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 Pamela Drake is an Oakland resident and community activist. She was one of the first women train operators at BART, the chief of staff to two East Oakland council members, and the Director of the Grand Lake Neighborhood Center, lobbying for public power and advocating for community involvement in city planning. A former small businesswoman, she works with merchants at the Lakeshore Business Improvement District and teaches Government in Adult Education. She serves on the Executive Board of AFT Local 771 and as a member of the Alameda Labor Council. She is the single mother of Jennifer and Graham, both of whom graduated from Oakland Schools.
Candidacy Statement:
My name is Pamela Drake and I’m running for the KPFA Local Station Board as a member of the Concerned Listeners’ slate. I start my day with KPFA radio programming, and I find myself quoting something I learned on KPFA at least once a day. I consider our progressive radio station one of the perks of living in the Bay Area. The current economic collapse combined with the national nightmare of the Bush years has threatened the existence of many institutions we have all come to rely upon. We who have always struggled for social justice must find a way to keep our station alive while reinvigorating it by bringing in new voices and new audiences.
As a community resource person and former neighborhood center director, teacher, and an organizer of local small business, I bring a broad set of skills to the Board; and as a former chief of staff to the Oakland City Council, small business owner, and a single parent, I have experienced many of the struggles of urban living and continue to enjoy its benefits. I have been active in many unions (currently on the Executive Board of AFT, Local 771) and in the movement to restore local control to Oakland schools, to promote public power and the civilianizing and strengthening of police oversight in Oakland. I moved to Oakland after working in the peace movement and the movement for Ethnic Studies in San Francisco.
I have worked with boards as both staff and as board member including as president of local boards. I understand the role of boards to guide and support the organizations they represent. During times of crisis, it is not unusual for us to turn on each other. KPFA has experienced more than its share of attacks from those who should be working to support and rebuild it. I reject an attack machine built on sectarian trivialities. If we want KPFA to continue in its mission, indeed to continue at all, we must offer a positive example of expressing differences and promoting change.
KPFA’s Local Station Board must assist the station to move into the new media age while broadening the base of our listenership and programming. I have always been concerned about KPFA’s reach to the underserved communities of Oakland and the other urban neighborhoods our signal reaches.
Our Local Station Board must redouble its efforts to promote the station, acquire stable funding, and embrace technological change, while struggling to represent all of our community.
I’m endorsed by Oakland Council Members Nancy Nadel and Rebecca Kaplan, tenant activist James Vann, President of AFT, Local 771, Ana Turetsky, and community college teacher and political activist, Susan Schacher.
Candidate Questionnaire:
1. Why do you want to be on the Local Station Board?
KPFA is a part of my every day. I am concerned about the challenges facing it and wish to offer my support in any way that may to serve to strengthen the station and its mission.
2. How do you envision the Local Station Board working with the Pacifica Foundation, KPFA and the community?
As the Director of a Center near Lake Merritt, I have had experience encouraging creative and talented community members, volunteers, and staff members to express themselves in their work and confidently design their desired outcomes while gently guiding them to keep their focus. I have served as a mediator whose results have pleased the groups in conflict. The LSB has to learn to encourage staff, volunteers, and community members to work together in an atmosphere of creative consensus.
3. How could the station better serve its listeners?
The best way to serve listeners is to expand the listener base with professional programming that interests a broader swath of the community.
4. Describe some actions you would take to increase the influence of the station in underrepresented communities and to increase diversity of the listening audience.
I’d like to bring in youth from various urban areas of who have specific issues of concern such as police accountability, food security, and healthy communities. There are many organizations working with these youth whose concerns and programs could be discussed and promoted. Many of these same concerns are now impacting our exurbs and have been issues in rural California for some time; and they should also be part of our audience and voices.
5. What sources of funding other than listener donations do you feel KPFA should solicit?
KPFA should explore all the areas of grantwriting that frequently become available in our signal area.
6. Please state briefly the skills, experience, educational background, work history, organizational affiliations, areas of community service, areas of interest and expertise that you would bring to the Pacifica network as a member of the Local Station Board.
Education: teaching certificate for k-12, adult education in ESL, Social Studies, Communications, and English, partial credit for a Master’s in Counseling and a BA in a multidisciplinary combination of Anthropology, Sociology, and Counseling.
Work Experience: teacher (middle school and adult school), a job recruiter for women and minorities to the trades, a cab driver, BART train operator, member of the negotiation team for ATU 1555, AFT 771, and a Teamster. As staff to the Oakland City Council (in Central East Oakland) - advocated for homeless programs, needle exchange, and rent control and was instrumental in writing legislation to curb crime around liquor stores, the toughest tobacco control for Oakland and California, violence prevention as a public health strategy, and worked with local press on an expose of conditions at the Oakland Housing Authority. I have been a shop owner and promoter of local and recycled art, an artist, and president of the Grand Avenue Business Association.
Activism: area vice-president for Oakland Community Organizations-advocated cleaning up problems around liquor stores and for neighborhood-serving retail to underserved areas, also a member of Oakland’s First Community Policing Board and still active in police accountability with People United for a Better Oakland. Also active in Classrooms First and the movement to return local control to the Oakland schools, organized to save local businesses and a board member of the Oakland Merchant Leadership Forum, president of my Parent Coop Nursery School and the MGO Democratic Club, Local Politics Chair of the Wellstone Club, Chair of the Oakland Alliance for Community Energy while Director of the Grand Lake Neighborhood Center where I held forums and advocated for local residents including homeless families. I was a founding member of I-Pride for Interracial and Intercultural Families as a member of an interracial family and then as a single mother. I have also written a column, Draketalk, in the former Grand Lake Guardian, and been a peace activist since 1966 having grown up as a Quaker in Pennsylvania.
Events: organized major demonstrations and events-a teach-in during the Oakland teacher strike of ’83, “Save the Grand Lake Theatre” movie night, 3 simultaneous rallies in front of PG&E during the “energy crisis” and 2 simultaneous rallies at federal buildings to protest the government response to Hurricane Katrina, most recently, a street fair for the small minority and women-owned businesses in downtown Oakland that were damaged as a result of the protest following the killing of Oscar Grant.
7. On which Local Station Board committees are you interested in actively serving? If you are a current Local Station Board member, on which committees do you currently serve?
I would be most interested in serving on the Outreach Committee but would be willing to serve where I’m needed.
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