Chronology of a Crisis

 

 

24 Aug 1946	The Pacifica Foundation files for incorporation in California. Lew Hill, the visionary pacifist who started Pacifica as "a radical war resistance program," is named chairman of the Committee of Directors by the Executive Membership, a governing group of which he is also a member. This document contains the original version of the "mission," which is amended almost exactly two years later.
19 Aug 1948	Article II of Pacifica's original Articles of Incorporation is amended to focus more on radio broadcasting, in order to help Pacifica's case with the FCC and Ford Foundation. The amended article II creates what lives to this day as the "Pacifica Mission."
15 Apr 1949	KPFA, in Berkeley, CA, goes on the air for a few hours a day, signing off at 6 PM so the staff can go have dinner. Staff consists of Lew Hill and 4 others. This is generally regarded as the birth date of the Pacifica radio network.
6 Aug 1950	KPFA runs out of money and leaves the air. A nine-month community fund drive puts the station back on in May of 1951. This time KPFA makes it, and begins to expand its signal coverage and broadcast hours.
1952	Pacifica's vague, anarcho-collective organization fails when interpersonal tensions cause Lew Hill to resign as chairman. His resignation is not accepted.
1953	Lew Hill resigns again, and this time it is accepted, though he continues on in his other positions. KPFA programming becomes the object of a factional struggle slightly resembling today's.
1953	Alan Watts begins his amazing series of lectures on KPFA. His enlightening and entertaining discussions of Eastern religion, mysticism, and philosophy air for 20 years until Watts dies in 1973. They still run late at night on KPFK.
1954	KPFA broadcasts a panel discussion about marijuana, in which four people happily smoke the Evil Weed. Police impound the tapes, and 21 LAB members resign.
1954	After a lengthy organizational study, Pacifica changes its by-laws in an attempt to achieve more effective governance. Hill is elected to the new position of president. KPFA is given a local staff, with its own general manager, in hope of eliminating micro-management by the Executive Membership.
1955	Beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti conduct a historic reading of their best work on KPFA. Five years later, the FCC uses this reading, along with other complaints regarding an Albee play and a homosexuality discussion, as an excuse to hold up Pacifica license renewals.
1955	The "McCarthy Witch Hunt" reaches Pacifica when Hill directs KPFA to cover House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, and to air a breakthrough interview where a former FBI agent describes the Bureau's repressive tactics. Trouble begins almost immediately.
1957	Following a long and bitter fight inside and outside KPFA, Hill finally complies with House Un-American Activities Committee demands and fires several employees who were on the "Red" list.
Aug 1957	Lew Hill kills himself at age 38, after KPFA's board reverses the firings. While Hill suffered extreme, chronic arthritis pain, it is often ironically noted that Pacifica's founder remains the only person to actually die from one of his foundation's perennial struggles.
1957	Elsa Knight Thompson, aka "EKT," aka "The Wicked Witch," becomes the first in a long line of controversial Pacifica players, when she moves into the post-Hill vacuum to consolidate control as public affairs director at KPFA. To this day, everyone either loves or hates the opinionated Thompson, who is described variously as a progressive, a neo-Marxist, or a Stalinist. Everyone agrees she was something of a hell raiser, and a force to be reckoned with, as she brought a more hard-edged dissent to KPFA's political positions. A few old-timers argue for this "coup" as the true roots of the current crisis.
1958	Elsa Knight Thompson hosts a panel discussion about gay rights, a decade ahead of its time.
26 Jul 1959	KPFK, the second Pacifica O&O, takes to the air in Los Angeles with a huge signal. News giant Terry Drinkwater is the first GM.
1960	Lewis Schweitzer, owner of WBAI, New York, donates his prime commercial-band station to Pacifica, in order "to liberate a single element of mass media technology on behalf of the public." (Reread the year - 1960!) It joins KPFA as one of only two Pacifica stations on commercial FM frequencies (above 92 MHz). The Committee is by now evolving into the Pacifica National Board.
1960	HUAC and SISS begin a Congressional investigation of "subversive" programming at Pacifica. The FCC demands information from KPFA regarding broadcast of a Ferlinghetti poem. KPFA programmer Bill Mandel cells HUAC a "collection of Judases." Problems with the government and FCC continue for three years.
1961	Pacifica's by-laws are changed again, eliminating the Executive Membership. The board of directors makes itself self-perpetuating, in a defeat for Thompson. We see the beginnings of the current setup, with its appointed staff, national board, and advisory boards.
1962	WBAI broadcasts another FBI expose, triggering another investigation. FCC holds back license renewals of all three stations pending its own "red" investigation. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) gets into the act in Dec when it subpoenas a Pacifica board member, beginning a full scale Congressional investigation.
1964	FCC renews all three licenses, three years late.
1964	Elsa Knight Thompson is fired by the KPFA general manager, precipitating a staff walkout. In a struggle somewhat resembling today's "banned and fired" controversy, her followers ultimately take over the station, rehire her, and fire the GM. Years later, Thompson's position is quietly eliminated. KPFA plays "Ding, Dong, the Witch Is Dead" on the air.
1965	Pacifica stations broadcast live from anti-Viet Nam demonstrations.
1967	KPFK GM Paul Dallas airs dirty linen regarding the station's loss of proceeds from its innovative and much-copied Renaissance Pleasure Faire (the one described in a 60s rock song). He becomes the first known casualty of Pacifica's then-informal "gag rule" when he is fired by the National Board.
5 Sep 1969	KPFA broadcasts a memorial service for Ho Chi Minh.
Mar 1970	KPFT, the fourth Pacifica station, takes to the air in Houston. Two months later, in the middle of Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant," its 100 kW transmitter is dynamited into expensive junk by the KKK.
Oct 6, 1970	KPFT's transmitter is destroyed by a dynamite bomb, for the second time in mere months. This time it only takes two weeks to get a signal back onto the air. A Klansman ultimately does prison time for the bombings. A sculpture made of twisted transmitter pieces now stands proudly in the station.
1973	WBAI broadcasts George Carlin's "Words You Can't Say On TV," and says all of them. Resulting litigation reaches the US Supreme Court, becoming the case that defines US broadcast standards for about a decade, before it too is superseded by yet another precedent-setting case at KPFK.
1973	Factional struggles begin at KPFA over third-world programming. Jeff Echeverria is barred from the station. Programmers challenge KPFA's license.
Oct 1973	Pacifica receives tape recordings from Patty Hearst's SLA kidnappers. When KPFK refuses to turn these over to the FBI, federal agents raid the station. KPFK airs the search of its premises, live, for eight hours. Recordings of this amazing event are still in the archives.
22 Jun 74	The National Board meets, and passes the first formal gag rule.
Aug 1974	Differences at KPFA escalate into a strike, and the station leaves the air for a month. Ultimately management grants all demands, establishing a third-world program department.
Oct 1974	WBAI audience is already in a precipitous decline when station management makes the extremely unpopular decision of stopping publication of its Folio (once a program guide/newsletter from most Pacifica stations). If anything, the audience promptly shrinks even faster. Nobody knows it yet, but the first epic Pacifica struggle is underway, 20 years before the commonly-accepted beginning of today's "crisis."
1976	Coup at WBAI: National Board forces WBAI to cut staff; GM Larry Josephson and PD Marnie Mueller resign. Anna Kosof is new manager, appointing Pablo Yoruba Guzman as new PD.
Jan 1977	Kosof and Guzman abruptly announce a new, and greatly dumbed-down, WBAI music/talk format to start Mar 1. Third world programming is eliminated. A strict gag rule prevents staff from discussing this on-air. Many think that BAI's increased reliance on grant money has helped to cause this decision.
9 Feb 1977	WBAI staff discovers that late night progressive-FM legend Bob Fass is to be replaced by the music format. 70+ staff members vote to unionize, with Fass as the new shop steward. The union presents a list of demands to management, which refuses to recognize its legitimacy as a bargaining unit.
11 Feb 1977	A classic labor lockout/sit-in begins at WBAI after the LAB votes to take the station off the air, citing the usual FCC rules requiring positive management control of broadcast content. Five leaders of the dissident staff faction actually sieze the station transmitter high atop the Empire State Building, announce what is going on to the surprised listeners, and in what has to be one of the great moments in Pacifica contention, start to run their own program on what is then essentially a 5000-watt* pirate radio station. Five and a half hours later, power is finally cut to stop this operation, though not without a 30-minute scramble around the VERY scary and electrically hazardous insides of the building's broadcasting tower worthy of a cliff-hanger movie. Meanwhile, Fass and other dissidents barricade themselves in the now-mute studio, until arrested 35 days later. The station is off the air for three months. *[Geek note: WBAI, like most Manhattan stations, uses a relatively low effective radiated power due to its antenna height above average terrain (about 1200'), and its location right in the middle of the city. The Empire State Building uses two master antenna systems with a plumber's nightmare of combiners for the various transmitters. It's once again the highest antenna site in New York, at least for quite some time to come.]
13 Feb 1977	300 people attend the first meeting held by the new Friends of WBAI. The group begins many weeks of direct-action picketing of board members at work and home, and petition drives that gather many thousands of signatures.
