Conversation between Jeff Blankfort of Take Back KPFA and Lester Latney, Inspector General of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 7/29/96 Recorded with mutual consent. ********************************************************************** **** LL.....Oh, fine. And how you doing, sir? JB: Oh, pretty good. Yeah, I'm glad you got my message. So you...I wanted to.. LL: Before we get started, I just wanted to let you know...do you have any problem with me taping this conversation? JB: Well, actually I was going to ask you the same thing. This is not my complaint..It's a number of people who wante to find out what we were going to be talking about. Rather than making notes, I was going to ask you. So, it's fine with me. LL: Oh, OK JB: If it's fine with you... LL: Alright, sure JB: I also hope you're going to be sending us a formal letter acknowledging the complaint, I presume. LL: What? Acknowledging that I received the complaint? JB: Or that you're acting on it..or whatever LL: I hadn't planned on it..But I was gonna basically send you something that will address the results of our ....... JB: That's...that's what I'm asking LL: What I'd like to do is just discuss each.....you indicated violations in your letter. JB: Sure. LL Well, I guess, about six of them.. JB: I don't have the exact number. I have the letter here, though. LL: OK. So what I'd like to do is just get some more information on your concerns regarding what you wrote in the letter to me. JB: Well, actually it was a group letter. LL: Should I be talking to several of you at the same time? JB: Well, it would be kind of difficult because we all have different schedules but basically that's the idea of taping it....you can give your ideas on it. And, basically...Do you have any questions about any of the things we put in here? LL: I just wanted to go over each one with you. JB:Oh, sure, OK.. LL: ..to get some information from you. I really don't have anything to report to you at the present time. I just wanted to make sure I'm clear on what your specific concerns are. Ok, on page, I guess, page 2..... JB: 2..the first one, the bottom of the page..... LL: Violation of open meeting laws... JB: Now, that was...we received a draft of the minutes of the Board, which it says there, and it says that all the Finance Committee meetings would be in executive session. I reminded the Board of that at the Houston meeting, and said that that was against the regulations, and I was concerned that because Pacifica had been criticized by people in Congress, that there was real questions about the risks we'd be taking in being so open about violating the regulations. Particularly Finance Committee meetings are not supposed to be in executive session. That was the nature of this first complaint. In fact, all the committee meetings are held in executive session without any prior notification. This has been an old practice. The fact is, it has come up because of the general closing down of the general meetings. LL: OK. You're saying that ..that even today those meetings are private. JB: They're private, yes. The committee meetings are never announced or open. They're either held the day before the formal Board meeting itself..but according to our reading of the regulations, they should be open as well, and people expressed interest, at least minimally, in attending them. LL:: OK, alright. Item 2.... JB: Basically, that was the first problem. I was sent down there as a representative of Take Back KPFA, and the meeting schedule, which is attached as an appendix, indicated only one hour of the two day meeting would be in executive session. When I attended the meeting, as did several people from Houston, and it was told it would be the reverse...that the schedule wasn't the schedule ...that only one hour, the first hour, would be in open session, and a number of items that would have ordinarily have been in open session were now in executive session. Up until at least..through `93-94, I attended a meeting in Los Angeles in `93. The General Managers reports were always in open session. That seems to be not done anymore. They were going to have a report, which I saw on the table, on our Arbitron ratings --this is all stuff that doesn't have anything to do with personnel----they told us that all this had to do with personnel. There are a number of different stories coming from different people. They didn't have their stories together, but essentially the overall thrust was that this was personnel matters. LL: OK, you know, I'm just trying to follow your concern all the way through JB: Now, their supposed to make...if a meeting is closed , pursuant to the provisions of this paragraph, as you see down toward the bottom of page three.. they are supposed to make a report available to the public...a written statement with the explanations for closing the meeting. We asked Jack O'Dell to send us this , but we got no response to the entire letter to O'Dell. LL: OK. And you haven't heard anything from him as of today? JB: No, no. We sent a copy to him, a copy to Pat Scott, and a copy to the lawyers in Washington, and we received a mailer that said the lawyers and Pat Scott had received it, through the certified mail route, but in Canada, its anaothr situation, so, but since the Executive Director and the lawyers received it, I presume that O'Dell is aware of it...but in any case we had no acknowledgement that he received the letter. LL: OK. alright. Item 3..... JB: That was the next meeting which took place in Los Angeles. According to people in Los Angeles, KPFK had announced that there would be a three hour Board meeting and there were about 50 people there, many that had driven many miles , and immediately it was announced that they were going into executive session. The actual total time of the public meeting was 45 minutes. Now the Board told the people there that they had been in the retreat, and in fact they're not holding business meetings , but during the report. it came out that they had