Berkeley-At this evening’s Pacifica National Board meeting, NY listener representative Stephen Brown notified the board he was in receipt of a statement from a KPFK employee about a volunteer who said “they had brought a gun into KPFK” and their “friend outside in KPFK’s parking lot was also packing a gun”. The assertions were reported to a senior employee, who reported them to outgoing executive director John Proffitt on Monday, October 12th and and received no response at all. Brown stated on the board’s Internet stream that KPFK’s former web director Ali Lexa, who was laid off in September, had let him know today of the lack of response from Pacifica to the report of firearms at the station. Continue reading Weapons At Work→
Berkeley-In the wake of Pacifica’s latest executive transition from permanent ED John Proffitt who resigned after 4 months, to Siegel/Brazon faction leader Lydia Brazon, information out of Pacifica’s national office (which is supposedly on the block for mortgage according to Brazon, who had earlier shown the property to real estate brokers in 2014), has slowed to a trickle. Despite apocalyptic statements from controller Efren Llarinas at the last national board meeting about bills due at the end of September, it appears enough money was borrowed to clear paychecks and preserve employee health benefits. However Llarinas continues to sound the alarm, telling the finance committee: “It is really unpredictable if PNO can fund its own PNO employees’ salaries this October 15 payroll ” and “There is no assurance right now that PNO will be able to advance the November healthcare bills (approx. $65K) which are all due on Oct. 31“. Meanwhile, the Pacifica Archive is desperately trying to collect money owed to it from stations, including “PRA Days” at LA and NY, premium billings from DC, and thousands owed from LA for the use of their bookeeper after the last temporary KPFK bookkeeper was terminated for embezzling and the sucessor quit in less than a week. Continue reading Loans at 20% Interest→
Berkeley – On Wednesday, Yatrika Shah-Rais became the third veteran programmer to resign on-air at Los Angeles radio station KPFK. Shah-Rais, the former music director of the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, announced her departure one day after Betto Arcos announced the airing of his final show, and two days after Derek Rath resigned on-air, all three of them long term producers of the station’s Global Village series. Former Doors drummer John Densmore called into KPFK during Arcos’ final show. You can hear Shah-Rais’ goodbye here. GM Radford is said to have tried to prevent the live on-air Global Village broadcast Wednesday morning. Continue reading Dominos Topple: Third On-Air Resignation at KPFK In Three Days→
A third long-time music producer and host KPFK signed off on-air, becoming the third to do so in the last three days. Yatrika Shah-Rais is an 18 year veteran of the LA Pacifica station as well as the former Music Director of the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Continue reading Yatrika Shah-Rais Sign-Off→