28 Feb 1977	WPFW, Washington, DC, goes on the air as the fifth Pacifica station, after its bid for the region's last FM frequency is the winning one at the FCC.
11 Mar 1977	WBAI LAB announces its intention to bring legal action to evict the staff members still camped out in the studio. Union supporters occupy entrance to the station, and the Friends of WBAI join the union in making a series of demands to the LAB, all of which are denied.
15 Mar 1977	Friends of WBAI hire a law firm to press their case against the LAB. The building is cleared on the 18th, with 5 arrests.
24 Mar 1977	Formal legal action begins in WBAI matters. Charges against the 5 arrestees are not dropped, but they are delayed for two weeks.
26 Mar 1977	WBAI staff union accepts an interim agreement of 25 Mar, by a vote of 1977-17. The agreement puts the station back on the air in Apr for a 45-day interim period, and recognizes paid and unpaid members of the union. Legal actions brought by Friends of WBAI continue, as the listeners are still out of the loop. One demand is for a democratically elected and responsible LAB and PNB (!). An escrow account is set up for listener renewals that the Friends can turn over when the dispute ends. CPB funding is also viewed with suspicion.
1980	Ronald Reagan becomes president of the United States. Soon after, his administration attacks Pacifica by name. In order to centralize a still rather vague organization, and perhaps to look better in the government's eyes, the National Board creates the new position of Executive Director. First one is Sharon Maeda, from public radio.
1981	KPFT, at the time probably the country's most adventurous community FM station, begins broadcasting in 11 languages. Pacifica executive director Sharon Maeda is sent out to "professionalize" KPFT, and incidentally to cut down all the foreign language programming, which was deemed too hard to monitor for content. This leads to the extreme demotion of Ray Hill, a radio visionary who pretty much created KPFT. It also leads eventually to the departure of legendary Rafael Renteria, a revolutionary who was unafraid of airing anything.
1981	Maeda writes up a proposal to seek major funding from Exxon to buy equipment for the recently renamed and expanded Pacifica Network News. This idea goes nowhere.
Sep 1983	Pacifica fires Tim Frasca, the father of Pacifica Network News, and well known journalist Marc Cooper, who was news director of KPFK and PNN. This head-rolling comes soon after a very acrimonious National Board meeting where they raised the issue of KPFT running NPR instead of PNN, and WPFW (even then pretty much a jazz station) running no news at all. Cooper remained a major player at KPFK until suspended in 2002, and he still hosts Radio Nation.
1984	David Salniker, from KPFA, replaces Maeda as executive director. Ironically a labor lawyer himself, he ultimately begins Pacifica's union-busting policy of pitting unpaid against paid staff.
1984	Pacifica amends its by-laws to split up the national and local boards, with the national comprised of 2 representatives from each of the 5 locals. Many think that the "Pacifica Crisis" began right here.
1985	WPFW participates in DC's first Capital City Jazz Festival.
1986 on	Following purges and a staff exodus from KPFT, Garland Ganter comes on as news director. He moves to PD in 1990, and GM in 1994. Station programming becomes much more bland, and LAB members Michael Palmer and David Acosta are eventually appointed to the national.
29 Apr 1987	FCC issues a Public Notice redefining the U.S. broadcast obscenity standards from specific "dirty words" to a general community standard, based partially on a complaint filed against KPFK's broadcast of excerpts from a gay-themed play called The Jerker. KPFK is fined, and the standard persists to this day.
May 1987	Following several months of dissatisfaction with the program director, WBAI paid/unpaid labor and management sign a union contract establishing a collective bargaining unit, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, Local 404.
6 Jan 1988	Still smarting from the obscenity battle with the FCC over KPFK, Executive Director Salniker censors Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" from all Pacifica stations. Pacifica national control over programming gets a big legal boost from FCC deregulation that changes the ultimate responsibility from engineers signed into local station logs to owners of the licenses.
16 Jun 1990	WPFW volunteer programmer Billy Edwards is fired/banned for refusing to sign a new volunteer agreement reflecting the changes in broadcast logging and local control rules. His prediction at that time, that concentrated conrol of programming at the national office would lead to a hijack of the foundation, appears to have been right on the mark at Pacifica.
1991	KPFK's contract with the United Electrical (UE) union expires. It will not be re-negotiated until 1997, and then with substantial give-backs regarding unpaid staff and other issues.
12 Nov 1991	Amy Goodman puts her life in great danger to cover the Santa Cruz Massacre in East Timor. She wins several important journalism awards for her reportage. Later, Pacifica management will try to say she made it all up, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner will come to her defense.
30 Apr 1992	Civil "uprisings" in Los Angeles and other cities worldwide destroy thousands of buildings after the infamous Rodney King acquittals. KPFK is not immune to the climate of rage in L.A., with a number of on-air incidents that may or may not have been "hate speech," depending on whom one wishes to believe. (One person said either "UCLA" with a heavy Eastern US accent or "Jew-CLA;" even air checks are ambiguous.) Opponents of free speech on KPFK are still citing these incidents, a decade later. In other words, the Reichstag burned right along with South Central L.A..
1992	Republicans in Congress attempt to eliminate all funding for public radio, which comes under attack for "liberal bias." Right wing Representatives sieze upon the "hate speech" incidents at KPFK to threaten CPB defunding if they do not drop Pacifica. One CPB director falls into line and calls for a total Pacifica cutoff (which, as things turned out, might have been the best thing that ever happened to Pacifica). KPFK GM Cliff Roberts cleans house, either eliminating much of the hate from KPFK airwaves or neutering the station's apprentice and community outreach programs, depending on who you wish to believe. (The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.)
1 Sep 1992	"Brave New Pacifica:" The internal name given to national PD Gail Christian's proposed 5-year "Strategy for National Programming," which proposes NPR-style news/public affairs programming funded largely from private foundation grants.
Feb 1993	"The "Strategy for National Programming" is approved. Salniker sends KPFA GM Pat Scott to lobby in DC. CPB funding narrowly survives in the House.
1 Oct 1993	Coup at WPFW: Acting WPFW GM Tom Porter resigns in protest of closed permanent GM selection process. Staff breaks gag rule to take Pacifica's dirty laundry onto the air. In violation of FCC rules, Salniker (the same guy who wouldn't put Ginsberg on) takes WPFW off the air for three days. The station comes back on with a new, Salniker-selected, manager.
1994	Salniker grooms Pat Scott, by then a very well-connected member of the CPB community radio task force, for his job, and then appoints her as his successor. He continues to pull strings from behind the scenes at his new job at a private foundation, while Scott begins a covert anti-labor campaign and a war with the local stations. At some point, she secretly hires ACG, a union-busting consulting firm (as described by the AFL-CIO) with a reputation for toughness, and denies everything for years after. ACG is reportedly given $30,000 to help bust the UE locals at WBAI, KPFA, and KPFK, by helping Pacifica with hardball negotiations, though Pacifica executives for a long time only admit to a single, $1000 consultation. The plan is: get the unpaid staff out of the bargaining units, then fire them at will, depopulating the stations; demand huge give-backs from the survivors; demand a stock ACG "Contract from Hell;" encourage the remnants of the bargaining units to change to another union. It works, at all 3 stations, though it takes until 2001 at WBAI.
Jul 1994	Pat Scott turns her eye on KPFK as the next target. She begins firing off memos demanding strip-scheduling, and massive mainstreaming.
Oct 1994	Scott and the National Board resolve to "re-configure programming to better serve core listeners in each signal area, to develop more relevant and professional programming and to, thereby, increase the audience." Pat Scott begins ordering massive format changes. Brainstorming begins for a second 5-year plan, which would apply to the whole network. Purges begin at WPFW. This meeting is generally considered the beginning of the 7-year "struggle for the soul of Pacifica."
4 Jan 1995	Coup at KPFK: Pat Scott swoops into KPFK, which she considered to be moving too slow on the program changes, and conducts what has come to be known as the "Wednesday Night Massacre." In a scene unsettingly similar to WBAI's later "coup," the GM (Cliff Roberts) and PD (Lucia Chappelle) are instant history, the assistant manager (Mary Fowler) has her position eliminated entirely, another faction is given control of the station, and the station's books are taken over by the National Board. Contract negotiations with United Electrical Local 1421 come to a halt. Within a week, program cancellations start. This is generally the date cited for the beginning of KPFK's ongoing loss of community content.
5 Jan 1995	KPFK acting GM Pamela Burton bans volunteer board operator Herman Padilla from the station after he mentions a news article about the coup on-air.
19 Jan 1995	All of the KPFK paid staff and 40 of the unpaid staff and volunteers sign a registered letter sent to each PNB member protesting Fowler's dismissal. KPFK's office manager gets a call from Mary Tilson of the national office, informing her that the board members were not pleased to receive these letters at their homes. On Feb 13th, a formal PNB reply contains a pleasant brush-off and little else.
28 Jan 1995	100 KPFK programmers attend a compulsory meeting at a Unitarian church downtown, where they are given their new time slots - if any. No discussion is allowed.