actually had committees meet, because the committees made their recommendations. Now, their position, I guess it isn't in the letter here, is well "we don't make decisions in retreat." But in fact, the committee reports are always approved by the full board, not by the committees themselves, so that argument doesn't hold much water. Evidently, the last meeting was held in Washington, they went into retreat again. So, I don't know the exact time, I wasn't there, and I don't know anyone who timed the meeting, butthey now have taken this as a norm of holding their business sessions, that used to be held in public, in private, in executive session. LL: OK. When you use the word "retreat," ... JB: That's their word... LL: They're not going off to some..... JB: No, no, no. They're retreat is in the same hotel where they hold the meeting. LL: Well, OK. So "retreat" means.. JB: They're idea of kind of getting together and talking things over.. LL: Like at dinner? JB: They evidently...the schedule was not made available to us..they were at least all day retreats. But "retreat" has become a common term for organizations and groups that sometimes have personnel conflicts ..things like that..so that people get to know each other better, they have retreats. Retreats are usually held in some remote place where people can kinda get down, so to speak, and be more relaxed with each other. It seems these retreats are more disguised to be discussion sessions with the public not included. So there were committee reports made during the brief public time, people were not aware in most cases of what they were referring to, because the committees had met in the "retreat." And again, I guess they did it...these retreats are ..organizations will hold them periodically. Now Pacifica seems to put them as part of the regular schedule. Becuase I do also, understand that at the next meeting, which is going to be in New York....one moment please (call waiting)..In any case I understood there's a possibility at the next meeting in New York that they will have a retreat again. This was what I gathered from one of the local board reps who was at the last meeting...so, there doesn't seem to be any response to Pacifica..by Pacifica of this questioning of the closing off of the meetings, and what seems to be a violation of the open meeting law. Their retreats don't seem to fall into the categories of those types of discussions like personnel, litigation and proprietary information that are exempted from the regulations. LL: OK, alright. So, I guess the same thing holds for concern number 4... JB: Let's see...what page.....meanwhile Pacifica has held all the meetings in between meetings in executive session...that is nothing new, but people became aware of it ..pointing to the regulations which Pacifica is supposed to abide by. Committee meetings should be open, so that information concerning their wherabouts should be made available. LL: OK, item 5 JB: Now this is what is considered very serious, and could be _________by some of the stations, in Los Angeles and New York..that according to the regulations the advisory board should not be tampered with by the governing board..and this particular memo which was perhaps addressed to concerns around Los Angeles, was sent in which two , two things...the first...that latter part refers to actually refers to violation 5...telling Advisory Boards that they are beholden ...and a function of the will of the executive board, flies in the face of the regulations. That's simply not what an Advisory Board is supposed to be doing, or a governing board doing in relation to an Advisory Board...they should be strictly separate. For example, here at KQED, in San Francisco, a few blocks from me, dos have advertised public meetings of its board. The advisory board meets with them, but they don't tamper with the advisory board. The advisory board is a separate board..with governing board..Pacifica treats its advisory board as if it is workig for them and nor for the community. In fact members of the Advisory Board, local Advisory Board won't even see the National Board minutes, are not allowed to see them..except for the two members who go from National Board to thr locasl board, the rest of the members from the local Board are not aware of what the Board actions are other than the two of three minute report they get at the local advisory board meeting. Which means, on a couple of occasions, members of Take Back KPFA Group, have informed members of the local advisory board of actions thatPacifica National Board has taken...which they should have known without us having to tell them. So, what's happened is the advisory board was partly left out in the dark. Those who are on the advisory board who are programmers , are now according to the new by-law passed by Pacifica, last year at the Houston meeting, the board passed a by-law amendment saying that no programmers can serve on the national board. Which then eliminates any possibility of any person who is actually connectd to the station in a programming way really knowing what `s going on with the network, with the Foundation. LL: OK..in violation 6...hold on a minute..if I can go back for a moment..you say that programmers can not be on the Board.. JB: According to a by-law amendment passed at the Houston meeting, any one who does programming, works on programming more than 4-5 hours a month can not serve on the national board. This was a ...this came up at the Houston Board meeting, the representative from Los Angeles asked that...this was in a public session..the representative from Los Angeles suggested this was such a radical departure from past Pacifica history, that it should go back to the local boards and stations for discussion...and he asked that it be tabled,,this was defeated by a nine to one vote. So, at the local advisory board here, it was not reported by our representatives , and I was the one who reported this had happened.. The local advisory board members then voted , and