Although the September (15-17) PNB meeting was originally scheduled for the New York City area, the executive committee has decided to return to the Double Tree Hotel in the Crystal City area of Arlington, VA. This is where the February 2000 meeting was held. The June 2000 meeting was held at another very expensive DC hotel. The closest airport is National Airport (AKA Reagan). It may be that we won’t see a Board meeting outside of the Washington DC area again until the Board has been removed and replaced with members who honor Pacifica’s original mission. It is obvious that these people cannot face listeners in the New York, Los Angeles or Berkeley station areas.

After a series of gatherings, meetings and one great picnic, a roster of diverse candidates for the KPFA LAB election has been assembled. Nomination packets were received or downloaded by nearly 40 people. According to John Sheridan, "We have two candidates from the South Bay, one from Davis, one from Sacramento, three from North Bay, two from Marin, several from SF. We have one labor candidate, one from Argentina and one differently enabled candidate." The LAB election committee provides this information: "Three members of the current LAB have chosen to ‘grandparent’ in, so this election will seat 11 new listener representatives from among approximately 25 candidates. We expect 10 women, 7 people of color, and 3 people under 30 among those 25."

Ballots will be mailed in mid-September and will be due back in mid-October. KPFA is supporting the elections and will have their mailing house print and mail the ballots to all subscribers. In addition to paper ballots which must be completed and returned, voters will have the option of voting on-line through the secure Internet voting service being provided through a significant in-kind donation by eBallot.net, Inc. Votes cast by Internet will supercede paper ballots. The Internet voting window will take place late in the voting period in October. Details about the Internet voting option will be available at the KPFA Election website. The Election Committee hopes this option will help to increase voting by younger listeners and KPFA voters who will take the opportunity to vote electronically.

Again, from John Sheridan, "KPFA has enthusiastically committed itself to working with the candidates and the Election Committee during the balloting to develop on-air programming to give listeners the opportunity to hear each of the candidates speak about why they want to serve the community on the LAB." He continues, "Election programming may take the form of programs dedicated to the candidates’ views with listener call-ins and also recorded statements by the candidates which would play throughout the day." Further, "This election may be a race against time with reports that Pacifica has moved against WBAI by taking over their books. Can KPFA be far behind? A community-elected Local Advisory Board will make any moves by Pacifica against KPFA that much harder to get away with. The station is in danger and we hope that everyone who can, will vote."

During the Republican Convention Ralph Nader suddenly turned up on the floor of the convention hall giving interviews and expressing his take on the event. As it turns out, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! smuggled Ralph into the convention using her Pacifica press pass. The Republicans were none too happy about this and prevailed upon Pacifica to pull Amy’s credentials allowing her access to the Democratic Convention. Substitute press credentials were found at the last moment and Amy was able to cover the DNC. Garland Ganter, of KPFA takeover fame, had the pleasure of yanking Amy’s passes. Word is that Garland’s son was seen with one of Amy’s passes. One wonders why Pacifica is so responsive to the Republican Party’s displeasure and yet so unresponsive to their own listener/sponsors.

In the last few weeks Bessie Wash has been traveling the country visiting Pacifica stations. She met at KPFA with a group of people from the KPFA Steering Committee including some staff and community leaders. She said she was here to "listen" and to "put things behind us (see below)." Carol Spooner, who was present at the meeting says, "[Bessie] had nothing substantive to say about what concrete steps she would take to accomplish any of that. [She] implied that there is little she can do but ‘support all my managers’ -- the rest is up to the board." Steve Yasko was there and was introduced as the new National Program Director. There have been some "surprise and secretive" meetings at WBAI this week. Bessie Wash arrived "unannounced" and tied up the management and producers for the better part of a day.

What would it take to "put this behind" us? Here's my list:

1) An apology to the KPFA staff and community for causing them to be arrested during their defense of KPFA "free-speech radio," and compensation to them for any legal expenses incurred as a result of these arrests.

2) An apology to the international journalistic community for introducing armed security personnel from IPSA into KPFA -- persons with CIA, FBI, and other "law enforcement" backgrounds -- and permitting them to rifle journalists' files, photograph, video tape, dust for fingerprints, and otherwise breach the confidentiality of journalists with their sources.

3) An apology to Nicole Sawaya, Larry Bensky, Robbie Osman, Dennis Bernstein, Dan Coughlin, Verna Avery-Brown, the Pacifica free-lance reporters, FAIR, and all others censored in and/or fired for reporting on the takeover of Pacifica and attacks on its journalistic integrity.

4) An offer to restore anyone fired or "reassigned" or who resigned in protest over the past year's KPFA and Pacifica crisis to his or her former position with back pay.

5) The resignations and/or firing of all station managers who participated in censoring Democracy Now!, PNN, and/or FAIR reports on events surrounding the KPFA shutdown, including Lew Hankins, Mark Schubb, Garland Ganter, and Bessie Wash (now promoted to Executive Director).

6) The repeal of bylaws amendments that eliminated the rights of the station local community advisory boards to elect 2/3rds of the Pacifica National Directors.

7) The resignation of every director on the Pacifica Board, and the immediate election of 10 new "interim" directors by the 5 local station advisory boards.

8) The formation of a national committee to revise the Pacifica Bylaws to provide for legal "membership" status and voting rights for listener-sponsors, and for democratic procedures for electing local station boards and the National Pacifica board.

9) The formation of a national committee to investigate and report on the causes of the crisis at Pacifica and make recommendations on how to prevent such occurrences in the future, such investigation to include a complete audit of Pacifica books for the past decade, and an investigation into all governmental agency (including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) interference with internal Pacifica policies, procedures, governance, board appointments, programming decisions and editorial matters.

10) The formation of a national committee to review and recommend an internal organizational structure for Pacifica in conformity with its peace and social justice mission, and the principles of egalitarianism, collaboration, mutual respect, and journalistic integrity necessary to carry out that mission.

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