PACIFICA NATIONAL BOARD REPORT
and a call to attend 
the next National Board meeting

by Alice Chan 
11/1/99

 

The Pacifica National Board’s actions were designed from the beginning to intimidate the listener/staff/LAB delegation and to keep the board from being forced to listen to what the delegation had to say. For instance:

1. They used the fire in the storage area of the KPFT (Houston) station as a reason to "beef up" the security around the Doubletree Hotel, where the Board meeting was held.
2. The security officers would not allow any member of the delegation to enter the board meeting room without having briefcases, purses, and other bags be subject to search. I asked one security officer, a Mr. Moore, if the amount of security within and outside the meeting room was normal for a meeting of this type. He replied that it was "not much more than normal." I asked if it was usual for them to search the belongings of people entering such a meeting, and he replied that it was, "when there has been a death threat." I then asked if anyone in the board-room had received a death threat, and after a hesitation, he said I’d have to ask them.
3. Once we were permitted into the room for an open meeting, our delegation, which contained several journalists, began setting up video and audio taping equipment. Ken Jones of the board came to the front of the room and demanded that all taping halt immediately. We asked him what law allowed him to make such a demand, and the board then called hotel security. We asked the security officers if they knew of such a law, when a public open meeting is involved, and security said no, so taping continued.
4. Later that afternoon, there was an attempt to close all future open sessions of the board at the Doubletree Hotel, due to the "threat to public safety" that our delegation posed. We found an alternate meeting site, and offered to pay for increased security ourselves, with the stipulation that if the board did not accept our offer, it was incumbent upon them to assure that meetings held at the Doubletree be open per CPB regulations. The next day, the hotel said that they would allow us in, but that Texas law forbids disrupting a public meeting, and that they had given the Board latitude to establish what constituted disruption. They stated that we would be arrested after one warning.
5. Finally, at the beginning of the public comment portion of the meeting, suddenly we were informed that instead of lining up at the podium to speak, there was a list that had to be signed. No one had noticed this list as we entered the room, so this forced an undignified scramble as people crowded around a piece of paper to sign. One "authorized" speaker attempted to cede his time to a woman who had not managed to get onto the list, and she was verbally intimidated by Mary Frances Berry as she spoke. The subtle result of the last-minute establishment of this list was that Garland Ganter, the very controversial station manager of KPFT who was called in to manage KPFA during the crisis in the summer of ’99, was put last on the list and was allowed to have the final word of praise to the Board.

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