• Was not conducted in conformity with the Pacifica Bylaws;
• Was corrupted by KPFA and Pacifica management and some staff
intentionally violating rules to get votes for their allies' slate;
• Did not provide adequate information about the candidates to
enable voters to make educated choices;
• Did not provide ballots to many eligible voters in a timely
manner.
New bylaws were adopted after the 1999 “hijacking” attempt
was defeated by mass listener activity to protect and preserve KPFA
and Pacifica. These Bylaws incorporated fair elections of governing
boards for each station to eliminate the prior practice of self-appointing
boards, which led to the crisis in the 1990s.
Every subscriber and staffer, whatever their views on the issues and
candidates, has a right to expect that the process by which we select
our governing board will be fair, open, and orderly, in accordance with
the Fair Campaign Provisions established by Pacifica's bylaws and election
supervisors; that the information voters need to make an informed choice
will be available in a timely way; and that all candidates will be afforded
an equal opportunity to present their views and their qualifications
to the voters.
IN REALITY, THE PROCESS HAS FALLEN FAR SHORT OF THESE STANDARDS:
Management influence and improper use of station resources:
The 2007 Fair Campaign Provisions, which every staff member, including
managers, was required to read and sign, state that "No Foundation
or radio station management or staff (paid or unpaid) or any other person
may use or permit the use of radio station air time, website space,
email lists, or other resources to endorse, campaign for or against,
promote or disparage, or recommend in favor of or against any candidate
for election as a Local Station Board." Yet on October 24, just
over a week after ballots were mailed to listener-sponsors, KPFA and
the other Pacifica stations posted on their websites an open letter
from Dan Siegel, then Interim Executive Director of the Pacifica Foundation,
with the admitted objective of influencing voters’ choices: the
letter directly disparaged one easily identifiable group of KPFA candidates,
denouncing their strongly stated but clearly political free speech criticisms
of some station personnel and management-allied LSB members, as "abusive,"
"hateful," "personal attacks." This letter remained
prominently featured on the KPFA website for more than a week, and was
never removed from the National Elections Web page, to which KPFA's
was linked.
Siegel's was not the only serious violation of the Fair Campaign Provision
quoted above. On October 30, veteran programmer Larry Bensky used a
KPFA e-mail list and server to send out to an as yet unknown number
of voters a message endorsing one slate of candidates and attacking
the incumbent board.
Defiance of supervisors' authority:
In the event of any violation of the Fair Campaign Provisions, the Pacifica
bylaws say "the local elections supervisor and the national elections
supervisor shall determine, in good faith and at their sole discretion,
an appropriate remedy." In response to Bensky's blatant violation
of the rules, the election supervisors devised a partial remedy, instructing
station management to allow each competing slate to send a 300-word
message of their own to the same e-mail list Bensky used. The slates
promptly produced their proposed messages, but KPFA's managers simply
stonewalled, refusing to take the steps necessary to get these messages
sent out on the list. As the National Election Supervisor eventually
ruled – after the ballot deadline - this refusal to comply with
the Election Supervisor’s order amounted to nothing less than
"obstruction of the governance of the foundation."
Inadequate information:
Without understanding of the issues at stake in LSB elections
or of the views of the candidates, listener-sponsors can't make meaningful
choices. The candidate statements mailed to listeners-subscribers with
their ballots go only a small part of the way toward meeting this need;
on-air candidate forums and announcements and
in-person events are also essential for informing the electorate. After
past elections, there have been both widespread sentiment and reports
by election supervisors calling for more such events and publicity,
but this year KPFA had less than ever before.
Only one two-part on-air forum was held before ballots were mailed to
listener-subscribers, but it was poorly publicized in advance, and afterwards
the audio archives were not posted at the station website for weeks.
Candidates were required to respond to a detailed questionnaire about
their views and experience, but their responses were not posted online
until the voting period was almost over. Candidate statements were posted
briefly, but then removed from the web for much of the voting period.
