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. 

Continue reading KPFA Protectors Lawsuit Abandoned →

It’s election time at Pacifica Radio again. Your annual contribution lets you pick the board at your local station. That’s pretty unique for a media outlet. How do you handle this grave responsibility? We are here to help with voting info, some news, endorsements at our local station (Berkeley) and a few opinions to chew on as you make your decisions. We hope it’s helpful! 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

Your ballot link should arrive by email today (August 15th). You have until September 30th to complete it. If you are a current member at your station, and don’t receive a ballot, you can request one here. If you would like to hear more from the candidates, you can tune into or stream on demand candidate discussions that will be broadcast as follows:

KPFA – Aug 18 @ 11-2 PM PST, KPFK – Aug 14-18 @ 2-3 PM PST (In English) & Aug 14-17 @ 830-1030 PM PST (En Español), KPFT – Aug 11 & August 18 @ 7-8 PM CST, WBAI – Aug 19, 26 & Sept 2 @ 4-6 PM EST, WPFW – Aug 28 @ 5-8 PM EST

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. 

Continue reading 2023 Pacifica Election Is Here – How To Vote →

Berkeley – We know it has been a long time since we’ve written. A lot is happening at Pacifica Radio, and a lot is also happening in our own lives, which has made the labor involved in following Pacifica happenings so closely less viable. But we will keep the option open when there is significant news that otherwise would not be distributed. Before we begin, a few disclaimers. All of the information provided here is drawn from public court filings in the Alameda Superior Court. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty and allegations are just allegations until proven. However, we find it unconscionable that several members of KPFA’s Local Station Board were not aware of this lawsuit’s existence until last week. Board members should not have to monitor court records to discover litigation against their organization. And some of the issues regarding station response are significant whether the allegations are true, false or some of both. 

Elected members of KPFA’s local station board were startled last week to discover that a lawsuit against KPFA and Pacifica had been pending since May of 2022 with no notification to them. The plaintiff is Francisco Torres De La Rosa, who described himself as a 54 year old man who is married with two children and has limited English fluency. Mr. Torres De La Rosa was employed as a maintenance worker at KPFA in Berkeley from 2015 to 2021. De La Rosa alleges that beginning in 2019, news co-director and 41 year KPFA employee Mark Mericle “repeatedly and forcibly grabbed his buttocks and laughed at him when he recoiled and expressed distress, followed him to the bathroom and blocked him inside of it, and stared and leered at him in a harassing way”. Torres De La Rosa alleges he complained to his female supervisor, who is unnamed in the complaint, but seems likely to be business manager Maria Negret, and the response he received was “Well, he’s gay”. Torres De La Rosa then alleges he elevated his complaint to the “general director”, who is unnamed in the complaint, but seems likely to be general manager Quincy McCoy, and was told he “had to get along with everybody”. When Torres De La Rosa alleges he pushed the complaint about sexual assault to Pacifica Human Resources (again unnamed in the complaint), there was no remedial action taken. 

Continue reading Another Secret Lawsuit →