- Massive WBAI layoffs & programming changes in effect
- Organizing meeting (Coalition to Save WBAI) Tues. 7 PM
- Local Station Board meeting Wed. 7 PM
- Lynne Stewart denied compassionate release by Judge Koeltl – Keep up the pressure on Bureau of Prisons!
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1. Massive WBAI layoffs & programming changes in effect
As we had expected, on Friday, August 9, Pacifica’s Interim Executive Director Summer Reese went on WBAI’s air to announce massive layoffs – 75% of the paid staff – and equally large-scale programming changes, to be effective on Mon, Aug. 12. All the programmers and producers involved with WakeUp Call, Talk Back, Five O’Clock Shadow, The Jordan Journal and The Caldwell Chronicle, as well as the entire WBAI News Department, are among those whose jobs have been eliminated. Most of these shows will be replaced by prerecorded programs originating in other parts of the country, particularly California.
Also, Andrew Phillips, who, in May, was put on leave and replaced as the Pacifica Berkeley station’s Interim General Manager, and who had been WBAI’s Program Director from 1989-93, has been installed as WBAI’s Interim Program Director to lead a wholesale makeover of our program schedule.
You may listen to the pronouncements from Pacifica’s Interim Executive Director and her secretly hired Interim Program Director regarding the new BAI, here: http://archive.wbai.org/files/mp3/wbai_130809_160000caldwellc.mp3
Their show begins about 13 minutes in, as the presenters were late.
We will soon send more details on these devastating changes and destruction of local autonomy.
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2. Next organizing meeting – Coalition to Save WBAI, Tues., Aug. 13, 7 PM
60 Wall St. (east of William St.) – Atrium
Trains: 2,3,4,5 to Wall St.
Following on the 3 community meetings held recently by the Coalition to Save WBAI, the next weekly meeting of committees to plan next steps in the fightback will be this Tues. at 7 PM. These will again occur in the large space in this building’s atrium. Please attend and plug in your ideas and energy.
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3. Local Station Board meeting, Wed., Aug. 14, 7 PM
At Alwan-for-the-Arts, 16 Beaver St., 4th floor (downtown Manhattan, down the block from the Bull)
Trains: 4,5 to Bowling Green (wheelchair accessible); 2,3 to Wall St; 1 to Rector, J to Broad St., R to Whitehall St. (but R is not running uptown from Brooklyn)
All meetings include time for public comment. Come and make your position about these devastating changes known.
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4. Lynne Stewart denied compassionate release by Judge Koeltl – Keep up the pressure on Bureau of Prisons!
On August 9, U.S. Judge John Koeltl rejected Lynne Stewart’s request to grant her compassionate release, given her rapidly deteriorating case of terminalmetastasized cancer. He simply accepted the prosecutor’s argument that he had no jurisdiction, and that only the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (under the Justice Department, i.e., the Attorney General) has the power to make such a decision.
Therefore, Lynne and her husband Ralph Poynter are urging supporters to step up efforts to contact the federal officials who can make such a release happen.
1. Get more signatures on the petition for compassionate release. Link at http://lynnestewart.org/
2. Write letters to:
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
CHARLES E. SAMUELS, Jr., Director,
Federal Bureau of Prisons
320 First Street, NW
Washington, DC 20534
Re: Lynne Stewart, #53504-054 Compassionate Release
3. Make calls to:
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
(202) 456-1111
ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER
(202) 353-1555
BUREAU OF PRISONS DIRECTOR CHARLES E. SAMUELS
(202) 307-3250/3062
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