asked the governing board to reconsider this decision they had madeon the by-law, and according to what happened, there was no mechanism for the board to do this. The Executive board, not the full board of Pacifica, the Executive board, did consider it and rejected making any change. So, the by-law amendment has been changed. I don't know that it, I don't believe it isn't..has any link to any or is covered by any federal regulation , but by prohibiting programmers from serving on the national board., Pacifica's taken one more step away from the, from its connection to its radio responsibilities, in connection to its programming staff. LL: That's a...that's a tough one there. JB:: You see there were...historically, there have been people on the board who hav actually been active programmers on the station, and that's not allowed anymore. LL: I understand.It's not uncommon for stations to have a board of directors and no one on the board is ..there are no employees of the station on the board. JB: I understand that's very common. Pacifica, as you're aware, is an uncommon situation. One of the problems is the fact that Pacifica , maybe no others, but as far as I'm aware , there's no other comparable situation where the actual governing board is not in the local community..that in fact it becaomes an absentee board. The Pacifica Board has not met here, in the bay area, since 1995, and will not meet again here at a minimum until June of next year, if it meets here at all then, will be a 2 and one half year absence between the meetings in this area of the governing board, which is kind of a ..makes it into an absentee landlord, and makes it and makes it difficult for anyone to question the authority that's determining what's going on at the station. LL: I understand. Let me ask...what mechanism have been used to , to improve the communication, to improve the lines of communications between Take Back Kpfa and the management of Pacifica ? JB: We have written letters ..we have sent a letter requesting a meeting which we were told was never received ..we did manage to have the advisory board hold a large public meeting last year, which over 400 people attended, as did the KPFA management. Pat Scott has not attended, although she lives here, any of these meetings , and mostof the people came who lined up, people spoke there , all long time supporters, had different things to say ..but most of them were very critical of the way the station and Pacifica have been moving, and the board members and KPFA management would listen to this without responding. Similar metings were held in Palo Alto where the management, the management were able to make their statement ..we actually wanted to have a public debate on this issue, but management would not consent to a debate framework. We have gone to advisory meetings and actually have a fairly friendly relationship with them , the local advisory board, it's very collegial, it's not adversarial, and we had asked them to make certain changes . In fact, they were meeting in a very small room, for a while. The board room at the new building was small enough so that if all the board members were there, there wasn't room enough for them around the table. There was room for only half a dozen visitors. Then they would close the doors at 7:30, when the meeting started, downstairs, and people couldn't come in....and we made a request to them to move the meetings down to the music room downstairs which has more room, to announce the board meetings on the air and in the folio, and to keep the door open during the meetings . They did hold the first meeting in a larger room, and they will be doing the announcing of the local board meetings and keeping the door open as well, so . we're moving forwardin that area. The problem remains that management itself...I mean there's now questions the board asks of management and they're .....there are some conflicts, I believe, there that are going to be developing. But, one of the problems that we've encountered is that the management, Pat Scott, I may have told you, I've known her quite a long period of time, she was a friend as is Jack O'Dell---I'd been in his home when he lived in Washington, and I had actually, going back when the first problems began, back in early `93. I called Jack in Washington to tell him what was going on here, as a friend, because I was pretty concerned about what was happening at the station, and I really thought as the chair of the board he should know ...and we spoke maybe about 45 minutes to an hour. At the Houston board meeting, I brought to all the board memebers all the newspaper clippings and information on what had taken place here so they would all know what the atmosphere here was , in the area, about certain changes in direction in programming that's taken place. Jack was not at that meeting, so when I came back, I made a $40, 40 minute phone call to Vancouver to kind of fill him in on what had happened . I felt, as a personal friend, and also I care, and personally did not want the situation to be come confrontational. Unfortunately, Pat Scott put out a scurrilous press release accusing us of all kinds of violent behaviors , threats and things like that, which were not true. As a matter of fact, they even said on the air here that the management , the local, and Pat had received threats on their telephone answering machines and so on. We asked if they had reported these to the police, and they said yes. I and one other person checked with the Berkeley police and there were no reports made of any threats. So, there are people out here, who are really enraged, who are not part of Take Back KPFA, about certain changes, but as far as I know , and the Berkeley police said we have not had any reports of any kind of threats, so what happened is, by attacking us and calling us agent provocateurs, the management has madeit very difficult for us to sit down with them. One of the people in the group, Maria Gilardin, who is a former programmer and develeopment director at KPFA, was at the meeting in Los Angeles in `93, when she and I raised $1400 hundred dollars, so we drove down, and at that meeting, she had just been elected to the advisory board by the staff, and she was bringing down a statement that she was going to read, from the advisory board. I was bringing down a statement from a group called Save KPFA, which preceded this, Take Back KPFA. Jacj said....Maria mentioned we had group statements to read as well as individual statements , and Jack said we could read the brief statement at the end of the meeting, we could read the individual statement . There were a number of protestors there from KPFK, maybe about 40 people were picketing , mostly people of color who were referring to people being plantation radio and so on...