Originally posted May 2, 2015
On April 30, 2015, the majority on the Pacifica National Board (PNB) voted in closed session to remove Kim Kaufman, a Director from KPFK who has repeatedly tried to get the PNB and management to investigate financial irregularities and missing/incomplete information supplied to the California Attorney General.
The retaliation against Kim Kaufman by the PNB is one in a long line of incidents where people trying to draw attention to fiscal mismanagement at Pacifica stations have been harassed, fired, run off and recalled.
It’s past time to fix the problems, not to keep attacking the messenger, especially when there are many other critical problems (like listenership, finances, etc.) that the PNB should be dealing with!
Please sign the petition to tell the PNB that Kim deserves thanks, not punishment, for fulfilling her fiduciary duties and for insisting that Pacifica’s financial problems need more illumination rather than being hidden away in the dark.
Comments from Petition-Signers:
This action is just shameful and is a very bad sign for the future of independent radio when we need it more, and not less!
I used to be a substantial donor (>$1,000 a year, sometimes more) now I can barely get myself to join at the cheapest possible membership price because it is obvious that KPFA is rife with corruption. Why would I give more when I trust the board of KPFA no more than I trust George Bush to represent my values? In fact, I trust very few that remain at the station at all- I continue to believe whole-heartedly in D. Bernstein, M. Molina, W. Turner and Davey D – otherwise the sliminess is just too thick. We can all smell B.E-T a mile away. Yeech.
The current PNB is a clown show that should have closed on opening night. Follow the money said the sage, and you will find the source of all malfeasance.
I support the free flow of information.
Everyone needs to speak UP!!! Those people have corrupted the PNB and are going to tear down everything from the inside out. Fight the POWER for the people!!!
This is the most corrupt process I have ever witnessed. I think there has been considerable embezzlement and cover up. I have tried to work with these people, but they are truly bad and evil individuals and are enemies of the Pacifica Foundation.
We have had three years now with no CPB money-why?
I listened to the public portion of the star chamber proceedings against Kim Kaufman. The use of “conspiracy” in the allegations was particularly startling and disturbing for an organization that was founded on the defense and purports to be an upholder of civil liberties. “Conspiracy” is a charge that is used by the government to attack us and charge us with beliefs and thoughts that it wants to crush. I listened to the last PNB Finance Committee meeting, immediately before the private show trial. It is apparent that the “majority” is attempting to silence critics, cover-up misfeasance or malfeasance, and prevent PNB members from exercising due diligence in performing their fiduciary responsibilities to the foundation and the members. Joseph McCarthy must be chortling in his grave to know that his tactics and practices are alive and well in an organization that was founded to oppose him. Perhaps copies of McCarthy’s writings and speeches can be offered as premiums during upcoming fundraisers. They could be coupled with writings and speeches of Scott Walker as valuable and instructive tools for aspiring Pacificans.
We need more Kims.
This is beyond ridiculous, and moving into criminal behavior. Shame on the board for destroying a wonderful institution.
My grateful appreciation for Pacifica-in-Exile exposing the tragic truths. The National Board must, must must support whistleblowers!!!
“I want to commend Kim Kauffman for showing the kind of due diligence that a Board member should have. The Pacifica National Board is at this point Pacifica’s most dangerous enemy.
The current national board of Pacifica has failed to rectify the woefully inadequate financial management of Pacifica. Instead of ensuring fiscal health it has chosen to remove a whistleblower.
Just wrong on so many levels but what goes around, comes around, the irresponsible majority will have to answer for their shameful behavior and for Pacific’s sake I hope they are required to do so very soon.
Pacifica has become a combination of The Shock Doctrine and Animal Farm. First, create a financial crisis and then do the dirty deeds in the midst of the chaos they themselves have created for their own benefit. The piggies walk on their hind legs, eat dinner at the table and purge their enemies in secret for sport – and control of the assets. The first sentence of the Pacifica Mission Statement: “To establish a Foundation organized and operated exclusively for educational purposes no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any member of the Foundation.”
How can this lack of transparency and power grabbing fit with the mission statement of Pacifica?
The majority is attempting to shut-out those who disagree with it. Purging “enemies” who point out problems will not make those problems go away!
I hate what has happened to my beloved KPFA over the years.
Recall Janet Kobren.
The information that Kim has shared should be public.
KPFA has been (and could still be) a trustworthy bulwark of free speech and honest news reporting in a media universe of biased pro-corporate news and opinion.
Please stop being reactionary and face the fact you are not doing your job of keeping Pacifica and all the stations alive and well. We need a healthy Pacifica and Kim is doing her job, with that goal in mind, in releasing vital information to those that need it to do their job.
