>From : Dorothy J Beagle <djesse at juno.com>
Reply-To : freepacifica at recordist.com
Sent : Tuesday, August 31, 2004 2:27 AM
To : freepacifica at recordist.com
Subject : Fw: Re: A KPFA staffer's sexist insult to activist and damning
the KPFA elections
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Dear John,
Thank you for this important letter, John. Joe Wanzala, a wonderful dedicated community contributor and gentleman who does not deserve flippant sexist remarks. His generosity of spirit is well known.
Not only sexist , the Lilley letter, but ageist - "who are the grey-haired regular 40????? and add to sexist, underestimating totally that most activists ARE from the working community - in my over 40 years experience in Berkeley community - and the Bay Area, as a leader in community, a performance artist, the leading activists in this area who, for example, have been the LEADERS in integration of the schools, in fighting racism (through programs I was involved in) in fighting oppression in general, DESPITE their busy full time careers. This is a fact, those who are committed to their fellow humans as a community, don't work "part time" from 9 to 5, they work 24/7 for their schools, their children, for their neighbor's children, for safety, for health. It's a different kind of animal who talks about 'workers' not having time to be activists - do we not know the heros of the country? The history of the Unions? Laborers who fought and died for rights of workers? We see in Lilley's letter simplicity in stereotypes, no political knowledge whatsoever of the great heritage that is Berkeley's by virtue of being a City known around the world as being a leader (KPFA only one of it's assets, though too often the station inhabited by do-gooder limited thinkers as this individual). Before commenting on the free speech station she is privileged to work with, she should educate herself on 'WHO are activists, the HISTORY of Berkeley and the country. As to the impossible dream we keep trying Democracy, she cannot expect the system to fall simply into place, it never does. It has been a noble effort by Pacifica Stations to attempt some kind of 'pure' Democracy, and so, we learn, together. And WHO are those old grey-haireds she speaks of - those WE know who paved the way for progress in Berkeley by extreme dedication (I am personally aware of, it involved friends of mine) over the years? and should we all take a lesson in WHAT is racism, what is ageism, what is sexism, and learn the history of the visionary City of Berkeley?
D. Jesse Beagle 8/29/04
On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 15:08:34 -0700 John Sheridan <johnsher at alamedanet.net> writes: This from Sasha Lilley of KPFA's 'Against the Grain' program, in response to former KPFA LAB member Joe Wanzala as seen on the Left Business Observer site. In a new nadir of vulgar, highly sexist, partisan and arguably racist personal attack, in the poverty of ideas that should shame anyone involved with KPFA, Lilley stoops below to referring the gentle and intelligent Joe Wanzala's analysis as "penis-waving". Joe is also a black man - and besides this being a vile slur on his being male - given the over 400 years of atrocities against the American African population, calling his reasoned argument "penis-waving" is an outrage which she needs to be called on to apologize for.
Lilley is an aggressive conservator of staff power. She complains about the new bylaws which she never bothered to help hammer out, though meetings were held in the station for months, and she complains that people are elected to the LSB with as few as 400 votes - which is 400 votes more than she ever received (and just who does she represent in that case?).
She also disingenuously has stated that the power struggle at KPFA, much of it coming from the side of some of the staff which she never mentions, is endangering the licenses, and so blames elections.
She worries about consolidation of power, but she arrogates it for herself and her fellow staffers. This is sheer hypocrisy and propaganda. Quoting the CFO of Pacifica is like quoting the CFO of a for profit corporation. Lonnie Hicks often has had little grip on the history of costs and has made serious errors in his assessments, for instance once complaining alarmingly about out of control past expenses - which in fact turned out to be from Pacifica hiring armed thugs for $600,000 to "protect" KPFA from staff and listeners, not for legitimate network costs. She quotes him as it suits her.
We need to keep in mind that Lilley is one of the most aggressive but not only one within KPFA to feel as she does. I can understand anyone seeing problems with the democratic process, but to grossly personally insult those who disagree and to decry elections is odious and destructive to our grassroots efforts. I and many others did not spend large portions of the past 5 years in the streets and working for elections and transparency for us to be told, as Lilley recently said in public comment at an LSB meeting essentially to 'butt out'. She does not want to share power is the crux of it and sees listeners and activists as meddlers (except to send in your money).