10 Feb 1995	KPFK programmer Al Huebner, who turned down his new strip program, is cut off the air and fired for violating the gag rule after he protests the lack of listener input. Yet another board operator is disciplined for being slow at the switch. 20 listener-sponsors and volunteers protest at a LAB meeting.
4 May 1995	KPFK union members stage a 1-day job action to protest continuing layoffs amounting to one third of the station's paid staff. Scott claims that the station is broke, but has no plans to raise the money. KPFK keeps on dropping programs from its schedule.
1 Jun 1995	Scott brings in Mark Schubb, ironically enough from FAIR, Hightower, and the left wing of the the SAG Legislative Committee, as interim GM of KPFK. Shubb, whose management style resembles that of Richard Nixon at his most paranoid, quickly earns his nickname of "The Gagmaster." KPFK's talent leak becomes a torrent. By 2001, 150 people will be gone, and most of KPFK's programs will be history.
Jun 1995	Pacifica National Board closes its finance committee meetings to the public, in violation of Federal law. Secret committee meetings become more common at the PNB.
12 Jul 1995	Infamous My Way or the Highway memo: Scott freezes membership of the Local Advisory Boards, and demands full compliance with the PNB. Local staffs are warned that the board will be dramatically reconfiguring programming soon, and that anyone not wanting to go along should resign. Soon after,listener-activists join banned/fired at KPFA and KPFK to organize the Pacifica Accountability Committee and get to work on a new set of more democratic Pacifica bylaws.
1 Aug 1995	KPFA changes its entire schedule, in a programming shake-up called "Black Tuesday." Many on-air personalities vanish, and a more rating-driven, corporate tone sets in at the funky Berkeley station.
1 Nov 1995	WBAI Management files a "clarification of unit" petition with the NLRB seeking to remove the Business Director job from the Collective Bargaining Unit. This begins years of disputes between management and the UE local.
Feb 1996	First Democracy Now! airs, with Amy Goodman (later temporarily suspended), Larry Bensky (fired, now on KPFA) , Juan Gonzalez (resigned, then rehired), and Salim Muwakkil (moved on) as hosts.
26 Feb 1996	KPFK producer Ron Wilkins and guests are cut off in mid-program after launching into a rather venomous (and reputedly anti-Semitic) tirade concerning power struggles and purges of people of color at the station. Wilkins is fired, along with an engineer. This becomes an excuse to systematically eliminate all radical ethnic views from KPFK, and is still being used as something of a straw man to this day.
28 Feb 1996	Mark Schubb issues a much sterner and more inclusive gag rule covering KPFK talent and board operators alike, violation of which "will absolutely lead to being permanently removed from the station." Several people test this rule, and are gone.
30 Mar 1996	United Electrical Local 1412 at KPFA turns down the about to be proposed "contract from hell" upon learning of ACG's hiring. The union asks instead for a year's extension of the existing contract.
May 1996	Tensions between Pacifica and the UE union increase, as the ACG hiring becomes general public knowledge. Critics note the weird irony of union busting at a left wing foundation.
3 May 1996	Pat Scott and WBAI GM Valerie Van Isler file to amend the WBAI NLRB petition to also exclude unpaid staff, about 90% of the membership, from the union contract.
Jul 1996	NLRB holds hearings in New York. Valerie Van Isler and her lawyer reportedly "filibuster" the proceeding.
11 Jul 1996	Committee to Take Back KPFA sends a formal complaint to CPB describing secret board meetings, hidden agendas, unreleased minutes, and circumventing of local station advisory boards (all illegal). CPB agrees on Apr 9, 1997 and advises that funding should become contingent on compliance in the future. Scott writes a letter back to CPB, and presumably she, Coonrod, and friends make a few phone calls. Two CPB investigators are fired, and in 1997 the Corporation reverses its decision even before hearing testimony from both sides.
23 Aug 1996	After KPFK's Roy Tuckman runs an Alternative Radio show with a Ralph Nader speech on his late-night program, PD Kathy Lo issues a memo ordering staff not to run this show again until after the fund drive (where, presumably, it was to be a premium). The resulting dispute with Barsamian ultimately forces this show off KPFK until 2001.
26 Aug 1996	UE Local 1412 at KPFA writes a second letter of solidarity with UE workers at WBAI and KPFK in the ongoing dispute, condemning Pat Scott's hiring of ACG, and the "Contract From Hell." It is noted that this contract would pretty much eliminate all membership in Local 1412. Interestingly, they also claim that, while Scott continues to deny hiring this consulting firm, phone calls to the office of the KPFA negotiator for Pacifica management are answered "ACG."
29 Aug 1996	Mark Schubb threatens to permanently ban a UE field organizer from the KPFK property after he attends a meeting of Local 1421 at the station, as allowed by the contract. Schubb slams the door in his face, and calls the union members back into another meeting, where he is alleged to have called them insubordinate. The UE organizer writes a formal letter of protest.
3 Sep 1996	United Electrical Local 404 at WBAI files a grievance with NLRB, citing failure to bargain in good faith.
16 Sep 1996	WBAI UE steward R. Paul Martin sends an attorney's letter to Pacifica National Board reminding them that closed meetings could endanger their CPB funding were the union to complain to Congress.
Nov 1996	Pacifica National Board issues the first draft of its infamous 5-year plan, "A Vision For Pacifica Radio."
17 Dec 1996	WBAI staff stages an informational picket at the station to protest the union-busting efforts. Union members organize a "Red Balloon Collective" to spread word about the situation.
12 Feb 1997	NLRB denies WBAI management's petitions, keeping the business director and also the unpaid staff in the UE Local 404 bargaining unit. WBAI appeals the decision on 4 Jun, and it is reversed two years later. WBAI management eliminates the position of Chief Engineer, assigning it to management.
6 Mar 1997	Job actions are held at WBAI, KPFA, and KPFK to protest Scott's union-busting activities.
27 May 1997	Scott orders Democracy Now!, the network's only national program, to stop talking about Mumia Abu-Jamal, and to be less critical of President Clinton. DN! staff charges censorship. Thus begins a 4 1/2 year war of nerves ultimately affecting the entire U.S. left.
Jun 1997	Mary Frances Berry, from the Clinton Administration's civil rights office, becomes the new National Board chair. The struggle between the National Board and the local LABs grows ever more bitter, as Berry begins an internal Pacifica Democratic National Party putsch of her own.
Jun 1997	The Pacifica Accountability Committee presents a full set of alternative Pacifica bylaws, the first of many to follow. It is ignored by the National Board.
30 Jun 1997	Former KPFK program director Clare Spark writes a rather astonishing letter to CPB as part of the investigation process, in which she retracts her support of Mark Schubb and PNB from the year before. Schubb goes ballistic, and calls all KPFK dissidents "paranoid neo-Fascists."
3 Jul 1997	KPFA GM Marci Lockwood resigns, is replaced by Lynn Chadwick from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters.
25 Aug 1997	Pacifica tries to extend the Gag Rule to its affiliates, threatening to stop supplying Pacifica Network News to KOOP-FM in Austin, TX, after that station's board approves a daily disclaimer supporting the embattled unions at WBAI, KPFK, and KPFA.
9 Sep 1997	KPFA's union, which has been changed to the Communications Workers of America, gives in and signs the "contract from hell." Unpaid staff are dropped from the bargaining unit. Layoffs begin immediately.
28 Sep 1997	WBAI's UE local files first of several complaints with the NLRB.
28 Sep 1997	The LABs are reduced from electing the National Board to only nominating its members, in a vote many call illegal.
Late Sep 1997	Valerie Van Isler, with a loan and encouragement from Pat Scott, signs a long-term lease on new WBAI quarters at 120 Wall Street, other end of the short street from the Lower Manhattan financial district, and prepares to move from its cramped, old studio at 505 8th Avenue in Chelsea. Few, though, are happy about the new place's physical layout, the corporate implications of a Wall Street address, or the cutbacks in staff asked for by Van Isler to pay the higher rent after the station moves.
Oct 1997	Valerie Van Isler eliminates the position of WBAI Folio editor from the bargaining unit, assigning the duties to management.
27 Jan 1998	WBAI fires the Business Director, who is in trouble for union activities and speaking up to her bosses. Her position is eliminated and duties are assigned to management. The union files yet another grievance with NLRB.
Feb 1998	KPFK internal memo prohibiting encouragement of anti-war protests leaks onto the Internet. Observers and critics note with some irony how Lew Hill's foundation is now banning the kind of action that it was founded to promote. The winter fund drive turns nasty when the National Commission for Democracy in Mexico (Zapatistas) calls for a boycott of KPFK to protest cancellation of Radio Chicano/a.
1 Mar 1998	CPB president Robert Coonrod, formerly of the Voice of America and the propaganda-laden Radio Marti, supposedly threatens Pacifica with a funding cutoff if it does not comply with a policy requiring all station local boards to be advisory only. PNB votes to revoke voting rights of the LABs.
1 Jun 1998	WBAI goes on the air from its new Wall Street studios. The facility is far from ready, the studios are small and badly designed, and the extra space has mostly been taken away for huge executive offices with harbor views. A programmer likens the place to "one of those sinister suites on the X-files."
