Pacifica Chair David Acosta and Board Member Valerie Van Putten Resign Under Pressure!

News Update

CONCERNED FRIENDS OF WBAI FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: John Riley 917-653-7267 or
June 15, 2001 Rosalie Hoffman 212-799-3207

(New York)-Wednesday evening New York Pacifica Board Member Leslie Cagan announced that board chair David Acosta and board member Karolyn Van Putten issued letters of resignation to Pacifica Executive Director Bessie Wash. Four members of the pro-corporate national board have resigned since January 2001 when listeners in all five signal areas of the network began a massive revolt against their effort to move Pacifica into the mainstream. The movement to democratize the progressive radio network includes listeners, local advisory boards, station staff and some elected officials.

Wednesday's resignations follow on the heels of the resignation of Pacifica Treasurer Michael Palmer announced by Congressman Major Owens during a Progressive Congressional Caucus forum on Pacifica and public radio held May 15th in Washington DC. Palmer received enormous media attention for proposing the sale of KPFA and WBAI in 1999. In March board memberFrank Millspaugh also resigned.

In New York activists are demanding that Pacifica Executive Board Member Andrea Cisco also resign. "Cisco, like Van Putten, has flown under the radar of national publicity unlike Acosta and some others, but has been quite destructive to Pacifica and WBAI," said Anthony Mackall, of Community for Progressive Radio and a WBAI Local Advisory Board member. "Cisco voted to make the national board self-selecting after giving her word to local listeners that she would not, and to add insult to injury, she then conspired to remain on the board illegally though her term expired in March." New York based activists plan a non-violent demonstration at the business of Andrea Cisco Friday, June 15 from 5-7 pm, demanding her resignation. Cisco works as a "diversity training" consultant for corporations out of her home at 98 Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn.

On June 4th a listener direct action group called LOUD RAPP staged a non-violent demonstration by walking into the station, chanting "Take back WBAI! Restore Progressive Radio!" and attempting to unfurl a 6 story banner from the 10th floor Wall Street studios. The incident apparently unnerved station management which recently began installation of a $50,000 surveillance system including 6 cameras and a 30-day video-storage library. "For a station that recently lost more than $400,000 in a disastrous fund drive, it is unconscionable to be forking out $50,000 in listener funds to calm the siege mentality and paranoid fears of Bessie Wash and interim station manager Utrice Leid." said Juan Gonzales of the Pacifica Campaign.

On June 9, Pacifica activists hung a banner in the pre-dawn hours on the headquarters of the National Association of Home Builders in Washington, DC. The banner read "KEN FORD off the BOARD - NAHB OUT OF PACIFICA", and was placed to coincide with the NAHB's Spring Board of Directors' meeting. Ken Ford is the Vice Chair of the Pacifica Board, and embodies many of the problems that riddle the board and necessitate its removal. That directors meeting was also disrupted by protestors.

The seizure of WBAI by the Foundation was the fifth station takeover since 1993, when Pacifica seized control of WPFW, its DC station. The Pacifica Foundation has been embroiled in national controversy since the takeover of its Berkeley station in 1999, which ended when more than 10,000 KPFA listeners and staff marched in the streets and won back local autonomy. On April 28 of this year, more than 1,300 people marched across the Brooklyn Bridge and rallied outside WBAI to protest the recent changes at the station.

John Riley