KPFA and Pacifica are at a crossroads. Despite the growing economic/political crisis in our country, the number of listeners to KPFA and Pacifica are declining. Many former listeners have gone to Green 960 AM or the internet for their news and information. We need new community programs at KPFA from housing issues & veterans issues to a regular one hour labor show and Black community show. With the potential of reaching 12 million people in Northern California, we believe that KPFA/Pacifica needs to be a portal and vehicle to bring the voices of working people and the many communities of the bay area who are in need of programming about their issues in a media world that is more and more corporate driven. Our model should not be PBS/NPR which relies on big donors and corporations that want to control the news. Instead we need to build news bureaus in the South Bay, North Bay, Sacramento and the Peninsula that provide the local community news not only on the radio but the web. We need to use the our sister channel KPFB to get additional community programming on the air including live audio and video programming for community news and other struggles taking place throughout N. California.

The financial collapse and growing devastation for the poor, disabled and all public workers make KPFA even more critical as a beacon of how people can organize and fight back. We need statewide community programs between KPFK and KPFA that allow people throughout California to speak out and discuss how they are being affected by the healthcare crisis, education cuts, ICE attacks, union busting and efforts to destroy the public sector & privatize public spaces.

The merger of the 6:00PM news between KPFA & LA KPFK has meant a reduction of local community news. We support a one hour statewide news show but not by cutting local news. Lets expand our programming instead of homogenizing it.

In order to do this, we need to re-establish a listener driven program council. The council’s elimination has silenced the voices of what changes the listeners and supporters of KPFA need and want. We support a survey sent out to all listeners at election time to find out what they want at our station.

Present management has failed to collaborate with the staff, paid and unpaid and this has led to lawsuits and even the police being called to the station to arrest Black community programmer Nadra Foster. This atmosphere must end if KPFA/Pacifica is to carry out it's mandate/principles. We also need semi-annual town hall meetings for the listeners which are required by the bylaws as well as having all the minutes of the LSB meetings on the website.

I am a labor journalist & labor video producer. I also helped found Laborfest.net and Labortech.net which celebrates our history, culture and supports tech tools in the labor movement. Lets make a new beginning at KFPA. Please vote for me and VFJR supporter Jaime Cader.

Steve Zeltzer lvpsf@igc.org

www.VoicesForJusticeRadio.org