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STORY: Last night the Interim Pacifica National Board convened on a conference call in an attempt to approve a new set of bylaws for the Pacifica Foundation, which would create the first democratically controlled network in the country. Pacifica is expecting to hold elections sometime in the Fall - but first, a new set of bylaws must be approved by a two-thirds vote of the iPNB. Then, the approved draft must be ratified by three of the five station's Local Advisory Boards. After months of Pacifica National Boards meetings and no vote on the bylaws draft, the Local Advisory Boards from three stations; KPFA, KPFT and most recently KPFK voted to endorse the options known as Draft B. Given the approval of Draft B by these three station LABs, as well as the publishing online of a petition signed by dozens of programmers, staff and individual LAB members - many were expecting Draft B to receive the two-thirds majority vote needed in order to finally approve the new bylaws and move toward elections. With 13 iPNB members present on the conference call for the vote, the measure received 8 to 5 approval - thereby falling one vote short of a two-thirds majority. Opponents of Draft B stated that they felt that a vote for B would create division within the network. Houston iPNB representative Teresa Allen, disgrees: "I just want to say that I have gotten e-mails from all kinds of places. I have gotten them from Maine, New Jersey, lots of WBAI people, lots of people in Freemont California, KPFK people, Houston people, there are some people that want A, there are some people that want B, very few C and I don't know why on that. However, it's 90 to 1 for B, so for a person to say that we'll be totally divided if we go with B, I don't know where that's coming from." As [the] deadline for Pacifica's court settlement is Monday and no final decision was reached in last night's bylaws vote, attorney and KPFK LAB member Dave Fertig had to go to the judge today to request a hearing. Judge Sabraw granted the request and will hear motions from all sides July 8. E-mail Shannon Young at news@kpft.org . This story was broadcast on June 27, 2003. |