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KPFK is sponsored by listeners like you, but this station is owned by something called the Pacifica Foundation. For over fifty years Pacifica has been a contentious organization sometimes for better sometimes for worse with more than its share of internal strife.
At KPFK we're committed to the Pacifica mission and we're also committed to a historic Pacifica principle to address our differences behind the scenes and to do our best to prevent internal disputes from hindering or distracting from our service to the listeners. We want kpfk to talk about the world, not about ourselves. However we now find ourselves in a very difficult and urgent situation that deserves a public explanation.
First,we must apologize to many of you who pledged during our November fund drive, and who have not yet received your thank you gifts. We do not know when those gifts will be mailed out because the Pacifica Foundation has not paid our bills for those items.
We must also apologize to the many many listeners across Southern California who are still having trouble hearing us because kpfk is operating at only one quarter of our licensed power. We have brand new transmitter[sic] but they have been sitting at KPFK for many months because the Pacifica foundation has not paid the bills necessary for installing them.
How is this possible when kpfk has had one record breaking fund drive after another? In the past year, at the direction of Pacifica, all control of KPFK's accounts and banking were moved from Los Angeles to Washington DC. In the name of centralization and efficiency all of our accounting and check writing are now handled there by Pacifica, and kpfk has not received accounting reports on how our money is being spent. This is a shock but we at kpfk must disclose that we have learned in recent weeks that Pacifica has spent our money. KPFK's savings accounts, years of operating surpluses and even the bulk of KPFK's 800,000 capital fund for our transmitters and new control rooms are simply no longer available to kpfk. The money has been and continues to be diverted elsewhere in Pacifica. Even the continuity of our electrical services is now threatened.
In short, Pacifica has taken control of our finances and the money that we have raised from you, kpfk listeners, is not being used for the purposes intended or budgeted.
Also for the first time in the history of Pacifica, the Pacifica national board has decided to encroach on the editorial independence of out station and now intends to have the board itself make decisions about who or what you may hear on kpfk.
The situation is difficult and it's outcome is unclear. What is certain is that Pacifica needs to hear loud and clear your voice of support for fiercely independent broadcasting. To find out how to help kpfk in this precarious moment, I ask you to go to the web and click on www.friendsofkpfk.org
Thank you so much for your attention and your support.
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