2 Jun 1998	WBAI goes off the air (briefly) from its new Wall Street studios, as technical problems persist.
Jun 1998	Pat Scott ruffles one feather too many, and announces her intention to resign. She is ultimately replaced by Chadwick, whose managerial style quickly makes many people wish they had Scott back. Gail Christian resigns as Pacifica national program director, and is kept on for a year as a "consultant."
13 Jun 1998	Citing the end of the Pat Scott era as a good time for a new beginning, Free Pacifica issues its famous Joint Statement to the Board of Directors, demanding a full audit, dropping of the WBAI NLRB appeal, and the formation of a reconciliation commission to return Pacifica to local control. Signatures read like the Who's Who of the Pacifica movement. Results are predictable. A member of Save Our Station reads this statement on WBAI, after Van Isler, Scott, Berry, and National Board members finished their photo op at the new place and went off to a nice dinner.
22 Jul 1998	Valerie Van Isler's first WBAI staff meeting in some time becomes confrontational over the cost of the move to Wall Street, and the continued severe technical problems with the studios, which were designed by the same friend of Pat Scott who botched the new KPFA building in Berkeley.
14 Sep 1998	Pacifica receives a letter from CPB stating that LABs must be completely separate from national governance. There is suspicion in some places that Chadwick and Scott once again made a few phone calls. The National Board interprets this as a mandate to strip the LABs of all power, and starts to work on revised by-laws.
22 Feb 1999	Pacifica fires archivist Alan Stein before he can report on the neglect of what was then a 40,000-tape resource.
28 Feb 1999	Right in front of an angry Berkeley audience, amid a number of screaming, emotional speeches, and ignoring solidarity demonstrations in several cities, Chadwick, Berry, and the Pacifica National Board unanimously (and, as some have argued, illegally) adopt the new by-laws. The LABs are taken out of the loop, and no longer allowed to nominate to the National Board, which becomes self-selecting and dictatorial. For better or worse, this move begins the legal endgame phase of the "Pacifica Crisis" as we now know it.
31 Mar 1999	Attempted coup at KPFA: Chadwick fires popular GM Nicole Sawaya by not renewing her contract. The station staff goes on the air to protest, despite being ordered by Chadwick not to. Street demonstrations begin outside the station. Someone fires gun shots into the building. Two weeks before Pacifica's 50th anniversary, the biggest skirmish yet begins.
9 Apr 1999	Larry Bensky interrupts a program on the Kosovo war to give a speech on the mess at KPFA. Chadwick fires Bensky for gag rule violations and (many think) because of his vehement opposition to the by-law changes at the 28 Feb meeting.
16 Apr 1999	KPFK's Schubb cuts off FAIR's Counterspin program in mid-sentence just as it is about to run an interview with Bensky. Three days later, WPFW cuts off Counterspin in the same place, and runs music for the rest of the time period.
19 May 1999	National Labor Relations Board files a complaint against Pacifica for firing union employees at WBAI and converting their positions to management (a standard ACG trick).
13-27 May 1999	KPFA spring fund drive brings record 7000 pledges, but 6200 are under protest.
18 Jun 1999	Pacifica national office cancels Robbie Osman's KPFK program after he mentions the Sawaya and Bensky firings on air. Tempers flare inside KPFA and out in the street.
20 Jun 1999	KPFA staff protests the firing of Robbie Osman by taking the station off the air, running dead carrier for the entire two-hour time slot of his cancelled program.
26 Jun 1999	Citing security concerns, Pacifica national office hires an industrial security firm specializing in strikebreaking to post armed guards at KPFA around the clock.
26 Jun 1999	David Adelson and others in four local boards file the "LAB Members' Suit" against the Foundation in Alameda County Superior Court. This is the first of the big four lawsuits alleging improper conduct in the by-law changes. Thus begins the nearly constant court room maneuvering which continues up to the present.
27 Jun 1999	KPFA is occupied by the recently hired armed guards. David Acosta is continued on in the Executive Committee despite his term being up in Mar. He ultimately becomes chairman.
Jul 1999	Chadwick temporarily assigns Garland Ganter to run KPFA. Listeners fear the beginning of a format change, though Pacifica denies this.
12 Jul 1999	Media Alliance activist Andrea Buffa "just happens" to receive the infamous Palmer Letter in her e-mail. It quickly proves to be the "smoking gun" internal memo establishing that Pacifica really was discussing selling WBAI and reformatting or selling KPFA, while all the time publically denying both.
13 Jul 1999	Dennis Bernstein attempts to air quotes from protesters of the Palmer Letter on the news. Though accounts of the following confrontation differ, the most widely accepted version goes as follows: While Bernstein's own 17-minute tape of the protester's news conference plays on-air as the ending segment of Flashpoints, Ganter, escorted by 3 armed guards, finds Bernstein and announces that he is on administrative leave and will be trespassing if he does not gather his effects and leave the station. Around 6:10 PM, Bernstein, followed by all four men, returns to the news studio, where a verbal confrontation turns physical, ending up with Bernstein being pushed hard into the machine playing the tape, which malfunctions. Bernstein sits down on the floor in an act of civil disobedience, shouting that he is a news reporter and will not be physically thrown out of his own station. The news director orders the engineer to open a mike, and some of this confrontation airs live. Ganter cuts this off the air, pulls the big switch, and goes over to all taped programming. Hearing all this, hundreds of listeners rush to the station. Video tapes show Berkeley riot police roughing up demonstrators. Ultimately, 52 are arrested. These include Bernstein and 7 other staffers, who surrender after 5 hours of negotiation. Guards secure the building, and Ganter creates a labor lockout by placing the entire staff on indefinite administrative leave. KPFA is boarded up, and remains closed for weeks. In what is perhaps the day's wierdest event of all, future KPFK GM Eva Georgia, who has applied for a job at KPFA, appears for her final interview to find all this brouhaha in progress. According to Georgia, she joins the demonstration outside the station.
14 Jul 1999	Democracy Now! is censored from KPFK, WPFW and KPFA when Sawaya appears as a guest. Chadwick will not allow the show on the Pacifica web site or archives. The guards and Berkeley police chain KPFA's front door shut. Large demonstrations keep the street busy all day and night. Police and demonstrators clash at several times, with many additional arrests. Mark Schubb orders the KPFK news department not to report the crisis.
15 Jul 1999	Demonstrators scale the KPFA/Pacifica building with ladders. Some reach the balcony, and clash with the guards and helmeted Berkeley cops while attempting a banner drop. Noelle Hanrahan is beaten and arrested.
16 Jul 1999	Ganter, in a move somewhat reminiscent of the WBAI incident, attempts to sieze KPFA's transmitter by cutting it off from the studio and installing ISDN lines to bring in KPFK programs. Phone installers, however, refuse to cross the picket line thrown around the facility by union members and listeners. KPFK, under listener pressure, refuses to allow such use of its audio. A hip-hop rally is held in front of the now completely barricaded station, and later that night a tent city called Camp KPFA appears on the sidewalk. It will occupy the area, on and off, for over two weeks.
16 Jul 1999	KPFK censors Counterspin again, by cutting a statement by Schubb into a report on KPFA.
17 Jul 1999	KPFA "Chain Gang" is born, when three supporters lock down to the doors. This lockdown will continue, in shifts, for well over two weeks.
19 Jul 1999	Joan Baez and Utah Phillips headline a well-attended benefit concert for KPFA.
20 Jul 1999	Berkeley cops block off the street overnight following the concert. Some KPFA staffers broadcast from an out-of-band (87.9) pirate radio at Camp KPFA.
21 Jul 1999	600-700 Mar from the BART station to KPFA. Meanwhile, police arrest additional demonstrators at the transmitter, and escort in PacBell management personnel, who install the ISDN. WPFW censors a PNN report on these events. Having captured the transmitter at gunpoint, Ganter feeds in programming from his station in Houston. Not far from where this is taking place, KPFA listener Carol Spooner is forming the Committee to Remove the Pacifica Board (CRPB) to gather declarations from listeners calling for court removal of Pacifica board of directors for gross abuse of authority, fraud or dishonest acts. In the dark, we see light.
23 Jul 1999	WPFW fakes a technical problem and runs music over Democracy Now!, which had picked up the censored PNN report.
24 Jul 1999	On Saturday, Camp KPFA spreads out across the street in front of KPFA. Pacifica management calls the situation a "mob," but photos show a completely harmless, if rather impressive, tent city, and a fun street party.
25 Jul 1999	Berry hires Fineman and Associates, a high-priced industrial PR firm. Demonstrations begin at Fineman offices.
26 Jul 1999	Five Bay Area unions call on Pacifica to end lockout at KPFA. More pirate KPFA programs originate from Camp KPFA. Labor mediation continues.
27 Jul 1999	The Berkeley City Council interrupts its vacation to unanimously demand that KPFA end the lockout. Mary Frances Berry issues a statement that selling KPFA was never an option.
28 Jul 1999	Berry's denial of any consideration of selling KPFA is proven untrue when LAB / PNB member Pete Bramson holds a news conference to describe, in detail, a recent meeting between Berry and Acosta over a complex sales deal. Berry claims that she was misheard, but the jig is up.
