Tuesday, Nov. 27th

At the LA LAB's informal meeting last night, David Fertig was chosen as rep to the tPNB. Many LAB members were present and the public filled the room. The LAB and the public interacted quite a lot.

Several KPFK staff members (five?) attended the meeting, and a letter was distributed that stated that the "full KPFK staff has expressed on multiple occasions that it does not recognize the current Local Advisory Board; since 1999 we have demanded that a LAB be formed that truly represents the station and our listeners." They warned that if the present LAB did not resign, another group would form itself as "the LAB."

These staff people were truly pathetic in their ignorance of Pacifica and K history. Their main spokesperson was a producer and an AFTRA rep (although he was primary speaker, I didn't note his name), also speaking was John Beaupre, host of the Morning Show. Both of these guys threatened the LAB. Also speaking were Terence Chang, K business manager since May (but admittedly cannot write checks), and a couple of other guys, one of whom I thought I recognized as a scab engineer. Emphasized was the "unanimity" of the staff position and the K rep seemed a bit surprised to learn that more than 150 paid and unpaid staff had been removed from the station in recent years. (Any wonder the current staff was unanimous? it's spelled p-u-r--g-e.)

It should be remembered that the station managers attempted to "manage" the board at the last PNB meeting in Virginia and the big boys did not like what they heard. Schubb, Ganter, Hankins, Doughtry are trying to hold on to their power at the stations. They apparently don't think that they need to behave in a manner responsive to national with respect to things like the gag rule and other policy matters that may be changing under their very noses. BTW, what Jim Bennett did to Dennis Bernstein aligns him with the others insofar as dictatorial actions are concerned. In my view, all 5 of these managers need to be ousted. Unfortunately, the vague PNB resolution passed on 11/18/01 states nothing specific about the station managers.

Among the so--called "Hot Issues" requiring a 2/3 vote for decision making can be found the following: "Issues related to the Outgoing Executive Director and other outgoing staff" That's as close as it gets despite Tomas Moran's on-air statements.

Nevertheless, my point is that the K's staff appearing at this LAB meeting is a manifestation of Schubb's (and Cooper's) grasping at last straws... to attack the LAB and the PNB in a ridiculous attempt at coercion in order to retain control.

However, in spite of all that, the LAB resolved that Dave Fertig was to approach the K staff to offer to take their comments and opinions to the tPNB.