Michael Albert's essay on Pacifica offers a number of suggestions for change at the network, some of which deserve particular response (Febuary 1997).

I agree wholeheartedly that local programming at the five Pacifica-owned stations is "key to developing community and addressing the life circumstances of those most responsible for and devoted to each station." Pacifica is committed to the continued primacy of local programming. Today, Pacifica stations are required only to air the 30-minute "Pacifica National News." All other nationally-produced programs, such as "Democracy Now!" or "We the People" with Jerry Brown, are optional. Remember, Pacifica stations broadcast an average of about 22 hours a day of locally-generated programming.

I also agree that our volunteers should be welcomed as part of some programming team. However, they are not "summarily dismissed," as you implied, but in the fast-changing work of radio, no volunteer -- or paid staffperson -- can be granted lifetime tenure on the air. Community stations need the flexibility to shift programming to keep pace with the constantly changing needs of our communities.

Volunteers and paid employees often indeed do have different interests, as Albert says, and that is why it makes no sense to have volunteers bargain for the wages and working conditions of employees -- exactly the result of recognizing volunteers as full union members. I agree that volunteers need and deserve a vehichle for impacting the direction of the organization and improving work conditions, but the union is not the appropriate one.

Pacificas governing board business meetings are and will remain open to the public. From time to time, the board will conduct private planning retreats, as is common practice for any non profit board, but no formal actions or votes are taken.

Albert blithely tosses out future scenarios of doom without supporting evidence. Will Pacifica eliminate grassroots fundraising and turn to large donors only? No one on staff or on the board has ever suggested such a strategy. Will we increase the numbers of listeners, or will we enlarge the political and social impact of the programming? A false choice, as the two are inextricably linked. These are phantom threats, spread by conspiratorial minds.

Pacifica offers the progessive community an effective means of communicating our common values and ideas to a broad audience, in spite of our current challenges. I fully expect the Pacifica family to make good on that promise in the months to come.

I appreciate your responding to my article although I think many points were not addressed, except in your dismissive reference to "conspiratorial minds." Since you are listening, however, I would like to add a point or two to my earlier thesis, again, as then, based on conversations with Pacifica employees, current and former.

Pacifica management has argued that individual on-air programmers control a powerful resource that is supposed to to serve justice, peace , equity, and diversity, and that shouldn't be twisted away from that agenda due to programmers' personal tastes or career desires.

Okay, I admit, I find that a compelling argument. Programmers certainly have a stake in their own shows and to that extent should have some say in them, but I agree with you that others have a stake in them as well, so that they too should have a say, or, at least have their interests well represented. Pacifica belongs to the progressive public and therefore should not be subject solely to the will of programmers, just by virtue of their longevity.

However, doesn't the same logic imply that Pacifica should not bend solely to an executive director's will? Or to the will of an executive director and a few other individuals? Doesn't the logic tell us that Pacifica's managers shouldn't be free to unilaterally elevate themselves to ever greater control, just as Pacifica programmers shouldn't unilaterally claim tenure in perpetuity? If managers have rightly reigned in programmers, who now reigns in managers?

How does a progressive institution mediate the needs of those who do the work and those who benefit from the product of their efforts? How should audiences and contributors impact policies? How should those who work each day within the institution be organized? What tyes of job definition and worker recourse should characterize a progressive media institution? Regarding both external and internal relations, one might plausibly ask: Is mimicking corporate structure the best way to build an institution to counter coporate agendas?

Pacifica embodies hundreds of dollars of assets and huge outreach potential. With all that capability come the possibility of a high degree of democratic accountability, not only internally, but to its audience as well.

Management doesn't want Pacifica hijacked or reduced in effectiveness by a few self-tenured programmers. I agree. Volunteeers and many employees and listeners don't want Pacifica hijacked or reduced in effectiveness by a few self-tenured managers. I agree with that, too. It may even be that nobody is trying to hijack Pacifica and that what exists is mostly a communication problem, but at a minimum folks associated with Pacifica distrust one another, and thwart one another. It doesn't take "conspiratorial minds" to reach this conclusion. It suffices to talk for ten minutes with vitrually anyone at the station.

So, I ask you: Why not take the initiative to resolve the situation constructively? Why not recognize that no narrowly-conceived group, mistrusted by those excluded, can chart a democratic path forward? Why not invite the progressive community that sustains Pacifica to create a "Board of Valuation," including whomsoever the progressive community deems worthy of serving on such a commission, to examine all sides of the current dispute and bylaws and structure of Pacifica, and to return a series of proposals for making Pacifica more responsive, progressive, and effective? This would be exemplary. The commission could later mediate other conflicts as well, should the need arise.

Sure, I know, the progressive community is amorphous and vague, so how does one create such a credible commission? Well, I think everyone involved would feel positive if you went to some individuals highly respected for their integrity and progressive progressive insight ( say, Barbara Ehrenreich, Noam Chomsky, Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader, Bell Hooks, among others), and to some organizations representative of diverse communities and committed to peace and justice (say the New Party, NOW, the Labor Party, and others), and said, okay, you people put a commission together and we will testify, provide documents and welcome testimony from all relevant parties, including Pacifica employees. We will then try as much as conditions permit to respect recomendations. All criticism would then end and instead of folks worrying that Pacifica is losing its way among corporate diversions, everyone would celebrate the choice to go forward democratically and would see it as an exemplary and praiseworthy act.