29 Jul 1999	Having lost all credibility and nearly bankrupt the National Office, Berry surrenders, promising that the lockout at KPFA will end at 9 AM on the 30th.
30 Jul 1999	Employees first refuse to re-enter KPFA, but finally show up right on time, along with a hundred or so demonstrators, to hold a press conference and take over the building keys. The keys don't arrive, because only one entrance is usable and authorities have declared the building unsafe for radio production. The first people allowed in, who include Andrea Buffa, report a disaster area. The guards have trashed the building, doing at least $20,000 damage. Expensive speakers are missing, and satellite lines have been crudely cut. This does not really matter, because the guards still occupy the transmitter and its ISDN lines.
31 Jul 1999	Fineman drops Pacifica as a client, ostensibly for financial reasons, but probably also due to listener pressure. Rumors fly that the PNB cannot pay security and PR bills, and that the forced sale of KPFA is imminent. California Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Fred Keeley adds his name to a growing list of state legislators calling for an investigation. 10,000 - 15,000 KPFA supporters Mar in Berkeley, in easily the biggest demonstration there since Viet Nam. Many notables give speeches, and bands perform.
1 Aug 1999	Lockout at KPFA officially ends. Administrative leaves are cancelled, and staff is ordered to report back to work as soon as possible. At some point, Ganter returns to KPFT, tail planted firmly between legs.
2 Aug 1999	The chain is cut, and the doors of the KPFA studio are thrown open. The public is allowed into the lobby area. The transmitter remains occupied and relaying the ISDN feed.
3 Aug 1999	30 demonstrators picket the KPFA transmitter with news media present. Later, someone crawls under the fence, and arrests are made.
5 Aug 1999	Fire department finally allows the full KPFA staff back into the boarded-up studio. Production begins at 7 AM in the more or less repaired facility, ending 23 days of canned and relayed programming. A press conference is held.
10 Aug 1999	A crowd gathers early at the courthouse for the arraignment of the 52 arrested at KPFA on Jul 13. In yet another of those weird events so typical at Pacifica, the proceeding is postponed until Aug 20, after the judge recuses herself for being a former KPFA LAB and PNB member.
12 Aug 1999	Marc Cooper, speaking for some portion of the KPFK staff, writes a letter to Berry attacking LAB member David Adelson, a lawsuit plaintiff. The public feud between KPFK's "Coopertista" faction and Adelson's LAB continues for several more years. More bad blood is caused by Cooper's article in the L.A. Weekly, in which he accuses Bernstein of throwing a tantrum and barricading himself inside the station. All witnesses continue to agree that this is a rather fanciful interpretation of the facts, given the level of physical confrontation that started the incident. The Weekly, however, remains something of a Coopertista organ right up to the present.
14 Aug 1999	A large crowd gathers in Mosswood Park, Oakland, to attend a really supporting KPFA.
16 Aug 1999	M.F. Berry surprises many by asking prosecutors to drop all charges against the 100+ protesters arrested at KPFK. Chadwick announces that she will refuse to testify in an investigation being opened by the California state legislature.
17 Aug 1999	KPFA programmers of color file a civil rights complaint in Oakland, while a demonstration is held outside the building. Media Alliance calls free speech rallies at all 5 stations.
18 Aug 1999	A real who's who of prominent activists, labor leaders, and community figures buy an expensive ad in the New York Times, with an open letter to Berry and the PNB asking them to restore democracy at Pacifica and resign. A few of the better-known signers include (alphabetically by first name) Andrea Buffa, Angela Davis, Barbara Ehrenreich, Ben Bagdikian, Daniel Ellsberg, Danny Glover, Dave Dellinger, Helen Caldicott, Holly Near, Howard Zinn, Jerry Brown, Joan Baez, Juan Gonzales, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael Albert, Michael Franti, Michael Moore, Michael Parenti, Noam Chomsky, Norman Solomon, Pam Africa, Peter Franck, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and Teresa Bonpane.
20 Aug 1999	California legislature investigates the actions of the National Board at KPFA. After being subpoenaed, Berry divulges that she has spent $58,000 on Fineman's PR, $390,000 for the guards, and $7,000 to board up the station.
21 Aug 1999	"Enfoque Latino," KPFK's only Spanish-language public affairs program in a 50% spanish-speaking county, violates the KPFK gag rule by mentioning the Aug 17 demonstration at that station on the air. The program is pre-empted on Aug 28. Employees showing up on Sep 4 are told the show is cancelled.
24 Aug 1999	Mary Frances Berry makes surprise visit to WBAI for unpublicized meeting with staff. She speaks ill of KPFA and its community ("Our beloved Bay Area," as Palmer had sarcastically called it), and asks if WBAI staff would support the sale of KPFA to create a series of small stations in the South. Presumably, they didn't.
26 Aug 1999	WBAI management wins its appeal with the NLRB, which rules that unpaid staff can be excluded from the union at the station.
27 Aug 1999	Hackers change Pacifica's world wide web site, adding such text as "a subsidiary of the Coca Cola Corporation," and "Now, you can put up bids for KPFA and WBAI right on the Internet using your credit card... ."
31 Aug 1999	KPFK bans news veteran Robin Urevich after she writes about the Pacifica struggle in a community newspaper having no affiliation whatsoever to KPFK or Pacifica.
2 Sep 1999	Coalition for a Democratic Pacifica, a group formed after the Bensky firing, pickets KPFA as Chadwick returns to her office at the station.
3 Sep 1999	Southern California ADA releases a resolution calling on Chadwick and the entire PNB to resign, and for democracy to be restored at KPFK.
4 Sep 1999	Producers of Enfoque Latino, KPFK's highly regarded Spanish-language news and public affairs show, are told to leave the station as they prepare for the weekly program. They are banned, and the show, only one of its kind on L.A. public radio, is cancelled after 13 years. It comes back in 2002.
6 Sep 1999	Some "Enfoque Latino" producers join recently fired/banned KPFK news reporter Robin Urevich and the Pacifica Accountability Committee in the Wilmington Labor Day Parade.
29 Sep 1999	KPFK's Pacifica Accountability Committee splits up in a policy difference between the Coordinating Council and several key players in the Los Angeles struggle. The result is the more radical Pacifica Listeners Union, started by Rafael Renteria, Bernie Eisenberg, Jonathan Markowitz, Loraine Mirza, Fernando Velasquez, and Altaf Bhimji. PLU comes to have chapters nationwide. It, too, immediately develops internal splits that continue to damage the Pacifica listener-activist movement to this day.
27 Oct 1999	Chadwick re-assigns (translate as "fires") Dan Coughlin, news director of Pacifica Network News and a former Democracy Now! producer, for violating the gag rule by mentioning the "No Pacifica Day" on-air.
30 Oct 1999	Approximate date that the first Pacifica Listeners Union demand list is made public, in a listserv posting during the Houston PNB meeting.
19 Nov 1999	Committee to Remove the Pacifica Board files petition with California Attorney General for standing to sue for twelve listener "relators" from all five Pacifica stations to sue in "quo warranto" action for breach of trust & removal of the Pacifica Board on behalf of the listeners and the public interest. Over 3,000 signed declarations from listeners gathered by grass-roots activists across the country are submitted in support of the petition. The listener/"relators" are: Carol Spooner - KPFA (lead relator), John D. Biello - WBAI, Carolyn Birdin - WBAI, Arturo Griffifths - WPFW, Kurt Guerdrum - KPFT, Dick Hague - KPFA, Leigh Hauther - WPFW, Patty Heffley - WBAI, Barbara MacQuiddy - KPFA, Rick Potthoff - KPFT, Chuck Scurich - KPFK & KPFA, and Ron Swart - KPFK.
21 Nov 1999	The Policy Committee of the Pacifica Listeners Union, consisting of Rafael Renteria, Bernie Eisenberg, Heidi Chesney (from the new KPFA chapter), and Michael Costello (ditto), makes the famous World Wide Web posting of its 15-point program for the reform of Pacifica and calls for a boycott of contributions until its enaction. Issues include replacement of the Pacifica National Board by an ELECTED interim board, a rewrite of the bylaws, and the end of CPB funding. This remains the radical agenda, and parts of it, sadly, are as far off as ever.
5 Jan 2000	Pacifica National Board moves its offices from Berkeley to Washington, DC, slipping out in the proverbial dead of night.
31 Jan 2000	After several more firings, Pacifica News Network stringers begin a strike which lasts until early 2002. One result is the Free Speech Radio News, originally produced on the Internet by Pacifica Reporters Against Censorship, but now on Pacifica itself.
22 Feb 2000	KPFA's LAB draws up the first proposal for democratic elections, eliminating the major criticism of LABs that they are self-selected. The National Board recommends in 2001 that the other stations adopt the "KPFA Model."
26-27 Feb 2000	Pacifica National Board packs itself with additional at-large directors, going from 15 to 19 members, and thus eliminating the traditional 2/3 majority from the stations. Berry announces that she will not seek another term, and that the chairmanship will pass to station sale advocate David Acosta in Sep. Chadwick resigns effective Mar 1, and Bessie "The Censor" Wash of WPFW is the new executive director.
