Having been a Pacifica Radio listener/sponsor, I consider myself an integral member of the station. Listener-sponsors provide more than two-thirds of Pacifica's total funding. Every fund drive we are told how important our participation is. Yet we find that when it comes to programming and policies, we have no voice and we are not participants. We may participate only by giving, or withholding, money.

Pacifica stations boast that because they accept no corporate funding, they cannot be told what to broadcast. Who does have a say in what Pacifica does? Why do we, the primary source of support, have no formal power within this public service institution?

Pacifica is undergoing major internal restructuring that includes significant alterations in its programming approach. Changes in structure are being made which concentrate power in the hands of a few managers and board members, whose actions are not subject to review by those who are affected by their decisions. This is being done in the name of efficiency. 

These important changes have been, and continue to be, made without our knowledge, without our input, and without our consent, by an administration whose composition we have had no say in. We consider the absence of public input into these decisions, and the lack of formal accountability of Pacifica officials to the listener-sponsors, to be cause for serious concern. 

Fundamentally, we assert that Pacifica does not "belong" to its governing board or its administration. It belongs to all who support it with their work, their time, and their money. Pacifica's structure should reflect the stake we each hold in it. 

We demand mechanisms to insure that the Pacifica administration is accountable to Pacifica's listener-sponsors, and that it cannot, without our informed consent, define which audiences it will serve and which it will abandon.  

We call, minimally, for the following two simple yet crucial changes: 

1) Regular and frequent communication about Pacifica policy with the listeners. This must include a regularly scheduled radio program in which listeners, volunteers, workers, board members, and management discuss matters of substance in a moderated, roundtable format.  

2) The right for listener-sponsors, workers, and volunteers, to elect a majority of local advisory board members and a majority of governing board at-large members.