legal fees their actions cost. Recent layoffs at KPFA were partially atrributable to the financial strain of the Protectors lawsuit.
Meanwhile, the Protectors Safety Net nonprofit, which is meant to be a holding entity for the “autonomous KPFA” that they hope to establish after breaking up the Pacifica Foundation, has been threatened with dissolution by the California Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts for ongoing failure to file annual returns. A recent filing for the period November 2020 to October 2021 issued in 2023 shows different numbers than a previous filing for the same period filed in 2022. Revenue has increased by 11%, expenses have decreased by 33%, and miraculously, assets have decreased by 67%. Both forms are signed by Protector Sherry Gendelman. It also bears repeating that a $35,000 “loan” to the Safety Net reported on their founding documents filed with the IRS in 2021 by Gendelman under penalty of perjury, disappeared into thin air, having been neither repaid nor reported as debt or as revenue. See page 33-34 of the Founding Documents. Reports for the November 2021 to October 2022 period are delinquent.
The inability to keep track of a mere $10,000 or $9,000 or $8,000 or whatever it was, (not to mention the vanishing $35,000 loan) does not bode well for the functioning of an “autonomous KPFA” with millions of dollars under their nonprofit umbrella. Such plans should be acknowledged as completely ridiculous.
THE ELECTION
Please remember to vote by September 30th. We can’t just let a noisy few shape our community institutions. These are community decisions and all of us make them together.
ENDORSEMENTS
This election season, we are only endorsing at KPFA as a publication. We know that may be annoying, but we encourage you to listen to the debates, read candidate statements, and think about the issues we’ll discuss below as you consider the candidates at your station. For the Northern California folks: we are recommending the following listener candidates for the KPFA election (in alphabetical order)
Cheryl Davila, Edward Escobar, Nayvin Gordon, Elizabeth Milos, Pathma Venasithamby, Rich Stone, Stan Woods, Steve Zeltzer
HOW TO VOTE
Pacifica uses ranked choice voting, which is a system of proportional representation that allows you to rank the candidates you like in order so that your vote isn’t lost if your favored candidates have already been eliminated. So pick up to 9 listener candidates (or 3 staff candidates if you are a member of the staff) and put a #1 next to your favorite, #2 next to your second best and so on. Don’t stress out about it. Your vote will automatically transfer to your most favored candidate that is still in contention. Just make sure the candidates you like most get the highest rankings on your ballot. You can access a voter guide here.
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Started in 1946 by conscientious objector Lew Hill, Pacifica’s storied history includes impounded program tapes for a 1954 on-air discussion of marijuana, broadcasting the Seymour Hersh revelations of the My Lai massacre, bombings by the Ku Klux Klan, going to jail rather than turning over the Patty Hearst tapes to the FBI, and Supreme Court cases including the 1984 decision that noncommercial broadcasters have the constitutional right to editorialize, and the Seven Dirty Words ruling following George Carlin’s incendiary performances on WBAI. Pacifica Foundation Radio operates noncommercial radio stations in New York, Washington, Houston, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and syndicates content to over 180 affiliates. It invented listener-sponsored radio.