7 Mar 2000	Garland Ganter is hired as Pacifica's first national PD since 1998.
30 Mar 2000	Schubb issues the infamous "Y2K Contract Memo," demanding that all of KPFK's "programmers" (unpaid, volunteer producers) sign over full ownership and subsidiary rights to all shows they produce at their own expense. Hour 25, one of the station's oldest and most popular programs, is gone by Sep.
11 May 2000	KPFK's LAB votes to recall Bob Farrell, a former L.A. City Council member, from the Pacifica National Board. He is replaced by black activist Dawud Khalil-Ullah Abdullah. Other local boards make similar moves. All are ignored. Farrell ultimately becomes PNB Chairman.
Jun 2000	WPFW GM Lou Hankins bars the station LAB after it adds several dissidents.
Jul-Aug 2000	Amy Goodman gets Ralph Nader into the Republican National Convention, which otherwise would not admit him, by taking him on as a reporter and giving him a press pass. Angry Ganter revokes Goodman's press credentials for the Democratic convention. Later, Ganter's son is seen wearing one of them.
14 Sep 2000	Steve Yasko replaces Ganter as the national PD. Immediately he and Schubb call in Amy Goodman and order that she tone down her show. Shouts of "I am your boss!" are heard. (Shouting has always been common at Pacifica.) Afterward, Goodman recalls Schubb's now-famous 1999 complaint that he does not like hearing graphic descriptions of police brutality before his morning coffee.
15 Sep 2000	The California Attorney General approves the Committee to Remove the Pacifica Board's petition, and makes a very rare grant of relator status, which authorizes Carol Spooner and the 11 other listeners to file quo warranto on behalf of the entire complaining Pacifica listenership. This is the first quo warranto action allowed by the CA Attorney General in many years, and results in the second of the big four lawsuits, known as the "Listeners' Suit" or the "Spooner Suit." CRPB continues raising money to press this legal action.
17 Sep 2000	The Pacifica National Board gets an early present on the first day of its meeting, when members are served with the Listener's Suit.
19 Sep 2000	Robert Robinson and Rabbai Aaron Kriegel, two dissident National Board members, file the third big lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court, accusing the Foundation and its executive committee of illegal tactics in the KPFA matter. This becomes known as the "Board Suit" or the "Robinson Suit."
13 Oct 2000	Schubb cancels Folk Scene, KPFK's most popular show, when its co-hosts reject the "Y2K contract." Jackson Browne plays at their legal benefit.
16 Oct 2000	Amy Goodman files a grievance with AFTRA after she is threatened with termination unless she sticks to a long list of work rules presented by Yasko. Tension rise at WBAI, where Democracy Now! is produced.
Oct 2000	New York PNB dissidents Leslie Cagan and Beth Lyons begin WBAI listener meetings, starting the group that becomes Concerned Friends of WBAI.
7 Nov 2000	On election day, Amy Goodman learns that she has seconds to prepare for a live phone-in from the president of the United States. Clinton, who expects a quick, warm-fuzzy, "get out the vote" call, is immediately hit with, "What do you say to people who feel that the two parties are bought by corporations?" The president, Slick Willy himself, audibly blows his cool when Goodman keeps him on the phone for 30 minutes, with pointed questions on Peltier, Iraq, racial profiling, and other issues the spin doctors have been keeping far from the campaign. The next day, Goodman receives a nasty phone call from the White House broadcast office. Rather than being elated at lucking into the political interview of the year, Pacifica's national management go ballistic, probably imagining all their nice CPB money fading away.
28 Nov 2000	Bessie Wash, ex-WPFW GM and new Pacifica Executive Director, puts WBAI GM Valerie Van Isler (no Miss Congeniality herself) on notice of termination effective Jan first. Plans for protests on New Year's Day begin to circulate around the Internet.
22-23 Dec 2000	Coup at WBAI: While most of New York parties, Bessie Wash leads a force from the National Board into WBAI, literally taking over the station just before midnight in an action now called the "Christmas Coup." While amazed staffers look on, Utrice Leid is installed as the interim GM, door locks are changed, and a list of banned employees is given to security guards. At 1:40 AM, Leid comes on-air to announce the change. As dawn breaks, Bernard White and Sharan Harper receive their termination letters from messengers. An angry crowd begins to form downstairs, and is held back by building security for most of the day.
23 Jan 2001	9 are arrested at WBAI for civil disobedience, after a dispute over admission of a banned staffer to the station for a LAB meeting turns into a physical altercation between 40 - 50 listeners and about the same number of cops, guards, and Utricians.
25 Jan 2001	Listeners seek a court injunction to prevent the National Board from adopting yet another new set of by-laws which would reduce the board to a small group with absolute authority. John Murdock, a corporate lawyer who has become influential on the Board, continues to write these while his law firm "just happens" to represent the Board in the lawsuits.
31 Jan 2001	Juan Gonzales, co-host of Democracy Now!, resigns on-air with his famous "corporate vulture" speech. He helps start a militant organization called the Pacifica Campaign.
3 Mar 2001	Worn down by massive opposition, and beset by internal squabbles, the once-monolithic National Board shows weakness at its scheduled meeting in Houston. Street protesters are held back by police. Tempers flare at the public sessions, and some minor scuffles take place outside. The expected vote on the Murdock by-laws never takes place
5 Mar 2001	Utrice Leid cuts off a New York City member of Congress as he begins to give a prepared statement on the "public radio mess." The show's host is fired. Three days later, the same statement is given on the floor of the House of Representatives, where there is certainly no gag order. :-) It likens Pacifica's conduct to the state of media in Iraq. The Democratic Progressive Caucus begins holding public hearings on the matter.
14 Mar 2001	Amy Goodman, the last survivor on WBAI's Wake-Up Call show since the Christmas Coup, is removed from the program.
23 Mar 2001	Houston activist Edwin Johnston is arrested at an outdoor concert party for that year's major donors to KPFT, after leafletters were confronted by Molly O'Brien, who at that time was station development director and GM Garland Ganter's wife.
26 Mar 2001	Bessie Wash breaks into Democracy Now! to deliver a tirade relating to the Johnston/ O'Brien incident.
28 Apr 2001	1300 March across the Brooklyn Bridge and rally at WBAI. Concerned Friends, CdP-NY, and Pacifical Listener's Union hold a joint listeners' forum.
14 May 2001	Treasurer Michael Palmer, of "Palmer Letter" fame, resigns from the National Board. It becomes clear that listener action led to pressure from his employer, a large real estate firm heavily involved in sensitive deals including Mexican maquiladoras.
15 May 2001	Democracy Now! is temporarily removed from WBAI and KPFK, in a dispute relating to the spring fund drive. Pacifica Campaign calls for a boycott of KPFK.
23 May 2001	In an attempt to rescue what has become a disastrous fund drive, Schubb allows Democracy Now! back onto KPFK. It remains off WBAI.
Jun 2001	The fourth of the major Pacifica lawsuits is filed by dissident National Board members Tomas Moran, Leslie Cagan, and Peter Bramson. This is a cross-complaint in favor of the Robinson suit, and is also known as the "second board suit."
6 Jun 2001	A bill for the first part of $23,987 owed ADT Security for alarms and surveillance cameras at WBAI leaks onto the Internet. KPFA veterans get deja vu all over again.
12 Jun 2001	National Board chairman David Acosta resigns, and corporate hit man Ken Ford moves up. Karolyn Van Putten resigns the same day. The majority faction is left in disarray. They send out feelers to Dick Gregory, among others, as possible replacements.
16 Jul 2001	A Houston court drops all charges against Edwin Johnston in the O'Brien incident.
17 Jul 2001	After the National Board is enjoined from meeting to replace its three departed members, Andrea Cisco resigns. This leaves the "pro-corporate" majority with a shaky, one-vote advantage.
21 Jul 2001	Bessie Wash, along with Yasko pretty much the only person left in charge at Pacifica, fires Murdoch's EB&G law firm, replacing it with pricey, prestigious Williams&Connelly. While Bessie is spending the foundation's money, she also hires even pricier Westhill Partners, a PR firm which has represented Monica Lewinsky and the tobacco industry.
25 Jul 2001	The remaining UE bargaining unit at WBAI, packed by many of Leid's subsequent hires, begins investigating the possibility of switching Unions to the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists (AFTRA). AFTRA assures them that they have no interest in organizing the unpaid staff that were dropped from the bargaining unit in 1999.
2 Aug 2001	Confrontation builds at WBAI as Yasko orders Amy Goodman to stop ending Democracy Now! with her famous "...from the studios of the banned and the fired." Goodman refuses.
10 Aug 2001	Amy Goodman and Utrice Leid scuffle briefly when Leid tries to confiscate her camera in a dispute over a fired WBAI employee's effects.
13 Aug 2001	WBAI Operations Director Sidney Smith and morning show host Marjorie Moore engage in a shouting match with Amy Goodman and her crew.
14 Aug 2001	Following a steadily escalating exchange of ugly confrontations, physical threats, and racial epithets, Amy Goodman produces Democracy Now! in exile at a nearby public TV studio with an ISDN. When negotiations fail, Pacifica management takes the opportunity to yank the show from the KU-band satellite. Even though it is still being produced, the program is replaced with reruns, except on KPFA and a few news affiliates with access to another ISDN.
