Berkeley-Notes left on a conference room white board overnight at KPFK-FM in Los Angeles outlined GM Leslie Radford’s plans to replace the station’s longstanding and popular Roy of Hollywood overnight program Something’s Happening with programs on sex, therapy, and poetry labeled “Zulu” and “Friday Night Fights”. The contents of the white board can be seen here (picture below). While it isn’t clear why Radford would leave the information exposed except to create a hostile work environment, the proposed changes target the most lucrative of the station’s evening programs. The proposed change would reduce revenues, delaying if not finishing off entirely the station’s broken promise to SAG-AFTRA union staff that they would be returned to normal work schedules.

Something’s Happening has raked in $11,927 (competitive with the station’s daytime programs) since the KPFK winter fund drive began on December 8th. The ten programs that precede Something’s Happening in the 9pm to 11:59pm weekday slots are broadcast in the Spanish language, and brought in $1,345 total between December 8th and 14th, before being yanked by PD Alan Minsky for the duration of the fund drive.

The audience described as  “outreach targets” for the new overnight programming were “clubbers”, although that constituency would probably be better served on weekends than the Monday to Thursday overnight hours.

The post-midnight hours seem to be proposed for allocation to graduates of Radford’s “People’s School of Broadcasting” with some time reserved for DJ’ing by Radford’s roommate Adam Rice.  Some lessons from the People’s School of Broadcasting were left on the wall of the classroom space. They indicated students are being taught political advocacy techniques by the radio station. Radio broadcasting and production was not the subject of the lessons. The breakdown of the relationship between the LA City Council, the mayor, the LAPD, developers and landlords didn’t seem directed towards generating 15+ hours of new programming on sex, therapy and poetry to fill the overnight hours.

The LA station’s infrastructural breakdowns have continued to worsen, with the archives uploader broken since December 6th, preventing on-demand listening for all but a handful of the station’s programs. The website promoted the November 17th and 18th Pacifica Archives broadcast – on December 18th – a month after the broadcast. The station’s winter fund drive sits at about $235K of the $500K goal and has been extended until December 23rd.

Despite failing to approve several divisional budgets months after Pacifica’s 2016 fiscal year began on October 1st, Pacifica’s national finance committee voted 4-2-2 to give itself a month long vacation between December 15th and January 19th, acknowledging the entire 1st quarter and some of the 2nd quarter will go by without any organizational budget. The board’s abdication of financial responsibilities gives a free hand to board chair Lydia Brazon to allocate scarce resources with little to no supervision by the board of directors.

The committee also confirmed the network’s broken promise to KPFK SAG-AFTRA union staffers, who were told involuntary cuts to half-time status would expire at the end of 2015. The national finance committee passed a motion saying “The NFC recommends approval of the KPFK budget, with the following proviso: That the restoration of staff hours be contingent upon, and proportional to, the achievement of fundraising goals in the budget”.

The fundraising goals in the budget have already proven to be smoke and mirrors, with Radford relying on 90+ days of “silent fund drive” to bring in half a million dollars annually via a broken website and actively enaging in program changes to demonstrably decrease revenues.  The LA station has already said it intends to default on past-due premium gifts for subscribers unless compelled by “legal action”. Radford described the unpaid bills as totalling $70,000, which loosely represents about half a million dollars in pledges from 3,000 people. Radford’s statement verges on a declaration of intent to commit fraud.

New York station WBAI has already seen revenues collapse by close to a million dollars in 2015  due to 4,000 premiums not being sent to subscribers who ordered them. Pacifica’s national board and rotating cast of executive directors (Wilkinson, Proffitt, Brazon) have done nothing to prevent the network from ripping off subscribers and do not seem willing to explain to managers they will destroy Pacifica’s stations if they engage in widespread fraud.

The effort by the Siegel/Brazon faction that took power in 2014 to push the network into bankruptcy proceedings that will throw tens of millions of dollars of broadcasting infrastructure up for grabs is outlined in this LA Progressive article.

A preliminary financial statement issued last week by the Pacifica national office showed a massive loss of listener support dollars (i.e fund drive pledges) of $1.6 million from fiscal 2014 to fiscal 2015. The drop from $10.54 million in 2014 to $8.93 million in 2015 is nine times larger than any loss of listener support in the preceding 4 years. Listener support was at $10.39 million in 2011.

Alternative health host Gary Null, a WBAI veteran of some 30 years, may introduce some significant litigation against the Pacifica National Board in the next few weeks. Null, who has held off filing due to the national board’s requests for more time, has said he is in possession of evidence that may trigger large-scale fines and regulatory heat for the organization, which has already been under CA Attorney General investigation for a year. Null’s suit will not ask for monetary damages, but may risk opening a Pandora’s box of other troubles if it goes forward.

In Berkeley, a last-minute decision to up the Winter Fund Drive goal by $75,000 backfired with the station missing the entirety of the raised goal amount and finishing $77K short.  The Berkeley station had already announced a dangerously low bank account balance at $6,500 on December 12th, only 9 months after receiving a $565,000 legacy gift and spending lavishly to refurbish carpets and elevators as well as kiting another $400k bequest left to the Pacifica Foundation.

The station’s Siegel/Brazon faction (Save KPFA) called on listeners in NY, LA and TX to preserve their majority on the national board by voting for the faction’s candidates in the still-underway elections (GCRC in LA, Justice and Unity in NY and and the Weisgal/Casenave group in TX). “The outcome of those elections will largely determine whether or not SaveKPFA will be able to stay in a majority coalition on the Pacifica National Board”. Disingenuously, the mailer states the Siegel/Brazon faction has only existed for a mere year and a half disregarding the faction’s long-term alliance from the 2003 onset of democratization and the history of destabilization for most of the past decade.

The selection of two national board affiliate members for 2016 from the 200-station network of Pacifica programming affiliates went terribly wrong as the board majority failed to announce to affiliate members that nominations were open for the seats. The board majority then appointed the only applicant who applied (apparently by private invite as no one else knew the application period was open).

The new board member who was then appointed does not meet the bylaws requirements, as the nominating station Uhuru Radio (an Internet-only station), is operated by Burning Spear Publications LLC. Pacifica’s bylaws say nominating affiliate stations must be non-profit non-commercial broadcasters.  The vaguely related African People’s Education and Defense Fund received a construction permit for a low power FM station called Black Power Radio 96, but has not yet gotten the station on the air nor signed a Pacifica affiliates agreement in order to be eligible to nominate an affiliate director for the Pacifica national board.

Pacifica in Exile readers may write to the board at [email protected].

For readers who may wish to do more, any donor to a California-based not for profit organization like Pacifica may file a complaint to the open file at the Registry of Charitable Trusts at the Office of the CA Attorney General. Pacifica’s case number is CT011303. The form and instructions for filing may be downloaded here.

T o subscribe to this newsletter, please visit our spanking new website at www.pacificainexile.org

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Started in 1946 by conscientious objector Lew Hill, Pacifica’s storied history includes impounded program tapes for a 1954 on-air discussion of marijuana, broadcasting the Seymour Hersh revelations of the My Lai massacre, bombings by the Ku Klux Klan, going to jail rather than turning over the Patty Hearst tapes to the FBI, and Supreme Court cases including the 1984 decision that noncommercial broadcasters have the constitutional right to editorialize, and the Seven Dirty Words ruling following George Carlin’s incendiary performances on WBAI. Pacifica Foundation Radio operates noncommercial radio stations in New York, Washington, Houston, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and syndicates content to over 180 affiliates. It invented listener-supported radio.