Nadra Foster and the Resignation of Lois Withers, the KPFA
Business Manager
by The POCC Minister of Information JR
On November 10th, Lem-Lem Rijio , KPFA's General Manager, announced through email
that Lois Withers , KPFA's Business Manager was resigning. For those that keep up with KPFA
business, Lois is the white woman who called the police on Black programmer Nadra Foster falsely
accusing her of being banned, on August 20th. Consequently Nadra was beaten up, thrown to the ground,
kicked in the head, strait-jacketed, and forcibly removed out of the station, resulting in her facing 5
charges: including 2 counts of resisting arrest, 2 counts of assualting a police officer, and one count
of trespassing.
This incident was reported in the SF Bay View Newspaper, the SF Chronicle, the Berkeley Daily Planet, the
Oakland Post, on Indy Bay Media, and to this day the initial incident still has never been talked about on the
KPFA News, by the main anchors on the Morning Show, or by Democracy Now.
Lem-Lem Rijio said, "KPFA's business manager for the past four years, Lois Withers has been offered
a great position with a great environmental organization and will be leaving her position at KPFA in the
coming couple of weeks.
Lois has done outstanding work, expanding KPFA's capacity in administration and financial management
and we thank her for her great contributions to KPFA/Pacifica. Lois has exemplified excellent work ethic
while KPFA's business manager and has developed systems and structures that help KPFA achieve financial
accountability and sustainability.
"
Does Rijio consider Withers initiating under false pretenses, the Nadra Foster beating by
Berkeley police to be "outstanding work" and "great contributions to KPFA and
Pacifica"? She must, because in her statement she never mentions the incident, and furthermore no one
has been disciplined to date for what happened to Nadra Foster, inside of the KPFA radio station, in Berkeley.
Just to mention, Lem-Lem Rijio and Nadra Foster are both single mothers with two children, who used to be friends
and hang out.
On the positive side of things, 3 out of the 5 culprits from KPFA and Pacifica management that were responsible for
what happened to Nadra Foster and the aftermath, have resigned; that being Nicole Sawaya , the
former Executive Director of Pacifica, Dominga Estrada , the Human Resource officer at
Pacifica, and now, Lois Withers the KPFA Business Manager.
The remaining two responsible are Sasha Lilley , the Program Director for KPFA, and Lem-Lem
Rijio, the General Manager of KPFA.
Sasha was directly on the scene when Nadra was beaten and refused to help her, according to Hard Knock Radio
producer Anita Johnson , who was an eye-witness to the Berkeley police beati
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