16 Aug 2001	As part of a larger picket downstairs, three activists crash a Houston meeting to protest actions by the PNB. Two men have a scuffle with Pacifica director David Acosta, while a woman videotaping the affair has her camera shoved in her face.
17 Aug 2001	Protests at all 5 stations call for reinstatement of Democracy Now!.
21 Aug 2001	Pacifica management suspends the entire Democracy Now! staff without pay for not reporting to what DN! argues is an unsafe workplace. The program continues in production at the firehouse, but off the KU-band satellite.
22 Aug 2001	Bessie Wash orders Phil Osegueda, the KPFA Assistant GM, not to make Democracy Now! available to the NPR C-band satellite. Someone at Pacifica's DC office contacts NPR and tells them not to authorize any satellite time for DN!. (This is sworn to in a legal declaration filed in Alameda County Superior Court by Adelson, et al on this date.)
24 Aug 2001	National Board contracts with non-union Feature Story News to produce timely content that is inserted over the old news at the beginning of the Democracy Now! reruns. This news is represented as being "from the Pacifica newsroom," although it is actually coming from a remotely located company that also supplies Fox and the Voice Of America.
28 Aug 2001	Protests occur at Pacifica stations in a "National Day of Solidarity" for Democracy Now!.
29 Aug 2001	AFTRA agrees to investigate the incidents at WBAI, and asks Pacifica to change inaccurate information on its web site. Democracy Now! remains in "archive editions."
30 Aug 2001	The Pacifica National Board majority finally cracks, as one member breaks ranks to vote with the opposition. As a result, the Board orders Bessie Wash to restore Democracy Now! and pay the staff. Wash and Yasko refuse.
3 Sep 2001	PNB suspends Clayton Riley of WBAI, after KPFA plays tapes of his calling Amy Goodman a "white bitch slave," and physically attacking Robert White. The next day, Utrice Leid allows Riley to return to work.
3 Sep 2001	Pacifica Campaign "outs" Steve Yasko as porno webmaster "Mike Bilt," after someone is alleged by the Campaign to have posted a sexual fantasy about Amy Goodman to a site linked from Yasko's. Yasko denies knowledge of the link, but hurriedly pulls all his sites from the web. He charges the PC with homophobia, and resigns as national PD.
5 Sep 2001	Democracy Now! covers the Durban racism conference, giving Pacifica an authoritative exclusive that could establish them as a serious news organization. Instead, Wash continues to air the reruns. Jesse Jackson and Danny Glover ask her to stop. A few affiliates break ranks to join KPFA in airing the live show.
11 Sep 2001	WBAI, with its transmitter on the Empire State Building, survives the initial destruction of the World Trade Center. At 5:30 PM, however, power losses and evacuations of the Wall Street studio put the station off the air for 38 hours. Democracy Now! staff braves smoke and toxic pollution to begin days of compelling coverage live from the firehouse. At 1/4 mile (about half a km) distance, this is probably the closest working fire station to Ground Zero, so close that people must bring in food for the DN! staff, because were they to leave the police perimeter, they would not be allowed back. Again, Pacifica is given a golden opportunity to become a respected news organization. However, the program remains off Pacifica's main uplink.
18 Sep 2001	Plaintiffs in the various lawsuits are unsuccessful in blocking the next day's scheduled telephone meeting of the National Board, in which new members are to be added. The judge does, however, allow Pete Bramson to vote in the meeting.
19 Sep 2001	The Pacifica National Board meets by telephone and replaces its resigned members. In a rather bizarre procedure, the new people are allowed to vote themselves in. They come mostly from a Washington DC city politics clique. In other moves, Utrice Leid takes over Yasko's position, becoming Amy Goodman's boss, and Robert Daughtry, from WPFW, assumes Leid's former job as WBAI general manager.
19 Sep 2001	Activists go into serious head-scratching when the new board chairman Bob Farrell abruptly issues a "peace initiative" seeking a resolution to the Democracy Now! matter and several other key issues. KPFT GM Garland Ganter censors the Pacifica Network News broadcast mentioning this memo by running BBC instead.
1 Oct 2001	15 affiliates jump ship, suspending payment to Pacifica until Democracy Now! returns. They issue a press release as "Affiliates In Exile," which announces their airing of the live DN! and Free Speech Radio News.
3 Oct 2001	Pacifica National Board deadlocks 5-5 on returning Democracy Now! to the air, when Dick Gregory abstains. More stations break ranks to air the "exile" program.
6 Oct 2001	Ganter's wife Molly O'Brien claims another victim when Teresa Allen, of KPFT's Local Advisory Board, is arrested in front of the station after attempting a routine financial audit. She spends the night in jail. Rumors begin to fly that Pacifica, which has been paying millions in professional fees, is out of money.
10 Oct 2001	KPFK's antenna upgrade project is the next cash flow problem, as construction halts and the station broadcasts with an 8 kW backup transmitter and antenna. Money is found somewhere, some late bills are paid, and a nice new Jampro 4-bay antenna gets "the K" up to 28 kW, and audible, just in time for the fund drive.
15 Oct 2001	AFTRA wins the election at WBAI, ending the United Electrical era which began in 1987. A new contract is subsequently negotiated, for paid staff only.
18 Oct 2001	The dissident faction finds enough cash to put out a financial fire at KPFA, which the power company is threatening to disconnect if not paid a past-due $9400. KPFA remains $100,000 in debt, however.
23 Oct 2001	PNB vice-chair Ken Ford is quoted in a San Francisco Examiner story that selling WBAI and KPFA would be a good solution to the financial crisis. He also sees "parallels" between the Pacifica Campaign and "the terrorists who bombed New York." Amazed Pacifica critics launch a huge letter and picketing campaign.
25 Oct 2001	Ford issues an official statement, claiming that he was quoted out of context, and no stations are for sale. He also denies that he actually meant to call the Pacifica Campaign terrorists.
25 Oct 2001	Bob Farrell, the new PNB chair, asks Bessie Wash to turn in her resignation, after angry KPFK and KPFA employees threaten not to participate in the fund drive. The drive proceeds with full support, and (due undoubtedly to Sep 11) attracts a large number of pledges.
30 Oct 2001	Ford resigns from the Pacifica National Board.
1 Nov 2001	Both sides in the four lawsuits begin formal legal mediation, in an attempt to settle out of court. Rumors of a breakthrough fly around the Internet, but three of the Board defendants bail out, and the mediation fails.
18 Nov 2001	In a noisy, emotional, Washington DC meeting, the PNB votes to start a process of dissolving itself in favor of an interim board with 5 from the "corporate majority," 5 from the "dissidents," and 5 appointed by the LAB chairs. Many issues are addressed in the final agreement that passes unanimously. Leslie Cagan reports that Pacifica owes $2-3 million.
3 Dec 2001	Despite Nov 18's vote, negotiations bog down in details over voting majorities on the proposed interim board, and no resignations ever take place. Pacifica activists resume the fight.
11 Dec 2001	All plaintiffs and defendants in the four lawsuits meet with a California judge, in one last attempt to settle the lawsuits, and avoid millions of dollars in legal bills.
12 Dec 2001	Third time is the charm, as the California session produces an agreement to implement an interim board with more power for the "dissidents," and a mandate to rewrite the bylaws. All four lawsuits are dropped.
Late Dec 2001	Differences over the settlement spill onto the airwaves at WBAI, with hours of on-air rants and "dirty linen." Daughtry reveals his own biases by suspending three dissidents while allowing longer rants by followers of former GM Utrice Leid.
29 Dec 2001	The new interim Pacifica National Board (iPNB) meets for the first time, in a 4-hour conference call. New officers are Leslie Cagan, chair; Carol Spooner, secretary; and Jabari Zakiya, treasurer. The board votes, narrowly, to postpone a vote on moving the headquarters back to Berkeley until the March meeting in Los Angeles. It also votes to continue negotiations with Democracy Now!.
3-5 Jan 2002	KPFK GM Mark Schubb jumps into the post-settlement wars by cancelling Seditious Beats, a popular hip-hop show, the host of which had been recently suspended for gag rule violations. Marc Cooper repeatedly devotes KPFK air time to half-truths about the PNB, iPNB, and LAB stealing all of the station's money. There is no gag rule for him. Schubb, in fact, comes on his show and agrees.
4 Jan 2002	Barney Goodman, a representative from the Houston LAB who tended to vote with the former majority, resigns from the iPNB after exactly a week. He is replaced by George Barnstone, another Texas real estate person.
7 Jan 2002	Democracy Now! airs on the regular Pacifica satellite link for the first time in over four months, after Amy Goodman reaches an interim agreement with the iPNB.
11-13 Jan 2002	The iPNB has its first face-to-face meeting, in New York. Ex-treasurer Wendell Johns faxes in his immediate resignation before the meeting, leaving the old majority a vote short before things even start. The new board majority promptly undoes the Christmas Coup, firing Daughtry and returning all banned and fired to WBAI. The next day, fired PNN staffer Dan Coughlin is named interim executive director. Finally, Leslie Cagan is authorized to finalize the contract with Amy Goodman.
