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Election In The Garbage Can Redux

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A brief clip from the Pacifica National Board meeting of 1-12-2017 with the lame duck board. It starts with the usual protest about the board excluding 75% of WBAI’s representation, which they have now done for 345 consecutive days. KPFA director Jose Luis Fuentes seems to make an intoxicated aside. Then we move on to once again, for the second time, decertify the 2016 board elections. The board moves to pay someone undetermined $1,500 to recount the ballots and if the recount changes the results, then director and officer elections of the past month would all get redone. IED Brazon then contradicts  and says the board is acting contrary to the bylaws (a point Pacifica in Exile has been known to make) and  the 2016 LSB elections are indeed certified.

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Pacifica Vs. Obamacare (and a point of snipe)

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A summary reel of Pacifica’s December 27 national finance committee. In order:

1) A brief discussion of the still-invisible FY 2014 audit, which at two years late is claimed to be done but is impossible to locate

2) The motion to pass DC station WPFW’s budget, which like all the budgets in the current cycle is both 3 months late and inaccurate pending  large rises in central services fees several stations will face due to Cerene Robert’s SCA motion granting credits for sideband rental revenue

3) A discussion and vote on the budget for LA station KPFK, where GM Leslie Radford, already responsible for $285,000 in contract violations, proposes balancing the budget by stripping Pacifica’s LA employees of all dependent health care for both spouses and dependent children. In addition to the ERISA issues brought up on the call, later research uncovered the proposal was a violation of the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act and would lead to more fines and penalties for Pacifica. The board majority on the committee passed it anyway

4) A late night poison pill from Cerene Roberts.

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Busted Eardrums

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At a 3-hour Pacifica National Board meeting on 11-3 at which nothing actually happened, Houston listener rep Adriana Casenave, always notable for the volume of her participation, goes for irony of the first degree by invoking a point of privilege regarding her nemesis, Houston rep Bill Crosier, accusing him of busting her eardrum.

Casenave then embarks on a lengthy screaming fit at 4x the volume as she goes to war with the chair – over a two-minute extension of time. After she loses her shrieking challenge to the chair and the 2-minute extension of time is approved, Casenave exits the meeting, apparently unable to bear her defeat.

Be warned that the clip can cause aural discomfort and listen at your own risk.

From the same meeting is a brief bonus clip of a hilarious segment when no less than five board members change their vote at the last minute, apparently succombing to confusion about which faction is voting is yes and which one is voting no on a fairly innocuous motion to notice an affiliates director election for 2016-2017. It was the only substantive motion voted on for the three hour duration of the meeting.

 

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Archive Shut Down Budget Motion

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In Tuesday’s national finance committee, contention broke out when, in lieu of news about 50-year-old unique archival reel-to-reel Pacifica recordings being sold off on E-Bay after a storage container was auctioned for nonpayment, Save KPFA’s Barbara Whipperman proposed asking for a shut down and transfer budget for the network’s archives department. After much yelling (some of it here, but not all of it), the proposal failed on a 4-4 tie vote with Siegel/Brazonites Adriana Casenave, Cerene Roberts, Michael Novick and board chair Tony Norman voting it down.

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PNB Uncensored – Streaming Now

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Berkeley-The special meeting on finances called by board members Jan Goodman, Jonathan Alexander, Grace Aaron and Bill Crosier is now streaming at kpftx.org, the independent server that once served as KPFT-In-Exile when the Pacifica membership community was rebelling against another bad board 17 years ago.

You can listen live here. Click on the listen now on the upper left side below the leaf image. A full length audio archive as well as a highlights reel will be available after the meeting.  Continue reading PNB Uncensored – Streaming Now →

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The Secret Underwriters

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In a “special meeting on fundraising” by Pacifica’s national finance committee that is unlike any fundraising meeting you have ever heard before,  Siegel-Brazonite Adriana Casenave hurls accusations of secret underwriters and payroll slush funds at the financially-troubled radio network her faction has controlled since a March 2014 coup.

Perhaps the moral of the story is the better you know the board majority, the less you trust them.

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No Talking … Or Else

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At the June 29th PNB coordinating committee, the Siegel/Brazon faction cracked down on board members talking about the network’s growing financial crisis with the chief financial officer and determined that a secret executive session must be held immediately to prevent any more unsupervised talking about the financial emergency and discipline those involved for “bad behavior”. You can hear the scary unsupervised talking that ensued on June 26th here: Tracy-rosenberg – Pnb-special-meeting-on-finances-6262016

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The Agreement Not To Decide Anything

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A clip from the 5-18 PNB elections committee. The actual conversation about the motion to agree not to decide anything was twice as long, but this is enough the provide the idea. This followed a 45 minute question and answer session with the 2015 election supervisor Joy Williams for her to present her report and that session had already occurred. The sub-committee report referred to had reading time as tested with a stopwatch at about 3 minutes 15 seconds.

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Claim of Mystery Lawsuit at WPFW

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The election committee meeting of April 18 ended strangely with WPFW local board member Eric Ramey saying a lawsuit had been filed, weeks ago, against WPFW and presumably the Pacifica Foundation. At least 4 national board members on the call indicated they knew nothing about the matter.

Update: WPFW local station board member Eric Ramey provided this as a follow-up statement in response to requests for documentation.

“I was informed earlier the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is investigating.  In addition the justice department will investigate to determine if any FCC violations have occurred. Accordingly I will invoke the 5th and remain silent”.

Update: David Levine, WPFW’s 2015 local election supervisor until the PNB cancelled the DC election,  was contacted by telephone and stated he did not sue WPFW, threaten to sue WPFW, cause papers to be served on WPFW’s general manager or trigger any investigation by CPB, FCC or DOJ.

Local station board member Eric Ramey has indicated he is unwilling to speak further on the matter and was chastised by PNB member Nancy Sorden who asked him to consult with her prior to speaking freely in Pacifica’s streamed meetings saying “we’re all on email at the same time we are on the phone”.

She added “Could you agree to staying open to hearing those reminders and cautions and if you are not sure email ahead of time
or during the meeting?”

Continue reading Claim of Mystery Lawsuit at WPFW →