Having watched Pacifica implode and mismanaged for over a decade, my conclusion is that the governance system put into place over a decade ago has burdened this institution with a group of Trustees who have been utterly unqualified to protect the assets of this organization.
Used to be a subscriber. Helped fund the legal battle against MFB et. al.
It is increasingly obvious that transparency which should be the way the station and the network operate means very little. As a 58 year listener subscriber I have seen some petty squabbles and some illegal activities come and go and I hope that my station will continue to remain on the air despite all this.
Kim is a hero.
I’m tired of Pacifica being run like a criminal enterprise and I hope the CA AG cleans up the mess.
I am disappointed with the turn Pacifica has taken with the current majority on the National Board. Their dishonesty, lack of transparency and fiduciary responsibility, is jeopardizing the network.
Let me be blunt: Whatever fig-leaf of “due process” it was shrouded in, this infernal removal of Ms. Kaufman for whistle-blowing conduct purportedly not in the best interest of the Pacifica Foundation is (obviously) a wholly illegitimate purge of the sort formerly employed in Stalinist Russia. The entire exercise is wholly Un-American; and displays the initiators’ utter contempt for pluralism in favor of vicious sectarian factionalism. Such tawdry (clique-ish) power-mongering is wholly unbecoming of the Pacifica Foundation (which is NOT a communist institution), violates the letter and spirit of the Pacifica mission statement and, I firmly believe, is itself grounds for defeat in the next LSB elections (at their respective stations) of all those perpetrating and supporting it.
Am I correct in assuming that the attorney general of the state of California is being informed of this action and that this petition will also be forwarded to the attorney general?
The financial and other mismanagement of the Pacifica network by the current national board majority must be stopped. Retaliation against whistleblowers, in this case Kim Kaufman, is illegal and immoral.
Uncle Joe would be proud!
This is a fascist tactic used by the outsider faction that’s bought its way into control of Pacifica.
My name means light and that’s what I want from TTP to Pacifica.
The rogue majority of the Pacifica National Board needs to hear from Pacifica members of all stations that whistleblowers need to be thanked and praised. As a member of the minority faction of the PNB I deplore the irregular, self-serving, and damaging actions of the rogue majority.
This is interminable and insane.
I am so tired of this mismanagement of Pacifica, the stations and of the funds. I have learned so much from this station for over 50 years and now I’m learning that even this bulwark of freedom, democracy and people’s rights can go over to the dark side of humanity, greed, power and self-interest above all else. Very sad.
Sad what is happening to my beloved radio station.
This is shameful. What is so wrong about having balanced books and a sustainable budget? Why all this drama over a balanced spreadsheet? I really wish some of this made sense.
Of all the places on the planet …. ??~?~???!?!!
We need more transparency, not less.
I’m speechless by what has happened to Pacifica
I am a Listener Member on the KPFK local station board and finance committee. Kim is my colleague on the LSB, and her removable Disenfranchises me within Pacifica governance.
If not for Pacifica we’d probly still be fighting in Viet Nam. And there would probly be no FM radios. PNB hear this — Here we are together now in what should be a dream. Say one more word and I’ll scream!
This illegal action by the 2015 Pacifica Foundation Board would cause McCarthy to smile.
I represented the ACLU on the committee that founded KPFK and care deeply about Pacifica and its mission and governance structure. I founded OC Friends of Pacifica, but we couldn’t even get a hearing for our consensus ideas, laboriously formulated after many meetings.
The Pacifica Foundation/Pacifica Network as well as the individual stations are ongoingly stolen away from the listeners and authentic supporters by corrupt people and others who are extreme individualists “doing their own thing.” The Pacifica Foundation and Network is a social phenomenon where the collectivity ought to be in continuous dialogue making collective decisions openly and honestly. Instead hidden and not so hidden agendas normally prevail. This is an institutional structural crisis that needs structural change.
Kim is smart and unafraid. She acts with integrity and adds value to Pacifica and KPFK.
It is beyond belief to hear that Kim has been thrown off the Board for giving the CA AG’s office materials requested in the course of an investigation. The listeners deserve better–but anyone who says so, it seems, will be banished.
Kim’s expulsion is an attempt at thought control. Rescind it.
The situation is pathetic. Steve Brown of WBAI should be brought on as a consultant. Pro Bono. The Board should be compelled to carefully consider and implement his rational and savy proposals.
That’s pretty funny coming from a group of people who lionize Julian Assange and Bradley Manning.
