Community Alliance Newspaper
Letters to the Editor
January 2009 Letters:
I read Brandon Hill’s ACLU article December issue and all
that Mayor Autry had to say. Autry's comments were really disappointing because
many of the things he accused the lawyers representing the homeless is not in
keeping with the image he has in the TV movies as the smal-time cop always so
concerned with peace and justice. Sadly the power and money he has gained since
becoming the Mayor of Fresno has turned him into a different person. You can say
that I am very naive not to pick up that it was all acting and it was just a
movie. Now we are seeing the true person he really is. What a shame!
I also read the many articles about the Proposition 8 issue and was really
disappointed about the Catholic Church's stance on the whole issue. First, the
Church is always encouraging its members to be faithful to their conscience in
moral matters yet their unjust actions towards Fr. Geoff
Farrow and others because of their opposition to Prop 8, shows that we can only
follow our conscience as long as it is in keeping with the Church hierarchy or
popular opinion. And second, it shows a great lack of leadership in the Church,
who apparently are no longer fighting for justice and the end to discrimination
but perpetrating it in false morality against the gay community and jumping on
the bandwagon of religious piers. We are taking one step forward in denouncing
racial discrimination but two steps backwards in discriminating against
homosexuals. Both communities are entitled to the same dignity and compassion as
the whites or heterosexuals.
My conscience tells me that this is shameful, sets a bad example, and does not
live up to the gospel values that the Church is founded on.
Jovita Harrah,
Visalia
Letter to Obama on Health Care
President Elect Obama is looking for ways to dig us out of the budget hole we're in.
Just last month, before Congress, Gary Kaplan chairman of the Virginia Mason Medical Center says half of our $2.3 Trillion health care expenditure does nothing to improve health. Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson says much of health care is dangerous.
In this country, our health care delivery is driven by the health care insurance industry.
Clearly, then, affordable health insurance is an oxymoron, as are those who believe the insurance and drug industries can rein in their greed to the point where they can be made to actually deliver health care at a price the we in the United States can afford.
Obviously, from past experience, they can neither be trusted nor regulated. They must be taken out of the loop with Single Payer Health Care – just as Congressmen and Congresswomen enjoy.
If it's good enough for Congress, then, it's good enough for me.
Yes, I'll have what they're having.
And as for the Budget, Mr. President-elect, keep the change.
Will Tranquilli [de la Mancha]
Fresno
Conn Hallinan’s article on KPFA badly misrepresents the current issues at KPFA.
Listenership at KPFA has dropped off for a number of reasons, but the most salient is the lack of more exciting and relevant programming.
The struggle at KPFA is between those who want shared decision making at the station, as mandated by the Bylaws, and those who want it governed by a faction made up of some entrenched programmers, their current station management, and the Concerned Listeners (CL), a slate of representatives to the Local Station Board (LSB) of which Mr. Hallinan is a member.
These two situations are intimately related.
Some cases in point – the failure to move Democracy Now to prime time, a move decided by the semi-democratic Program Council, endorsed by the elected board, and disregarded by the entrenched staff and the then management. This move could have gained us a whole new audience of working people, as Democracy Now is a very popular program and a fitting introduction to KPFA programming.
Another case: the most complained about programming on KPFA is that of the News Department, because a lack of news from a progressive viewpoint, but instead often dully repetitive of the usual corporate news sources. That department had refused input from its staff, and it has been in the forefront of this anti-democratic faction at KPFA.
The issues Hallinan does raise are also related to control of the station by the CL-Management faction. The financial misdeeds of WBAI (the New York sister station) which impact the entire Pacifica system of which KPFA is a part were colluded with by the CL reps to the Pacifica National Board; KPFA extra paid staff hours were almost doubled and have strained our budget; a lack of community input and respect for unpaid staff at the station allowed calling in the police on an African American programmer with disastrous results; the cutting off of not only the Unpaid Staff Organization, which represented 200 plus volunteer programmers – misrepresented by Hallinan as a bylaws issue – but also the marginalization of the long-standing Program Council, to be replaced by management’s Program Director as the sole selector of programmers – and many more such issues.
The Concerned Listeners slate Mr. Hallinan represents have majority representation on the KPFA LSB which they gained by a combination of their superior financial situation, name recognition (two Hallinans are on the LSB), support from management and entrenched programmers, some of which clearly violated fair election principles, and their use of misrepresentations such as “professionalism”, “lack of civility”, “extreme radicals trying to take over the station” in their campaign, instead of confronting the real issues.
How the station is/has been run has everything to do with the challenges to its existence and how they are to be met. We who want a progressive “voice for the voiceless” need to be aware and active in supporting its democratic governance.
We hope that KFCF listeners will work for democratic governance for their station, and keep informed about KPFA – even becoming members, so their vote will count toward better KPFA governance.
Mara Rivera
San Francisco
Conn Hallinan's December commentary
on "Sturm Und Drang" was off-base in its assessment of the current state of KPFA.
Like many articles written primarily for partisan political ends, it pretends
the problems it describes stem from hopeless "dysfunction", rather than specific
actions taken by specific people that have specific results.
Hallinan states correctly that KPFA suffers from flat listenership and must, as
with any member-supported organization, recruit new listener-subscribers to grow
and thrive. What he doesn't mention is what is being done to attract new
listeners and develop radio programming they find compelling and interesting.
That's because the answer is: not much.
Resistance to change takes more important forms than fighting about whether to
cancel a board meeting that costs a paltry .03% of Pacifica's 10 million-plus in
annual revenues.
To take one random example: Wednesday's from 8-10pm have featured the music
program "Dead to the World". The program is an excellent one, but it features
music from the cutting-edge San Francisco scene of 1967. It has been on KPFA's
schedule for over 31 years.
Now I'm no spring chicken, but even pushing 45, I can assure you that "Casey
Jones" is not where its at for my generation.
The noticeable failure to generate and rotate in new programs has the
predictable effect of failing to generate and rotate in new listeners.
What is KPFA doing about it? Disbanding its program council who solicit and
recommend new program ideas for broadcast, and failing to introduce a single new
local programming effort.
Hallinan seems obsessed with the threat of the Unpaid Staff Organization (UPSO)
"stacking board elections". The point of the Unpaid Staff Organization (which
came about in the wake of sacrifices by unpaid workers who struck and endured
arrests in the 70's and 80's) was to break the stranglehold of a small group of
paid staffers on the desirable program slots. Volunteers won the ability to sit
on a program council and help make programming decisions, a grievance procedure
to settle disputes with management in a fair and consistent way, and a body to
advocate for better working conditions, like reimbursals for travel expenses and
possible access to group health care.
Hallinan and the rest of the Concerned Listeners slate supported and continues
to support the undoing of these hard-fought gains. With the predictable results.
Stagnant programming. Lack of new and vital voices. No vision for expanding the
audience. A grievance procedure so screwed up that a worker of 12 years duration
has the police called on them for a nonviolent disagreement. Banning people from
the station like its a government installation, instead of a community media
outlet.
It's pretty clear Hallinan has lost the forest for the trees. I appreciate that
Concerned Listeners is very concerned about stacked board elections. But for the
rest of us, it's not quite priority #1.
Tracy Rosenberg
Managing Director
Media Alliance
KPFA Local Station Board