During the fall fund drive, which ran from Oct. 16 to Nov. 2, the station
provided no information whatsoever about the election,
on the dubious grounds that election information can't be combined with
fund-raising. KPFT in Houston does both.
Even after the drive ended, station management did not begin airing
candidates' pre-recorded statements until less than a week remained
in the voting period, and then there was no transparent system to ensure
all
candidates' carts got equal treatment. Management even tried to satisfy
its obligation to air the carts by playing them all in a bloc –21
in a row - an approach guaranteed to minimize listenership, and one
that was particularly unfair to the candidates whose statements were
aired last. The management-allied slate's number-one candidate had her
statement played first on the list of 21. Only one in-person candidate
event was organized, in Berkeley, and it received very little publicity
over the air.
The black-out of election information during the fund drive was especially
damaging: it left voters with minimal information when they first received
their ballots, thus magnifying the advantage of the KPFA management-backed,
"Concerned Listeners" slate, that spent thousands of dollars
to send its own carefully-timed mailing to arrive with the ballots during
the black-out.
Failure to provide ballots to all eligible voters:
While, as in past elections, many listener-sponsors reported not receiving
ballot packets, the problem is – still – particularly acute
among volunteers voting in the staff elections, because management failed
in its duty to provide a timely, accurate, and complete list of the
unpaid staff. As recently as Nov. 29, after the elections should have
been closed, more than 40 unpaid staff members had not received a ballot;
on the other hand, members of management, who were not entitled to vote
at all, did receive ballots. The election supervisors have had to extend
the election deadline several times, but it still appears that many
eligible staffers will not receive ballots before the election finally
closes.
KPFA and Pacifica listeners fought hard for the right to elect their
governing boards, and for good reasons: to prevent a recurrence of the
kind of takeover that occurred in the 1990s; to give the listeners whose
support keeps the station and network afloat a way to shape their direction;
and to demonstrate that communities can govern themselves. All these
reasons remain valid today. We are deeply dismayed that some powerful
elements within the KPFA community have shown themselves willing to
subvert our hard-won bylaws and abandon basic principles of fairness
and democracy.
If you would like to support fair elections at
KPFA/Pacifica send contact information to Committee for Fair Elections
at fair_elections@yahoo.com
Fair Election Committee member endorsers: (in
progress)
Richard Phelps, Henry Norr, Stan Woods, Akio
Tanaka, Noelle Hanrahan, Joe Wanzala, Attila Nagy, LaVarn Williams*,
Chandra Hauptman* , CURRENT BOARD MEMBERS (*also PNB);
Carol Spooner, Steve Conley, Gerald Sanders, Willie Ratcliff, Maria
Gilardin, Sepideh Khosrowjah, FORMER BOARD MEMBERS;
Tracy Rosenberg, KPFA LOCAL ELECTION SUPERVISOR 2006,
Bob English, Dave Heller, Mara
Rivera, Steve Zeltzer, Carl Bryant, CC Campbell Rock, 2007 BOARD CANDIDATES;
Linda Hewitt, Virginia Browning, Daniel Borgstrom, Steve Gilmartin,
Gregory Wonderwheel, Jim Curtis, Stephen Kessler, Mary Ratcliff, LISTENER
MEMBERS; Adrienne Lauby, Anthony Fest, STAFF MEMBERS;
Molly Beyea, Chuck O’Neil, Janet Kobren, CR (Bob) Briscoe, Ann
Garrison, Rabea Chaudhary, Dianne Budd, Laura Wells, Lou Gold, Tim Modok-Pearson,
Peter Broadwell, David Keenan, Bill Carpenter, Barbara Deutsch, Barry
Deutsch, Steve Morse, Karen Engel, Mishwa Lee, Barbara Ruth, J.T. Rehbock,
Vic Saravia, Tony Brasunas, Margaret Browne, Tony Sustak, Lucienne O’Keefe,
Mike Donaldson, Mark Boynton, Neil Maclean, LISTENER SUPPORTERS.