Some Petition Signers
Grace Aaron, Former LSB Member, Former Board Director 2007-2009
Chris Albertson, Former GM, WBAI-FM
Michael Baldwin, Member, KPFA-FM
Hummingbird Berryessa, Member, KPFA-FM
Henry Bilenchi, Member, WBAI-FM
Carolyn Birden, Pacifica Board Director, WBAI-FM
Fred Blair, LSB Member, KPFK-FM
Wendy Block, Member, KPFK-FM
Suzanne Blunck, Member, KPFA-FM
Diana Bohn, Member, KPFA-FM
Daniel Borgstrom, Member, KPFA-FM
Jack Brown, Member, WBAI-FM
Stephen Brown, Pacifica Board Director, WBAI-FM
Steve Brooks, LSB Member, KPFK-FM
Diane Ellegua Budd M.D., Member, KPFA-FM
Shawn Casey O’Brien, Former Pacifica Board Director, KPFK-FM
Fred Chase, Former LSB Member, KPFA-FM
Stephen Cohen, Member, KPFA-FM
Janet Coleman, Pacifica Board Director, WBAI-FM
John Comly, Member, KPFA-FM
Christopher Condon, LSB Member, KPFK-FM
Michael Costello, Member, KPFA-FM
Bill Crosier, Former Board Director 2010-2012, Board Vice Chair 2011-2012
John De Simio, Former LSB Member, KPFK-FM
Roger Dittman, Member, KPFK-FM
William Dunn, Member, KPFK-FM
Riva Enteen, Former Local Board Chair, KPFA-FM
Andrea Fishman, Former LSB Member, WBAI-FM
Ann Garrison, Reporter and Unpaid Staff Council Member, KPFA-FM
Robin Gaura, Member, KPFA-FM
Robert Getsla, Member, KPFA-FM
Peter Gill, Member, KPFA-FM
Steve Gilmartin, Member, KPFA-FM
Dennis Goldstein, Member, WBAI-FM
Phillip Hershkowitz, Member, KPFA-FM
Valeri Hood, Member, KPFA-FM
Paul Jackson, Member, KPFA-FM
Eric Jacobson, Member, KPFK-FM
Kathleen Jagger, Member, KPFA-FM
Stephen Kessler, Member, KPFA-FM
Ulle Koiv, Member, WBAI-FM
Lucille Krasne, Member, WBAI-FM
Nalini Laziewicz, Member, KPFK-FM
Alberta Maged, Member, KPFA-FM
Laura MacDougall, Member, KPFA-FM
Arthur Maisel, Member, WBAI-FM
Carl Makower, Member, WBAI-FM
Robert Mark, Pacifica Board Director, Former LSB Chair, KPFT-FM
Steve Martinot, Member, KPFA-FM
Ray Meyer, Member, KPFA-FM
Sarah Meyers, Member, KPFK-FM
Bill Michel, Member, KPFA-FM
Kelly Moore, Member, KPFA-FM
Sandra Morey, Member, KPFA-FM
Eve Moser, Member, WBAI-FM
Dennis Murray, Member, KPFA-FM
Attila Nagy, Former LSB Member, KPFA-FM
Henry Norr, Former LSB Member, KPFA-FM 2006-2012
Lucienne O’Keefe, Member, KPFA-FM
John Parulis, Member, KPFA-FM
Jean Pauline, Member, KPFA-FM
Rebecca Paxton, Member, KPFK-FM
Richard Phelps, Former LSB Chair, KPFA-FM
Thomas Plagemann, Member, KPFA-FM
Rick Pothoff, Member, KPFT-FM
Bill Propp, Member, WBAI-FM
Sandra Rawline, Former Pacifica Board Director, KPFT-FM
Summer Reese, Former Pacifica Board Director 2010-2013, Board Chair 2011-2013
Asd Reqw, Member, KPFK-FM
Nancy Raffaelli Richards, Member, KPFK-FM
Mara Rivera, Member, KPFA-FM
Tracy Rosenberg, Former Pacifica Board Director 2010-2014, Board Treasurer 2011-2013
Marc Sapir, Member, KPFA-FM
Michael David Sasson, Member, KPFA-FM
John Sheridan, Member, KPFA-FM
Alex Steinberg, Former Pacifica Board Director, WBAI-FM
Caroline Steel, Member, KPFA-FM
Joseph Stein, Member, WBAI-FM
Peter Stickney, Member, KPFA-FM
Tex, Member, KPFT-FM
MaryAnn Thomas, Member, KPFA-FM
Jim Thompson, Pacifica Affiliate Station
Taylor Trowbridge, Member, KPFK-FM
Roy Tuckman, Host, Roy of Hollywood, KPFK-FM
Richard Uzzell, Former Pacifica Board Director 2013-2014, Board Secretary 2009-2010, 2013
Bob Weiss, Member, WBAI-FM
John Wenger, LSB Member, KPFK-FM
Kevin White, Former LSB Member, KPFT-FM
Shebar Windstone
Bruce Wolf, Former LSB Member and Board Treasurer, WPFW-FM
Linda Zizes, Member, WBAI-FM