Pacifica "Free-Speech" Radio was born here in the Bay Area 47 years ago to present an unfettered, eclectic alternative voice to the closely controlled and much censored corporate press. But the Pacifica network’s current national management appears hell-bent on scrapping this sometimes brash, risky voice in favor of a more milk-toast liberal tone. Top managers are calculating that this shift will win them some political favors from some entrenched Democrats and a larger mainstream audience.

 One clear indication of the problem is illustrated by a "confidential" March 11 memo written by the network’s first-ever national Public Relations flack, Burt Glass. In what he describes as a "cheat sheet" for how station managers should answer anticipated tough questions such as:

 Q. "Why did Pacifica management hire [American Consulting Group (ACG)], a union-busting firm to deal with unionized workers?"

 A. "…To this day, we’ve been unable to verify these allegations."

Either Management is lying outright or simply not trying to find out the truth. ACG has a reputation among union organizers nation-wide as one of the most vicious anti-union firms in the country. A KPFA labor reporter called it "one of the worst." The Glass memo is study in professional dissembling. It bubbles over with tricky little half-truths and outright lies. In the list of canned Q&A primers, Glass deals with his own recent past as a front-line flack for the U.S. Justice Department’ Community Oriented Police Program, often known by the acronym COPS.

 Q. "Why did you hire a former press secretary for the Justice Department’s police hiring office? Isn’t that antithetical to Pacifica’s mission?"

 A. "Burt worked for the Justice Department’s office dealing with community policing, a crime fighting strategy that more fully involves the public and reconnects the police to the communities they are sworn to serve," Glass answers himself. "A good community policing program, for example, places less emphasis on reacting to 911 calls and more time preventing crime."

 No, it is not antithetical for Pacifica to hire or work closely with somebody who used to Work for the Justice Department. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, a major collaborator with Pacifica, used to work for the Justice Department as its chief enforcer.

 What is antithetical to the Pacifica mission is the fact that Glass, and now by clear association the people he represents, would continue to publicly laud a program like COPS. The truth is that COPS -- funded under the Draconian 1994 anti-crime bill – is nothing more than a smoke screen to expand police budgets and police power. Indeed, some of the most brutal police departments in America have been the recipients of millions in community policing funds – funds that have been used to further abuse and terrorize the poor communities they are "sworn to serve."

 Consider the case of the current police chief of St. Petersburg, Florida. Chief Darrel Stephens was a key adviser to Glass’s former publications team at COPS. In a letter accompanying his department’s annual report, Stephen boasts of the positive impact of the COPS "policing philosophy" on community relations. "…We hope these accomplishments will be the foundation for expanding…the concept," concludes the chief.

 In St. Petersburg, the "concept" has boiled down to several years of out-of-control cops roughing up and shooting African-Americans at the drop of a hat. Last winter, angry residents of the city took to the streets in a spontaneous outpouring of outrage after a brutal killer cop was given a walk by the grand jury. Stephen’s "COPS" response was to detain local activists and break up community organizing meetings.

 What is antithetical to the Pacifica mission is the pro-police notion articulated by President Bill Clinton in announcing additional funding for COPS last may: Reading from the old right-wing script that the top priority in the fight against crime is to create bigger police forces, the President stated that "the single most important thing we can do to reduce crime is to put more police on the streets."

According to a July 10, 1996 COPS memo, the program was responsible for "an increase of almost 20 percent to the country’s police ranks." At the same time, we have seen a soaring incarceration rate, accompanied by a huge prison construction boom and major cuts in programs for the poor.

 Another cops memo from Glass’s COPS PR team suggests "several innovative ways" for local jurisdictions to raise the 25 percent "local match" required to get their cut of the COPS cash. Included among the eye-popping suggestions are siphoning money out of sorely needed Housing and Community (HUD) subsidies and soliciting corporate donations. (The specter of cop cars sporting billboards for Texaco and Wells Fargo is not far off.)

In a recent 6:00 AM raid in Vallejo, 60 cops teamed up with welfare and medical-fraud investigators to invade a low-income housing project and rout scores of sleepy residents.

Police Lieutenant Tony Pearsall, a COPS conduit in Vallejo, called it "the ultimate strike." Is this what Burt Glass envisions that cops should be doing, while "plac[ing] less emphasis on reacting to 911 calls" and true community emergencies?

 "Just as the Reserve Officer Training Candidate (ROTC) program has provided the military with its future leaders," wrote Glass’s former program Director Joseph Brann, "we believe the COPS police core program will do the same law enforcement." As Pacifica workers, we are are not impressed by this comparison, given the results of such training exemplified by ROTC graduates who participated in the Vietnam War and the invasion of Panama.

Pacifica’s secretive top-management now requires a front person to cover their ill-advised and, perhaps, illegal actions that have very little to do with furthering radical free speech radio. The tone of the March 11 memo – and the very misleading "cheat sheet" to deceive listener supporters and the public, along with the hiring of a pro-police PR flack with little real understanding of Pacifica’s mission – are all quite antithetical to that mission.

We say power to the people -- not the police. It's time for Pacifica's top brass, along with its new mouthpiece, to take a powder. Long live listener-sponsored, uncensored, free-speech radio. Van Jones works for Bay Area Police Watch. Andrea Pritchett works with Berkeley CopWatch. The writers of this open letter also include some two dozen current and former Pacifica workers and friends. They remain anonymous for fear of retribution by management against those still working for the network.

 Postscript: The writers of this open letter include some two dozen current and former Pacifica workers and friends. It remains unsigned for fear of retribution by management against those still working for the network.