Brief snippet from KPFK local station board meeting of June 19th.
Tag Archives: radio
Claim of Mystery Lawsuit at WPFW
The election committee meeting of April 18 ended strangely with WPFW local board member Eric Ramey saying a lawsuit had been filed, weeks ago, against WPFW and presumably the Pacifica Foundation. At least 4 national board members on the call indicated they knew nothing about the matter.
Update: WPFW local station board member Eric Ramey provided this as a follow-up statement in response to requests for documentation.
“I was informed earlier the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is investigating. In addition the justice department will investigate to determine if any FCC violations have occurred. Accordingly I will invoke the 5th and remain silent”.
Update: David Levine, WPFW’s 2015 local election supervisor until the PNB cancelled the DC election, was contacted by telephone and stated he did not sue WPFW, threaten to sue WPFW, cause papers to be served on WPFW’s general manager or trigger any investigation by CPB, FCC or DOJ.
Local station board member Eric Ramey has indicated he is unwilling to speak further on the matter and was chastised by PNB member Nancy Sorden who asked him to consult with her prior to speaking freely in Pacifica’s streamed meetings saying “we’re all on email at the same time we are on the phone”.
She added “Could you agree to staying open to hearing those reminders and cautions and if you are not sure email ahead of time
or during the meeting?”
Civil Liberty Alert: Listener-Funded Pacifica Radio Under Siege In N.Y. And D.C.
By John Ervin
Civil Liberty Alert: Listener-Funded Pacifica Radio Under Siege In N.Y. And D.C.
When it comes to dissidence and democracy, nobody does it better than KPFK, KPFA, WBAI and their sister stations in DC and Houston, and more than a hundred eighty affiliates. Continue reading Civil Liberty Alert: Listener-Funded Pacifica Radio Under Siege In N.Y. And D.C.
Dialing To Resist By
For the second time in a week, the Pacifica National Board’s attempt to have a meeting after disenfranchising WBAI’s elected majority and seating two bogus affiliate directors, resulted in meeting interruptus.
This time, no sweet sounds of Mozart but a great beepfest. Continue reading Dialing To Resist By
Mozart Meeting: Civil Disbedience
Berkeley–Thursday’s Pacifica National Board meeting turned into a Mozart sonata after the Siegel/Brazon faction insisted on preventing both the 2016 and 2015 directors from WBAI-FM from voting in the meeting. The music, which played for more than 40 minutes on the conference call line, was preceded by numerous objections to the board majority’s actions, which included trying to seat two affiliate directors self-nominated by stations without affiliate agreements to represent the 200 affiliated stations, refusing the seat four directors elected by NY’s delegate assembly on January 26th: staffer Shawn Rhodes and listener reps Bob Young, Alex Steinberg and Frank LeFever and refusing to allow the 2015 directors from WBAI to vote in their stead, leaving the NY station completely disenfranchised. A clip of some of the meeting can be heard here.
Continue reading Mozart Meeting: Civil Disbedience
Landslide in Los Angeles
Berkeley-Pacifica’s 2015 board elections ended with a bang when the KPFK election delivered a huge supermajority (17 out of 24 seats) for the Committee to Strengthen KPFK/Candidate Slate group in a stinging rebuke for the majority Siegel/Brazon faction. The last time any Pacifica local board had a supermajority was more than five years ago. Continue reading Landslide in Los Angeles
Rules Are For Suckers
Berkeley– Two national board directors nominated from Pacifica’s 200 programming affiliate stations have become the latest victims in the Siegel/Brazon faction’s machinations to keep a majority on the board in 2016 at all costs. Last week saw the nomination and appointment of a representative from Uhuru Radio, an Internet-only station operated under a Florida for-profit limited liability company called Burning Spear Productions. Uhuru Radio neither broadcasts nor distributes any Pacifica produced programming on their daily schedule. Last night, the board majority, over strenuous objections, appointed another uncontested nominee, this one from a station without any affiliate written agreement in place. In other words, nominated by a station that isn’t an affiliate at all. Continue reading Rules Are For Suckers
Partial Document Dump Re: Bequest
Berkeley-The “60 pages you can’t see” of documentation regarding the bequest directed to Pacifica Foundation Radio that was incorrectly reported as a restricted donation for the exclusive use of KPFA-Radio, has finally been made available. The national board of directors voted the bequest had been made to the Pacifica Foundation and then to distribute the document package to the network’s five local station boards. Continue reading Partial Document Dump Re: Bequest
Collateral Damage
Snippet from October 22 Pacifica affiliates program committee. Affiliates Director Ursula Rudenberg reports being told she is probably going to lose her health insurance as of November 1st and national board members discuss. In order, the speakers are affiliates director Ursula Rudenberg, PNB member Janis Lane Ewart, PNB member Teresa Allen and Siegel-Brazon-affiliated board member Adriana Casenave. Continue reading Collateral Damage
Weapons At Work
Berkeley-At this evening’s Pacifica National Board meeting, NY listener representative Stephen Brown notified the board he was in receipt of a statement from a KPFK employee about a volunteer who said “they had brought a gun into KPFK” and their “friend outside in KPFK’s parking lot was also packing a gun”. The assertions were reported to a senior employee, who reported them to outgoing executive director John Proffitt on Monday, October 12th and and received no response at all. Brown stated on the board’s Internet stream that KPFK’s former web director Ali Lexa, who was laid off in September, had let him know today of the lack of response from Pacifica to the report of firearms at the station. Continue reading Weapons At Work