This meeting began with the same faction members from the previous meeting shouting and disrupting the meeting. There was an obvious attempt by the disrupters to create an atmosphere of intimidation at this meeting which included physical attacks.

After the agenda was approved an amendment was proposed to mandate a complicated public comment session on all motions before and after the LSB members were allowed to debate a motion. Given the fact that the meeting was already being disrupted this was an obvious ploy to keep the meeting from functioning well. And yet the LSB voted for this motion overwhelmingly. I was among the couple who didn't fall for it.

The Pacifica bylaws require each LSB to have two Town Hall Meetings per year. The committee created to set up ours has had some troubles and so the previously scheduled Town Hall Meeting set for July 17, was canceled and the committee was mandated to find another date and a venue.

The Management Evaluation Committee made a motion to approve a Staff survey designed to be a part of the LSB's mandated evaluation of the Program Director. The disruptions intensified. The same producer who had refused to let others take their turns speaking at the previous LSB meeting began shouting from the audience, signaling the rest of the faction members to really get rambunctious. It got so loud and disruptive that a motion was made and passed to recess the meeting for five minutes. Unfortunately, this measure which was intended to calm things down had the opposite effect. It was during the recess that the assaults began.

There were a total of five assaults during this meeting. Four are alleged and one I witnessed myself. Two of the alleged assaults were allegedly caught on video and these have been posted to a Web page.

It was during the recess that I saw that a well

When the meeting resumed the disruptions continued. In some cases LSB members couldn't even hear each other over the din of disruption.

One of the workers at the meeting space made an announcement that “If I see someone get hit one more time I will call the police.”

In the midst of all this chaos the wrong cover letter for the Staff survey got read into the record. Of course this was made a big deal of and attempts were made to postpone the entire Management review process.

The meeting had lasted for more than three hours by this time and it was clear that this was the only piece of business that was going to be addressed at the meeting. It had come down to a battle of wills between the majority of LSB members and the disrupters. In the end, the motion to send out the Staff survey passed.

Having viewed the on-line videos of the July 7, WBAI LSB meeting, and having gotten a number of complaints about the violence at it, the Pacifica National Board (PNB) told WBAI GM Don Rojas to hire security guards for the next LSB meeting. The PNB also voted to have someone video tape the meeting for its review.

It was a dark and stormy night, but this meeting went a lot better than the previous two. There were no assaults and no serious disruptions. The “sunshine” of the PNB-backed video record appears to have driven the disrupters away. Looks like they don't want their actions recorded for posterity.

When a motion was made to implement the same