RadioPoetics.org

Overturn KPFA Elections?

Well, I¹m beginning to realize that changing the culture on the
KPFA Local Station Board from one of confrontation to one of collaboration
is going to be a bit more difficult than I had expected!

It¹s been three weeks since the KPFA LSB elections closed. A
near-record number of people voted, and the Concerned Listeners Slate won
the top five positions. Last election, CL won five seats as well, and was
able to form a new majority coalition on the Board. It¹s pretty clear where
most of KPFA's members stand.

However, there is a major effort underway to nullify the results of
the election. Despite the fact that Pacifica's bylaws require that the
results of the election be certified by December 1st, national elections
supervisor Casey Peters is withholding certification. At the same time,
members of the losing slates are petitioning to have the election
overturned. A new election would cost the station something like $70,000,
and put us all through the turmoil of another campaign.

As one who participated in the election, I can assure you it had
its frustrating moments. All of us running signed a Fair Election Code
stating we would not use KPFA resources to attack any other candidate. The
People's Radio slate combined the statements of all their candidates in the
KPFA election pamphlet into a lengthy, paranoid and false attack on the
Concerned Listeners slate. This was the only mailing sent by the station,
and therefore it was not possible for the CL candidates to respond. At the
same time, my candidate¹s statement in the pamphlet was garbled. Where I
talked about establishing the Wellstone Democratic Club to 'break the
political stranglehold of the Republicans,' they had me forming 'the
Wellstone Democratic political stranglehold of the Republicans.' While there
was nothing I could do to change the pamphlet, I sent messages to the
campaign coordinator to change the statement on the website. No reply and no
change.

I decided a sense of humor was the best way to go. I don¹t believe
the election coordinator purposefully altered my statement to make me look
like an idiot ­ or worse, a Republican! Stuff happens. All of us have
complaints.

What problems could be so egregious for the other side to demand a
nullification of the election? They cite two. One was a statement by the
Pacifica executive director Dan Siegel. In response to our slate's complaint
about the Peoples' Radio attack in the pamphlet, he issued a letter that was
critical of the actions of the People's Radio Slate. He mentioned no one by
name and endorsed no one. People's Radio had rallied a whole crew to support
their violation in the name of 'free speech.' However, when Dan Siegel made
a statement that was not only his right but his duty, his 'speech' was
portrayed as an effort by 'management¹ to illegally influence the outcome of
the election.

The second supposed violation was an email circulated by retired
KPFA broadcaster Larry Bensky. He sent an email to a personal address list,
but it was hosted on a KPFA server. A retired KPFA icon shouldn't be able to
tell his own contacts how he sees the issues in the election?

The people who want to overturn the elections use a double standard
to judge what is an election violation ­ and what constitutes free speech.
And the sad thing is that they can¹t see that. When something bad happens to
their opponents, those are 'molehills:' but when those things happen to
them, they are 'mountains.' They are stuck in an angry, destructive
narrative that demonizes everyone who disagrees with them and rules out the
possibility of building a cooperative KPFA community.

What¹s really going on in the LSB is that the efforts of these
people to take over the station are being frustrated. After the Ouprising¹
in 1999, when the Pacifica bylaws were changed to create an elected board,
these folks interpreted that to mean that board should directly run the
station. In reality, the new bylaws were designed to create a partnership
between listeners, staff, and management. Listeners are not radio
professionals. We can tell management what we want and what works and
doesn¹t, but we can¹t have a station worth listening to without experienced
professionals figuring out how to get the job done.

The People's Radio button is stuck on attack mode. They and their
allies are fighting for total control of the station. They have waged war on
the staff and management from the beginning. These are the folks that are
always talking about worker¹s control and worker¹s rights - so long as
somebody else employs those workers.

It would be a terrible waste of money and energy to replay the
elections. The results, I am sure would be the same. It took a while for
many of us to figure out what was going on inside KPFA. But the word is
getting out. We have a wonderful, diverse, broad progressive community here
in Northern California. We would all like to see our beloved KPFA improve
and help fuel the progressive resurgence that is gathering strength in this
country. But damn ­ we aren't going to let the station become the plaything
of a few sectarian attack dogs.

Matthew Hallinan
Elected and Uncertified Member, LSB