She needs to look a lot longer in the mirror, and to apologize to the KPFA community.
-- John
>From : Sasha Lilley <sashalilley at yahoo.com>
Reply-To : lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Sent : Friday, August 20, 2004 12:13 PM
To : lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject : [lbo-talk] KPFA Staff Open Letter to the Local Station
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I do think the bylaws are a disaster. And even worse have been the actions of members on the LSBs who go beyond their mandate under the bylaws by trying to intervene into the daily business at the stations.
Can you honesty say that having an elected board is going to save KPFA and Pacifica from another takeover attempt? The actions of those on the LSBs - engaging in bizarre parliamentary manipulations, sabotaging essential station business, creating an unsafe working environment for both staff and fellow board members, slandering staff and management (for which litigation may be in process) -- has opened up the stations to intervention from the FCC and the state in this very hostile political climate. You are probably aware that both KPFA’s and KPFK’s licenses are up for renewal next year and these sorts of irresponsible and self-serving actions could very well lead to revocation.
Do the bylaws “empower the listeners” or just the very few that have the time and inclination to get involved? Is it the voice of all the listeners that are represented on the boards or just a small few who are harboring grudges dating back decades in some cases? Our membership numbers in the tens of thousands and our listenership in the hundreds of thousands and yet people were elected to the KPFA LSB with as few as 400 votes (see http://www.pacifica.org/elections/KPFA/details/index.html). What good is democracy if it leads to the rule of a small faction of people who are not representative, either politically or demographically, of the listeners as a whole? And you can talk about outreach all you like, but built into this system is the fact that, unlike those living on pensions, trust funds or SSI, the majority of working people don’t have the time to participate -- even if they wanted to, which itself is dubious from everything I’ve heard from listeners, excluding the grey haired 40 people who come to every LSB meeting with such regularity that you could save seats in advance for them all.
Having lived through the Mary Francis Berry era I am concerned once again about the concentration of power by Pacifica’s board -- albeit for different purposes, but with the same potential for destruction (I’d rather not respond to the penis-waving statements here about experience in the struggle [emphasis mine - js], except to note that I was a volunteer at KPFA at the time of the lockout and was out in the streets with tens of thousands of other people). One of the key issues during the struggle against the old regime was how Pacifica was draining the stations of revenue. Yet this year alone the costs of the LSBs, the elections, and the Pacifica National Board are projected to be $580,000 and it is expected that the coming elections will cost much more than last year’s, making the next fiscal year's expenses for governance even higher.
The June report from Pacifica’s Chief Financial Officer states: “The variance which is most worrisome is that of the [Local Station Board] elections. It shows a negative variance YTD in April of 138k. On projection, I have received word that the new elections this summer and fall will cost the network an additional 160k. This will bring the total election costs in this fiscal to a grand total of 347k. (I had projected 268k by fiscal end but this new figure supercedes that number.) This figure is 347k is 29% of the Network’s working capital figure! Governance costs here are actually higher when we include National Board expenses (168k), Board related legal expenses (50k), telephone costs (15k) all in one fiscal year. This totals 580k!.... Governance costs, projected at 580 thousand dollars are 48% of our required working capital, and 4.4% of our total expenses. This does not include other normal administrative expenses, insurance and other requirements. We, as a Network, cannot survive this kind of expense.”
http://www.pacifica.org/documents/pdf/Pacifica_CFO_Board_Report_April_and_May_2004.pdf
Instead of helping raise money for the stations - an essential part of the LSBs’ mandate - the governing structure has become a big drain on them. As an underpaid worker, and someone who routinely has to deal with outdated equipment at the station as do 200 other KPFA paid and unpaid staff, the costs of this (volunteer) bureaucratic stratum, intent on increasingly consolidating power, is really troubling.
Joseph Wanzala wrote: