Return to Houston Radio Report homepage
On the eve of a second threatened shut-down of KPFA by Pacifica's national management, we revisit the facts of the previous (1999) KPFA shutdown. This occurred when Pacifica Executive Director Lynne Chadwick called in KPFT/Houston General Manager Garland Ganter to pull the station off-the-air, use police to remove the actual programmers and arrest scores of listeners, hire security goons to barricade and trash the station and then pipe in a feed of the "Sound of Texas" from Houston on KPFA's air. A more detailed account is here. How did Ganter do this? Read on....
Below we present a fragment of Garland's legal deposition on his role in this shutdown. See if you can come to any other reasonable conclusion than that Mr. Ganter lied repeatedly under oath in this deposition.
Verbatim excerpt of legal deposition: Questions asked by Dan Siegel, attorney; Answers provided by Garland Ganter.
Entire Deposition of Garland Ganter is Here
2/7/01
______________________________________________________________
THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF ALAMEDA DAVID ADELSON, ET AL
VS.
PACIFICA FOUNDATION, CALIFORNIA NONPROFIT CORPORATION, ET AL
{excerpt begins}
Mr. Siegel: Q. Do you know what the Crouse-Kimzey Company is?
Mr. Ganter: A. Yes.
Mr. Siegel: Q. What is that?
Mr. Ganter: A. They are a broadcast equipment company supplier.
Mr. Siegel: Q. In Texas?
Mr. Ganter: A. Yes.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Is it a company that you do business with?
Mr. Ganter: A. I -- I can't say for sure without knowing for sure.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. Do you know who Keith Hubbard is?
Mr. Ganter: A. No.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. All right. Well, this document appears to be dated or at least it has an order date of June 13 29th, 1999. Do you see that up in --
Mr. Ganter: A. Yes, I see it.
Mr. Siegel: Q. -- the left side?
Mr. Ganter: A. Yes, I see that.
Mr. Siegel: Q. And then at the bottom it says shipped -- looks like June 29th, 1999, although it's hard to read. But then under estimated shipping date, again it seems to indicate June 29th, 1999. Do you see that?
Mr. Ganter: A. Yes, I see that.
Mr. Siegel: Q. And then in the "Ship to," it says, "Pacifica, Hold at Federal Express, 1221 Broadway" and a PO number, "Garland G."
Mr. Ganter: A. Yes, I see that.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Is that you?
Mr. Ganter: A. I presume. I can't say for sure it is.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. And the product name is a Zephyr-9200, ISDN, space, SU. Do you know what that is?
Mr. Ganter: A. Yes, I do.
Mr. Siegel: Q. What is that?
Mr. Ganter: A. That is a ISDN audio codec.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. So, what's that?
Mr. Ganter: A. It's a piece of equipment that can be used to hook two points up via ISDN telephone line.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. So, was this piece of equipment used to hook up the KPFA transmitter with the facilities of KPFT in Houston?
Mr. Ganter: A. It could be.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Was it?
Mr. Ganter: A. An ISDN was installed at the KPFA transmitter while I was there in July.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. And it was used to connect the KPFA transmitter with KPFT facilities?
Mr. Ganter: A. For a period of time, yes.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. I guess what I want to focus in on here is the -- is the timing. Assuming that the date here is accurate, somebody thought they should -- could ship things to you in Oakland on June 29th, which is two weeks before you arrived?
MS. POTTER: Objection. He said he didn't know if that was him.
MR. SIEGEL:: Okay.
Mr. Ganter: A. (By Mr. Siegel:) I don't know, you know, who or what took place regarding, you know, issues before I was called and asked to go to Berkeley.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. Were you involved in ordering this piece of equipment?
Mr. Ganter: A. No, not that I recall.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. Do you know who ordered it?
Mr. Ganter: A. No, I do not.
Mr. Siegel: Q. What is your best understanding as to when there was a decision made to connect the KPFA transmitter with KPFT so that programs produced here could be played over at KPFA?
Mr. Ganter: A. I don't know who else or what else may have been discussed before I became involved. I made the decision shortly before I returned to Houston that we would hook up the studio here at KPFT with the KPFA studios.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. When did you return to Houston, by the way?
Mr. Ganter: A. I don't recall the specific date, but it was about two weeks after I arrived.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. So, you were in Berkeley for about two 1 weeks?
Mr. Ganter: A. Yes, that's correct.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Who made the decision to suspend the regular programming on KPFA?
Mr. Ganter: A. That was my decision.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. And when did you make that decision?
Mr. Ganter: A. Again, I don't recall a specific date, but it was that Tuesday evening that I referred to earlier.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. The same date as you arrived?
Mr. Ganter: A. No.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. The same date as you first went to KPFA?
Mr. Ganter: A. Yes.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. And why did you make that decision?
Mr. Ganter: A. The station had been overrun by a crowd of people. And basically in order to be able to take control of the building and the air space, I made the decision to switch to backup programming.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Prior to making that decision, had you discussed the decision with Lynn Chadwick?
Mr. Ganter: A. I did not discuss it with her. I asked her if something happened that I felt I needed to do that, would that be okay. And she told me to do what I felt was necessary at the moment on the spot.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. Did you make any technical preparations for that program change?
Mr. Ganter: A. Yes.
Mr. Siegel: Q. What -- what technical preparations did you make?
Mr. Ganter: A. As I mentioned before, there were some tapes from the Pacifica archives that were there at KPFA. There was also another Pacifica employee that was there with me, and I had instructed him to take those tapes to a backup studio within the building and to switch the programming over to that studio.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Who was that?
Mr. Ganter: A. Mark Torres.
Mr. Siegel: Q. When was -- when did planning begin to allow you to use the Houston programming over a KPFA transmitter?
Mr. Ganter: A. I can't recall a specific date. But during the second week that I was in Berkeley, I developed the plan that would allow us to be able to broadcast over KPFA from someplace besides the studio there in Berkeley.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. And what did that plan consist of?
Mr. Ganter: A. We had been airing the archive tapes and the music drawn from the local library. I could not stay indefinitely at KPFA. So, I proposed that we utilize the ISDN to pipe in programming from KPFT. It was not KPFT programming. It was not a repeat of what was airing in Houston. It was a specific separate stream of programming that was produced in Houston sent via ISDN to Berkeley and transmitted.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Okay. Do you know that the technological preparations for doing that had begun before you arrived at Berkeley?
Mr. Ganter: A. No.
Mr. Siegel: Q. Are you saying it didn't, or you don't know that?
Mr. Ganter: A. I -- I don't know.
{excerpt ends}
Return to Houston Radio Report homepage
Visit the dissenters' kpftradio webpages
Email Houston Radio Report