(garbled)..and some of the people hadbeen taken of the air there, a number of problems in the station there, and they had come into the room. We were sitting there calmly, we were not protesting at all, when Jack suddenly decided, ther was no loud protest going on, Jacj arbitrarily closed the meeting down before the comments section. Maria called out to him, "Jack you promised us we could speak." And I said the same thing. So Maria said, keep the doors closed make then listen, so this is all on video tape too, and people got up and the doors were thrown open and walked out into the sunshine. The video shows Maria standing with a stack of papers in her arms, talking with Tom Porter, who I guess is from the Washington station, and a picture of Marci coming out smiling with some other people. Now, afterthis, we went back inside, walked over and talked to Jack, and Jack apologized to Maria, and said that she could give a presentation the following morning at the Executive session. Maria was wondering whether she should do that or not, and then Jack went off and talked to David Salniker, the former Executive Director, and to Pat Scott, who was general manager, and then came back embarassed and said "I guess we can't do that," which was very revealing about who seemed to be calling the shots. So, if Maria had been violent, Jack certainly wouldn't have done that. (call waiting) Hello...So, we got back here, we drove back quickly because Maria had another program she was doing on the air on democracy, ironically, which she had to pledge and raise money for . So then she gets a letter saying she's been banned from Pacifica for her violent behavior. We wanted to show them the video. We showed it publicly. at a public meeting here (call waiting) hello..there's someone trying to fax me....so, this accusation of Maria's so called violent behavior has been repeated here in the local Bay Guardian. We'll have a response to it in the next issue, but there was no violent behavior ...I'm just trying to tell you all of this ..the kind of atmosphere that's cominf from the management of the station, not from the local advisory board, and not from the station staff, so its very difficult at this juncture , given the vilification that we have taken , mostly Maria, and in that letter we're referred to as Take Back Pacifica , she has accused us of attacking Garland Gantner from the Houston station...while there was a woman there who is unknown to me but know to some of them from Houston, who considered her to be a crazy..had arrived at the end of the meeting, and threw some water in Gantner's face and scratched his car with a key. She had nothing to do with us. And yet, Pat in the letter indicated she was part of our group she knew very well she wasn't. So there's a real long......their response to our criticism has been to personally vilify, and that makes it vey difficult, and that's one of the reasons we're talking today, in fact. LL OK I follow all that. OK JB: Now, the number 6 violation...that basically again, the members of the National Board has no legal right as I can understand it to tell the advisory board what their members should be saying. That's simply not in the book...Just a minute (call waiting) Hello...that I think is it. And plus they've got a (garbled)right LL: Yes JB: So, in summary...what do we want? We know that the CPB is not a policy making organization We'd hoped with our letter to Jack O'Dell, and threeother communications, 100's of postcards sent to the station by concerned listener-sponsors, and other personal letters , people who have taken KPFA out of their will, long time programmers...we hoped tha some kind of opening would take place. In fact, its gotten more closed. Then we learned that Pacifica, that Pat had hired an organization called the American Consulting Group which works for corporations who either try to stop unions from organizing in a facility as they are in one of local hotels here, or to break the unions with the right contracts. And the National Board were very well aware that she had done this it turned out.. but this has now become...it has helped to widen the gulf between the management and the listener-sponsors, and also... LL: Let me ask you this...when the National Board found out about her actions what did they do? JB: They pretended that this organization wasn't what the people from New York said it was. That it was just (call waiting) hello...well, it was just a group, an organization that advised on Labor law..well, that's like talking to Jesse Helms about affirmative action, getting advice on affirmative action or Newt Gingrich on gay rights . This is not whatthis group does. And besides, Pacifica has Labor lawyers like Salniker..or one of their programmers is a Labor lawyer...so, this hasn't washed. The amount of money that was spent is in question. This has now caused a number of people who were sitting on the fence on this whole issue, to begin looking at Pacifica, at least at Pat's role, in another light. It sort of won't go away. However, what we really want, I believe, and the Committee is not for Pacifica to lose its funding, but that CPB, since its responsible for enforcing the law coulkd probably work in a