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Pacifica Board Undoes Much Damage
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Progressive Portal
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Jan 13, 2002 11:40 PST
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NEW PACIFICA BOARD STARTS UNDOING YEARS OF DAMAGE
* Former Board Majority in disarray, unable to block action
(will try to get board meeting voided by Judge Sabraw)
* Dan Coughlin becomes Interim Executive Director
* Station managers at KPFT-Houston, WBAI-New York are gone
* Pacifica has $3 million in unpaid bills
* Bensky re-hired; move to Berkeley fails; next meeting March
The interim Pacifica National Board at its meeting Jan. 11-13, 2002
undid much of the damage wreaked at Pacifica during the past two years.
Following are a few key points from a summary by Pacifica's former
National Affairs Correspondent Larry Bensky, who covered the Dec. 13
board session live on-air at KPFA. The notes are compiled by Progressive
Portal, so any errors may be our responsibility.
DISARRAY IN THE FORMER BOARD MAJORITY
=====================================
Among the former board majority, now the minority, Wendell Johns (former
Pacifica treasurer) quit on the eve of the meeting, and Dick Gregory did
not attend. (Bensky said Gregory is well-known for never attending
meetings in person.)
Therefore, the former majority did not have enough members present to
block any decisions. (Under the agreement settling several lawsuits,
measures need to pass by either two-thirds of those present or a
"balanced majority," defined as at least one vote from each of three
groups: the former board majority, the former board minority, and the
representatives from station Local Advisory Boards. According to Bensky,
today's significant votes were passed by 10-3. That would mean the new
representative of the KPFT-Houston LAB apparently voted with the new
majority; at the last meeting, that representative, Barney Goodman --
who has since resigned and apparently been replaced -- voted with the
former board majority and forced several decisions to go back to the
lawsuit-settlement judge for decision. (See previous message on this
update list.)
It was announced during the weekend that the former board majority
intends to file a legal motion Monday, Jan. 14, 2002 asking the entire
board meeting to be voided, because according to them the meeting wasn't
sufficiently noticed. (The date of the meeting was set during the
previous meeting, at which all members were present; however, the
location within New York City was shifted a couple of times.)
NEW INTERIM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
==============================
Joanne Meredith quit on Friday as interim Executive Director. She had
been the Development Director, and had taken the interim position after
Bessie Wash resigned, saying she (Meredith) would serve only in an
administrative role and would not make substantive decisions.
Pacifica has received 13 applications for Executive Director since it
began running notices on the stations calling for applications. The
eight-member Executive Director search team has strong majority on the
"free-speech advocate" side (current board majority).
Dan Coughlin was appointed interim Executive Director (vote 10-3).
Coughlin, former director of Pacifica Network News (PNN), was removed
from that position after broadcasting a 40-second report on the
situation at KPFA after the Berkeley station was closed in 1999 for
approximately 10 days. (An AFTRA representative complained about
Coughlin, saying he has a bad labor-relations record; Bensky, who
reported for PNN under Coughlin, called that "hooey." AFTRA is the
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, one of the unions
representing various Pacifica personnel.)
A motion by Marion Barry (of the former board majority) to limit
Coughlin's power so he can't make management changes (e.g., hire or fire
station managers) was defeated 10-3.
STATION MANAGERS GONE
=====================
Two managers of Pacifica stations aligned with the former regime at
Pacifica are gone.
Garland Ganter, General Manager of KPFT-Houston, resigned last week.
Ganter is the person who was sent to Berkeley to shut down KPFA in 1999,
a move that was reversed after says of protest that included a march of
several thousand people and arrest of hundreds of protesters at and in
front of the station. The Chief Engineer at KPFT is the acting General
Manager.
Saturday night, WBAI Acting General Manager Bob Daughtry was removed;
Valerie van Isler is back as station manager. Daughtry had followed
Utrice Leid as WBAI manager and was part of the faction that forced
Democracy Now! out, continued banning and firing advocates of the
"free-speech" faction, and supported the on-air race-baiting of the Leid
faction. (He had been railing on the air the last several days for his
faction's supporters to attend the board meeting in New York this
weekend; according to Bensky, not many showed up.)
The former Chief Engineer at KPFA, Jim Bennett, has been the acting
General Manager there since popular manager Nicole Sawaya was fired in
1999, starting off the current round of crises.
Mark Schubb, the General Manager at KPFK-Los Angeles, is in "open
rebellion" against the new management at Pacifica, Bensky said. Schubb
continues to carry Democracy Now! under orders from the board, but at 6
a.m., not in its previous 9-a.m. time-slot as he was directed.
(WPFW-D.C. reportedly censors Democracy Now!, blocking out references to
the banned and fired at Pacifica.)
WBAI STAFF RESTORED
===================
The fired and banned of WBAI have been restored, Bensky said. Bernard
White apparently will return as Program Director. White, an ally of
Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman, was forced out at the beginning of the
"Coup" at WBAI, along with producer Sharan Harper, the union steward.
Democracy Now! will be restored to WBAI effective tomorrow. The show's
personnel will be paid their back pay, but there isn't any money right
now to complete that back payment.
$3 MILLION IN UNPAID BILLS
==========================
New Treasurer Jabari Zakiya, a tax-reform activist who was appointed by
the WPFW-D.C. LAB, said as far as he can tell right now, Pacifica has $3
million in bills. Bensky said Zakiya didn't say how much money is
currently in Pacifica's coffers. Payroll is ~ $420,000/month. An
insurance settlement of $400,000, part of the settlement of the
lawsuits, has not yet arrived.
MOVING TO BERKELEY; BENSKY REHIRED; NEXT MEETING
================================================
Pete Bramson, member of the former board minority from KPFA, made a
motion to return the national office of Pacifica back to Berkeley, where
it was until moved to D.C. by the former regime in 1999. (The former
board majority is heavily dominated by people from D.C.) The proposed
move was voted down 4-6; members apparently were surprised by the
proposal, and felt it needed more discussion.
Bensky said he was surprised to hear a motion re-hiring him at KPFA,
which passed. It was apparently organized by board chair Leslie Cagan
and KPFA interim General Manager Bennett. Bensky said nobody had
discussed this with him, and he was gratified, but he didn't know any
specifics. He mentioned that his program Sunday Salon was intended to
be a national program on all of Pacifica's stations reviewing the week's
events, and he was a frequent contributor to Pacifica National News in
the past, as well as hosting critical national coverage (e.g., the
Iran-Contra hearings); he didn't know whether his re-hiring at KPFA
presaged any national role for him.
The next meeting of the interim Pacifica National Board will be in Los
Angeles in March.
Public comment was heard at several points throughout the meeting, a
sharp departure from the previous regime's practice of confining the
public to a single comment period at the end of each month's meeting.
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