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On October 6, 2001, Ganter and his wife (Molly O'Brien) pressed the filing of criminal trespassing charges against Teresa Allen, a KPFT LAB member, when she was visiting the station in conjunction with her federally mandated duties of station oversight. To effect this arrest, Ganter was overheard lying to Houston Police about Ms. Allen's motive, including the bizarre assertion that she was at the station to get "Vietnamese broadcasting on the air."

Earlier this year, Ganter and his wife (Molly O'Brien) pressed criminal assault charges against KPFT listener Edwin Johnston. This incident occurred when O'Brien illegally confiscated leaflets being handed out by Johnston on the sidewalk outside KPFT at a legal protest. At the scene of the arrest, KPFT Programmer Rick Heysquierdo was caught on videotape attempting to influence police actions by offering Houston Police officers promotional trinkets. Both Ganter's and O'Brien's charges were dropped before coming to trial for lack of substance.

By his repeated misuse of police power to silence critics, Ganter is putting the Pacifica Foundation at legal risk for ongoing legal actions for his persistent pattern of civil rights violations of listeners and false arrests.

2. Ganter has repeatedly censored broadcasts of national programming content that he disagrees with.

On August 17 2001, Ganter ordered KPFT DJ Sandy Weinmann to switch abruptly from a live broadcast of Democracy Now! on the Mumia Abu Jamal case to a taped show 15 minutes into the broadcast. No acknowledgment or explanation of this action was provided to listeners.

On September 19 2001, Ganter played a broadcast of BBC News rather than carrying the scheduled Pacifica Network News broadcast that carried a "Peace Initiative" by new PNB Chair Bob Farrell. KPFT was the only Pacifica station to censor this broadcast (KPFT later played the Farrell portion on the weekend).

3. Ganter has repeatedly violated federal law in his conduct of meetings of the KPFT Local Advisory Board (LAB).

Despite numerous warnings, Ganter, who controls the agenda and conduct of LAB meetings, has violated numerous provisions of the Public Broadcasting Act (47 USC 396, section d4) by failing to give adequate public notice of meetings and by holding closed "executive session meetings" without adequate notification or cause. These actions are putting the Corporation for Public Broadcasting funds given to Pacifica at risk.

Despite numerous warnings, Ganter has continued to violate nearly every line of Pacifica Foundation By-laws regarding LAB conduct, including having insufficient members on the board, failing to do the required review of station programming and personnel, and lacking any mechanism for considering and appointing new LAB members.

4. Ganter has tolerated and encouraged his employees and volunteers to vilify and threaten KPFT listeners.

Without foundation, Mr. Ganter has portrayed listeners-activists as dangerous radicals in countless briefing of station volunteers during fund drives and consistently misrepresented the facts of the Pacifica crisis to these volunteers

Despite being given detailed documentation, Ganter has taken no action against several of his volunteer programmers who have threatened listener activists. At every opportunity, Ganter has also trouped his music programmers out to appear at public meetings to defend his actions. These DJs come armed with a laundry list of supposed "facts" (provided by Ganter) intended to prove that the listeners-activists are dangerous radicals out to seize the station. An egregious example was the litany of memorized allegations recited by DJ Rick Gardner (of Pickin'N Swingin) at a November 28 2001 LAB meeting that culminated in Gardner yelling at full volume that he would be "the first in line to testify to convict" Teresa Allen. One suspects that Mr. Gardner might want to read the rules on official LAB function (and the law on criminal trespass) before his court appearance

5. Ganter and his lieutenants violate the "Gag Rule" and slander KPFT Listeners on-air.

After Johnston's arrest in March, Ganter appeared on the air at WBAI and openly trashed listener activists in Houston along with Exec. Dir. Wash and WBAI manager Utrice Leid. This action violated management's own rule banning discussion of Pacifica issues on-air and was notable for the hostile and defamatory nature of Ganter's comments. Recently, several KPFT DJs, including Rick Heysquierdo on the December 1 Lone Star Jukebox, launched similar attacks on KPFT listeners. Mr. Heysquierdo, to our knowledge, has not been disciplined for his violations of Ganter's own Gag Rule.

In all of his interactions with concerned listeners, Ganter has exhibited an openly hostile demeanor and has sought at every turn to avoid dialogue and accountability. Ganter has been a paid employee since 1986, personally receiving close to a million dollars of listener funds.in salary over the years. In addition, his wife (Molly O'Brien) has been on the KPFT payroll as Development Director for a number of years. In return for that largesse, the Ganters have expressed contempt for listener input, run the station like a personal fiefdom, rejected slews of creative radio ideas and fought change at every turn. It is time for the Pacifica Foundation to remove Garland Ganter as KPFT Manager and thus began a new era of public accountability and engagement in its management practices at KPFT.