collegial way with the recipients ...that, to explain to Pacifica thattheyhave to obey, and abide by the regulations that the Federal Broadcasting law requires them to obey. These are like First Amendment Laws.....you may be aware that the Coalition for the First Amendment , I didn't include that as an enclosure, I believe, the Coalition for the First Amendment sent a letter after the Houston meeting (call waiting) Hello..hello...I'm expecting a call from a friend from Vera Cruz who's going to leave town tomorrow...we would like, and that's why we're sending copies to Congressman Dellums , is for them to understand that this is very serious and that they have to take both the listener-sponsors ....and the regulations seriously. That particularly in the times that we live in, in which cetain elements in the government really want to crush the independence of public broadcasting, that this kind of behavior is suicidal in a sense...and that the secrecy is not contributing to better relations ..and is hurting the basic mission of Pacifica. And so we would like that your office, the CPB to impress this upon them..we are not able to do it. LL: OK. Have you received any responses from the Congressman? JB: We have not yet sent...the cover letters have not gone off yet..it was going to be sent out just cold, but th people realized there needed to be something more..and it should probably go out to Congressman Dellums and Congressman Markey this week. Congressman Markey still is the ranking Democrat on the Telecommunications Committee? LL I'm not sure. Something in keeping with that ..... JB: Dellums, KPFA is in his district..one of his staff members is the secretary of the National Board. (call waiting) ..hello....so basically, that's it. LL: All the individuals that were listed , people that signed are all with the coordinating committee--is that correct? JB: The ones who signed are on the co-ordinating commitee. Theother peopleindicated to us they wished to have their names on the letter..some of them we have some signatures on, some we didn't as it was impossible for logistical rasons to have them all sign the letter. LL: OK. Any of these people former employees former employees of KPFK or KPFA? JB: Let's see...Maria..lets' see..Bob Bergstresser, I don't think he was ever paid staff, he was a producer a number of years ago, I was never an employee although I did programs and contributed programs, Sasha Futran is on the Board of KQED, Maria was the paid development director, Maria Gilardin, nobody else of the signatures was ever a paid employee of KPFA or Pacifica to my knowledge. LL OK, alright. I appreciate you giving me this time. I wish there was an opportunity to meet with you personally...because of the logistics..I especially wanted you to know thatI receoved your concerns and I wanted to discuss them with you, or with the group... JB: I wanted to have a record so then I'llplay the tapevfor the committee...so whatdo you see as the next step LL: The next step is to take the information you've given me and also take the information thatI receive from Pat Scott, and look at the law and see what we have there...the thing, in summary, of course, is to get all this ironed out as soon as we can , and like you say, to mive forward to have a strong organization and strong support on bith sides , with everyone working together with the same common goal...and I think you have that same concern.. JB: A number of us have spent a good bit of time on this and some ofthe other issues that need addressing..but Pacifica is playing a very important role , at KPFA, in our community here, as being First Amendment radio, as being an alternative ..I listen to NPR..I think there's aplace for NPR...a believe in a diversity in programming but KPFA and Pacifica have a certain role to play and if that role was lost it would be very serious. LL: OK. One other thing....I left a message with you regarding Brian McConville.. JB: Oh, right. LL:..and I never really got a chance to take it up personally in the past, but because you have me on record I'll definitelymake the point again that there's no type of correlation whatsoever . It may have appeared to have been that , but there was no relationship between the two issues. His dismissal was strictly personnel related..it had nothing to do with his review of concerns dealing with Pacifica Foundation. JB: I hope so. But it appeared from this side, as you can imagine, particularly since the investigation was put on hold, and as I understood, there was no intrest expressed in making a report of what he had learned to date, or up to that point LL: Not to cut you off..but there was other things going on at the moment ..and when you deal with personnel matters, sometimes you act quickly and accordingly, and , you know, and in the best interests of Mr. McConville to do what I basically said to do.....as his sevices no longer required...and this maybe just my style..and I think thatit's good for employees that when you go through that rather than sit around for a day or two, summarizing things, I think that if my boss were to walk into my office and say, Les your services are no longer needed, I think the best thing foe me to do is to immediately leave.You know, if, if . if they're no longer needed..there are probably alot of things I could tell him, well I'm working on this, I''m doing this , but its, you know, its just one of those things..life will go on and we will put together the pieces . There was nothing to indicate that what he was working on was neither of concern to us and that, you know, the inquiry was going to continue again. So, I just wanted to make that point. JB: Well, I would hope so. And I do appreciate speaking with you and any more information....and as I said, I'm going to share this with our co-ordinating committee and I do appreciate you calling. And if any other questions come up, and if I can't get the information for you, I'll see that you get it. LL: I appreciate that. (various goodbyes) *END*