Pacifica National Board Met with Town Meetings and Protests in Houston

by Juan Gonzalez, Sam Husseini, Edited by Lee Loe

(1812 words)

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NEW YORK CITY, NY, March 7, 2001 - Juan Gonzalez: I am pleased to report that I returned several days ago from a weekend of inspiring protest and national organizing at the March 2 - March 4 Pacifica National Board meeting in Houston. More than 100 listeners flew into Houston from all around the country to join with hundreds of Houston-area residents in what turned into a terrific three days of resistance against the corporate clique now running the Pacifica National Board.

The weekend got off to a great start Friday with a picket and press conference in front of the offices of Pacifica Board Chair David Acosta, a Houston CPA. [Members from Pacifica Campaign in New York journeyed to Houston to work with Houston activists to organize this event.] There, the Pacifica Campaign unveiled our new brochure exposing the malfeasance and corporate background of the rogue Pacifica Board members. (Houstonians call 713-524-2682 for copies.)

Sam Husseini, Washington, D.C.: Several people spoke - from Houston, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and particularly from WBAI. I spoke briefly and stressed the fact that Pacifica management was going after the political/progressive stations KPFA in Berkeley and WBAI in New York, while stations like KPFT in Houston and WPFW in DC, which are music-oriented and were politically gutted years ago, are lauded by Pacifica management - when the inauguration protests happen, when the Supreme Court stops the vote count, when thousands are in the streets protesting the World Bank and the IMF in DC - WPFW plays jazz. The Houston Chronicle and local Fox affiliate were among the media there. [The Chronicle article which resulted was neither accurate nor comprehensive.]

Juan: The Houston Committee for Peoples Radio and the Harris County Green Party organized a packed meeting of about 300 people Friday night at the MECA Center [Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts], a vibrant community center in the heart of the city.

Sam: The evening included music - by MECA’s Youth Mariachi Band, vegetarian food - from the Hari Krishnas, and speakers - Juan Gonzalez, Amy Goodman, Bernard White, Mimi Rosenberg (all from WBAI) and Duane Bradley, a former manager of KPFT. About 300 people attended. I’d estimate that there were 20 people from the Bay area, as many as 80 from NYC, and a very few from LA and DC. The Houston LAB is mostly a small [only 9 members, 2 of them from the KPFT staff!], insular group - it is the only LAB that is not part of the LAB lawsuit. But clearly events of this weekend did much to energize activists in Houston on this issue. For example, a Houston Peace News editor put out a Pacifica Notebook for the occasion, a strong issue on the crisis of democracy at Pacifica.

On Saturday morning, the Pacifica board held a meeting at the Doubletree Hotel that was closed to the public. I understand that a few activists got in and disrupted it briefly just by walking in and acting like they belonged there. While the board met in secret, all the LAB members present at the meeting in Houston - some 30 people - met and a statement was drafted by a person from each station. Though people didn’t know each other for the most part, there was a strong cohesion at this meeting, as well as others; however, there needs to be follow up and better communication between the LABs - http://www.stationadvisoryboards.org can help in this.

There were protests outside the hotel as these meetings went on and this generated a sympathetic, well-researched story in the Houston Chronicle. In many ways what happened in Houston was a mini-Seattle: a revolt against the PNB majority with direct action supporting the dissidents on the board and the LABs, just as the protests in Seattle supported the developing nations at the WTO.

On Saturday afternoon, the Pacifica board meeting was opened for public comment. So many people were there that many - myself included - couldn’t get in initially. The next day, the Pacifica board booked a bigger room. Clearly, without the abrasive style of Mary Frances Berry at the helm - and with significant legal victories - a "kinder, gentler" Pacifica management was on display with the immediate public comment period. All the public comments were critical of Pacifica management. Thanemori Sandarajan of the KPFA LAB read the joint statement of LAB members at the meeting (it along with the other public comments, is available at http://www. freespeechnow.org).

Bertram Lee, board member from the DC area almost got into a scuffle with Tomas Moran, a dissident board member from the Bay area. [Another board member and a Houston policeman held him back, and the audience began to "suggest" that we needed no police and he should leave.] Lee also shouted out when Juan Gonzalez, who recently resigned from "Democracy Now," talked about his newly-launched Pacifica Campaign - http://www.pacificacampaign.org - to dislodge the current board.

There was a fair amount of apparent irregularities in Pacifica’s books that were touched upon by a new accountant, Holloway I believe is his name.

Juan: On Saturday night hundreds jammed a "Super Town Meeting" at the [First] Unitarian Universalist Church in Houston’s Flower District. [This description is correct, but the official designation is Museum District]. The town meeting was titled "The Crisis of Democracy at Pacifica Radio," and speakers brilliantly "covered the waterfront;" or perhaps they stripped these complicated issues bare, producing more of a "full Monte" effect?