23 Jan 2002	Juan Gonzalez, needing more time after his triumphant return to Democracy Now!, resigns as Pacifica Campaign chair. The group also formally calls off the boycott, and offers to help the local stations start their own bank accounts.
25 Jan 2002	After an unsatisfactory meeting at KPFK, Cagan and Coughlin place Mark Schubb on administrative leave and hire Steven Starr, from the local Indymedia Center, as interim GM. Seditious Beats is immediately reinstated, and Democracy Now! returns to its second time slot. Coughlin also removes Lou Hankins as WPFW general manager. He is replaced on an interim basis by Tony Regusters, a journalist formerly of the Maxine Waters press office.
4 Feb 2002	KPFT picks Duane Bradley, a LAB member and former program director, as its new general manager.
6 Feb 2002	An accounting firm hired by anonymous benefactors reports that Pacifica is absolutely broke, with $4.8 million in debts. It is shown by receipts that Bessie Wash and the PNB majority had managed to turn a $600,000 surplus into a $3.5 million deficit in fiscal 2001 alone, mostly by blowing huge sums on professional services, travel, and perks.
15 Feb 2002	Pacifica Network News is closed for budgetary reasons. Its last broadcast ends with Saul Landau's bitter attack on iPNB. He is soon joined on-air by longtime friend and associate Marc Cooper, who also delivers some choice invective.
19 Feb 2002	Marc Cooper refuses to pitch in the next day's fund drive, and is indefinitely suspended. After a brief impasse, his local show (and his employment at KPFK) terminate, though Radio Nation is still produced there. Cooper doesn't seem to be missed, and KPFK raises over $700,000. All 5 Pacifica fund drives break records.
8-10 Mar 2002	Interim Pacifica National Board meets in Los Angeles. Again, most of the old majority does not show. The board votes to settle the Stringers' Strike, set processes in motion to rewrite the by-laws, start searches for permanent executives, and begin the move of the national offices back to Berkeley (until temporarily stopped by another vote in August). In particular, the board voted to set up a bylaws committee composed of subcommittees at all 5 stations, each chaired by an iPNB member, which immediately began scheduling meetings to develop proposals to bring back to the national board. A tentative date of August 31 is set for bylaws adoption, with elections for new local boards in December of 2002 - or so people think.
14 Mar 2002	KPFT LAB member Teresa Allen is convicted of misdemeanor trespassing stemming from her October arrest at the station. She receives a 30-day suspended sentence, a year's probation, and 40 hours of community service. The iPNB starts an appeal fund.
22 Mar 2002	The Pacifica Reporters Against Censorship approve the settlement passed at the 10 Mar iPNB meeting, and the "Stringers' Strike" is officially over.
26 Mar 2002	WBAI begins formal selection of members for a General Manager Search Committee.
7 Apr 2002	Folkscene returns to its old time slot on KPFK after 17 months. Steven Starr finishes his term as iGM, and is succeeded by Roy Hurst, also interim.
17 Apr 2002	KPFT broadcasts a controversial call-in show about the Intifada. Bob Buzzanco, a history professor at the U. of Houston, makes a very mildly deprecatory remark about the show as he starts his own program which followed. Later, he quits his show amid unproven accusations that he made worse remarks to one of the guests as she left the studio. A summer of stormy LAB meetings and personal feuding follows at KPFT.
18 Apr 2002	At a bylaws subcomittee meeting, WBAI programmer Mimi Rosenberg presents the first Constituency Model for Pacifica elections. Basically, a constituency model differs from the election scheme used by KPFA in that part or all of the seats are elected not at large, but by self-declared members of racial, ethnic, and economic constituencies. While this would get around the need to balance the boards by the somewhat ugly method of appointing seats from election "losers" with the proper backgrounds (the "KPFA with Diversity" plan), critics say that it would simply shift the appointment process over to those with an opportunity to gerrymander the constituencies. The choice between these two basic models for Pacifica bylaws remains a contentious matter from this point on.
25 May 2002	The iPNB Bylaws Revision Committee announces that its original deadline might have been unrealistic ;-). Instead of a complete document, it decides to issue "bullet points" on the 31st.
28 May 2002	Dan Coughlin announces that South African community radio activist Eva Georgia is the new permanent GM of KPFK.
30 May 2002	Zane Ibrahim, a visionary founder of Bush Radio in South Africa, sends e-mail to Dan Coughlin taking issue with certain statements made in Coughlin's press release announcing the hiring of Eva Georgia as permanent KPFK GM. This correspondence leaks onto the Internet, as so many e-mails seem to have a way of doing, from an anonymous source. Georgia is repeatedly exonerated by Coughlin, but a woozy enough place to manage becomes even woozier for poor Eva.
9 Jun 2002	KPFK's bylaws revision subcommittee throws down the gauntlet regarding the Constituency Model AND the KPFA remedial diversity. This group votes to reject any role of an appointment process anywhere in the voting for local boards, either in choosing constituencies or people to be seated.
10 Jun 2002	Eva Georgia has her first day at work as permanent GM at KPFK. It is widely gossipped that things do not go smoothly. With help from the LAB and the iPD, however, Georgia rapidly establishes credibility and begins doing very good things at the re-energized K.
21-22 Jun 2002	The interim Pacifica National Board meets in Berkeley. The first two days of discussion center on finances and budget issues.
23 Jun 2002	The Berkeley board meeting concludes with the acceptance of an unpopular independent-production contract for Democracy Now!, the adoption of an interesting diversity proposal, and directions to all 5 stations to produce and air weekly bylaws programming.
5 Jul 2002	Following a steadily escalating storm of controversy over the back-room dealing which led to what is considered an overly generous contract with Democracy Now!, board chair Leslie Cagan issues an apology and promises to revisit the issue.
6 July 2002	Board secretary Carol Spooner requests a special iPNB meeting to consider what can be done to renegotiate the Democracy Now! contract.
7 July 2002	WBAI's Mimi Rosenberg and Mark Sanborne introduce a complex "Inclusion Model" for elections which addresses early criticism of the Constituency Model. For the first time, "Committees Of Inclusion" are proposed, to supervise the determination of constituencies for a portion of the board seats. Closed meetings are held by the WBAI "Unity Caucus" to develop this model. There is some friction with the CdPNY on the matter of appointed seats.
9 July 2002	Amy Goodman and her senior producer issue a statement of willingness to revisit the Democracy Now! contract, and Leslie Cagan agrees.
11 July 2002	At 8:20 PM Pacific time, the Bird wattmeter kicks all the way over to 54 kW transmitter RF power output, and KPFK is finally back at full licensed power, a paint-peeling 112,000 effective watts out of the 4-bay antenna at the top of the 5300-foot mountain. KPFK's signal continues to improve over the next months, as engineering wraps up at the site. A border radio war ensues, as an illegal station in Tijuana modifies its own antenna to compete with the new mighty K.
16 July 2002	The iPNB holds a closed executive session by telephone to begin the process of renegotiating with Democracy Now!. They agree to find a new lawyer and begin legal negotiations with Amy Goodman's independent company.
22 July 2002	The iPNB meets again in closed executive session, hiring a lawyer and appointing a committee to handle any possible new negotiations.
25 July 2002	In a procedure which will become only too familiar in the long months to come, the iPNB Bylaws Revision Committee publishes two lettered drafts of proposed bylaws. In this case the one lettered A is written by Rob Robinson and the DC group, and B is by Carol Spooner and others. We now see all three factions in the Pacifica bylaw debate, since the third is the Unity Caucus/Constituency Model.
Aug 2002	All five stations are directed to have summer Mini Fund Drives, after the national budget runs out of cash a month short. All drives are, again, very successful. KPFK's big new transmitter and some interesting programming help shatter all records for a 4-day drive.
16 Aug 2002	6 members of the interim PNB request a special telephone meeting to consider suspending all planning of the move of the national office to Berkeley until costs and feasibility can be discussed at the September board meeting in Houston. Their request makes serious, and inflammatory, accusations of malfeasance and corruption by other members of iPNB and certain individuals in California.
30 Aug 2002	The telephone meeting requested by 6 iPNB members takes place, and the suspension of planning for the Berkeley move passes easily. This suspension is lifted some weeks later at an iPNB meeting.
16 Sep 2002	In a marathon two-day conference, KPFK listeners thrash out a bylaws draft that is endorsed by the bylaws subcommittee, the old PAC, the newer FPNN, and the LAB. This much agreement is no small feat at KPFK. Their document is called the KPFK Unity Bylaws, not to be confused with the older Unity Caucus in New York. It is a serious piece of work deserving serious attention, which it does not really get. Here is one big reason for the otherwise seemingly inexplicable disdain for "Draft B" in Los Angeles.
20 Sep 2002	iPNB meets at a nice hotel in Houston, for more lengthy discussions of bylaws.
25 Sep 2002	At its first meeting after the Unity conference, the KPFK bylaws subcommittee submits a formal proposal for a Bylaws Convention to be made mandatory at some set time after the elections, so any unforseen problems with the bylaws can be addressed. This idea gains wide support, but always "just happens" not to be in the iPNB bylaws drafts. Dissatisfaction with the process becomes greater still at KPFK.