The crowd was enlightened and energized, thanks to our panelists - David Cobb (expert on corporations, member Green Party, Houston), Maria Gilardin (KPFA LAB and producer, Berkeley), David Adelson (KPFA LAB and Pacifica historian, Los Angeles), Carol Spooner (chief plaintiff, listeners’ lawsuit, Berkeley), Tomas Moran (free speech PNB member), Mimi Rosenberg (banned WBAI labor show producer), Juan Gonzalez (former co-host of Democracy Now). Houston’s Duane Bradley, former KPFT programer and program director, welcomed the attentive crowd with a short recap of the "blandishment" of KPFT and moderator Steve Lender kept things running smoothly.]

Meanwhile, at the DoubleTree Hotel, the Pacifica meeting was ringed by police and protesters all weekend. The board, already on the defensive from our growing campaign, quickly give up its plan to have most of its sessions in secret. It was forced on two [not the usual one] occasions to hold a public comment period.... The protests empowered the six dissident members of the board to temporarily beat back a set of proposed new bylaws. [After it was tabled, a resolution was passed to hold 10 town meetings - 2 per signal area - organized by the station managers and the LABs, to establish a process to re-write the by-laws and study the policies of Pacifica. This resolution which would, hopefully, facilitate dialog with the listeners was supported by the free speech advocates on the PNB.]

The corporate clique that is temporarily running the network came with a phalanx of specialists hired with listener money, including lawyers, security, and a new PR rep Fred Winters of New York. The PR flak handed out a lie-filled fact sheet that denounced Pacifica protesters as racist, sexist and violent. The fact sheet also contained lies about Amy Goodman and Democracy Now!, which Winters was subsequently forced to change in front of a Houston reporter after Amy challenged his allegations.

The Pacifica Campaign was able to learn a couple of important facts. Fundraising at Pacifica station KPFK was down $70,000, from a goal of $540,000 to an actual amount pledged of $470,000. WBAI’s figures claim to have raised $802,000 of an $816,000 goal. But that number is an illusion.

First, WBAI lowered its goal from an average of $950,000 for most drives to $816,000 because interim manager Utrice Leid knew that her takeover had sparked widespread opposition. Second we have learned from sources within BAI that as much as one-third of listeners who pledged money did so conditionally, i.e., they will only send their checks if the fired staff at WBAI are rehired. Because of those factors, we estimate at that WBAI is down at least $400,000 (or more than 40 percent) from its previous drives. That is an enormous financial problem for them. And even the money that was raised happened only because Leid extended the fund drive to three weeks - the longest drive in recent WBAI history.

In addition, we learned that WBAI is budgeting as much as $23,000 for security and planning to install surveillance cameras inside the station. We believe these kind of steps send a chilling effect throughout the station and, indeed, the network.

And the Pacifica Campaign held a Saturday morning meeting with organizers from around the country, laying the groundwork for coordinated national actions against Pacifica Board members.

In short, we accomplished several major objectives at the board meeting:

We and others prevented the board from changing any bylaws or stacking the board with more members supportive of the corporate clique; We managed to do extensive education of listeners in the Houston area through our public forums and through articles in the Houston Chronicle that reported our protests.

We succeeded in creating an on-going nucleus for the Pacifica Campaign in Houston. We established close ties with activists in other parts of the country who are fighting to reform Pacifica.

Opponents of this board have been empowered by this past weekend, and the corporate clique on the board is already beginning to fight among themselves.

Just for good measure, there was a protest Monday outside the offices of Pacifica board treasurer Micheal Palmer. He works at CB Richard Ellis, the largest commercial real estate services firm in the world that boasts of developing maquiladoras in Mexico. The rogue board members, and their agents, are clearly beginning to feel the heat.

We urge you to keep up the boycott. Give no money to any Pacifica station. Urge your friends and neighbors to do the same. Redirect your contributions to those fighting to save Pacifica. Your contributions enabled us to send several people to Houston and to print the first pieces of literature on the campaign. Please keep up your support. Send a check to our campaign or to the fund for the legal suits against the Pacifica board, or to the free speech radio group organized by striking Pacifica reporters. And most of all, get involved. Together we will win.

[For news of the Sunday morning PNB meeting, see "Listeners Unite on Statement to the Pacifica National Board."]

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Juan Gonzalez, former co-host with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!: Exception to the Rulers and founder of The Pacifica Campaign, 51 MacDougal St., #80, NY, NY 10012; Tel: (646) 230-9588; www.paci ficacampaign.org; pacificacampaign@ yahoo.com.

Sam Husseini, Chair of the WPFW LAB and Executive Director of Institute for Public Accuracy, National Press Building, Washington, DC 20045; 202-347-0020.

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