Berkeley- In an apparent overdose on the Kool-Aid, volunteer executive director Lydia Brazon, board chair Tony Norman and PNB treasurer Brian Edwards-Tiekert are trying to shut down an emergency board meeting scheduled for the evening of June 26th.
The meeting was called to address warnings from chief financial officer Sam Agarwal that the network will not be able to meet payroll and employee benefit obligations within weeks, pay for the financial audit or fund the election of its board members and has no plans to cope with the oncoming catastrophe.
As Norman spoke, the telephone number at the network’s NY station has been turned off and the network’s insurance carrier is demanding to see the 2014 financial audit in order to continue providing insurance.
Board chair Norman, board treasurer Edwards-Tiekert and interim director Brazon did not consent to a meeting of the body until July 14th, long after Agarwal has indicated he may not be able to meet upcoming payroll obligations including at Norman’s own station, WPFW. Agarwal has stated to the board that Norman’s station met payroll in May by looting a restricted fund reserved for capital expenses by donor restriction. The three officers further delayed the standing meeting of the board from the first Thursday of the month by another week.
LA listener rep Grace Aaron replied to Norman’s meeting kibosh as follows:
In my opinion, delaying a meeting to address Pacifica’s dire financial situation by over 2 weeks is not wise and I hope you will reconsider. Even if a significant number of board members cannot attend the meeting that has been properly noticed for tomorrow night, it still could be productive. Also, scheduling a closed session on the same night as a meeting to discuss our dire financial situation is unwise. We may never get to a discussion on finances. Therefore, I suggest that you reverse the order of the meetings on the 14th if you decide not to sanction the meeting for tomorrow night.
Enough directors expressed a desire to have a meeting specifically to address our financial crisis for tomorrow night. For you unilaterally to cancel this meeting is, in my opinion, delaying a discussion that is extremely urgent and it is beyond your purview as chair. You may be correct that you have the power to deny quorum for this meeting, but you do not have the authority to cancel it.
Beyond this, your station, WPFW, is failing. Are you or your LSB taking actions to reverse its very serious financial deficiencies? If you are, please detail them for me and other concerned board members. Are you aware of the rumors that it may be on the chopping block if we are forced into some sort of bankruptcy?
Further, your disregard of our minority concerns belies any pretense on your part of collegiality and willingness to collaborate. I sincerely hope that you will respect our wishes and make some effort to accommodate them.
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Board members associated with the Siegel/Brazon faction started up a new nonprofit in California to receive the broadcast licenses and real estate assets under the name “KPFA Foundation”.
If you would like to support either or both of the legal complaints filed by Pacifica members, you can visit the Clean Up Pacifica Project for more information.
A timeline of the now two year old coup by the Siegel/Brazon faction can be seen here.
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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.
But what a meeting it was! It was calm, constructive, collegial and maybe even productive. It was a conversation.
Most of the directors were absent, Robert’s Rules did not apply. There was not a single point of order. Not a single interruption.
What if those absent directors just stayed home? Maybe then the PNB could get something done. Maybe even come up with a plan…
What jumps out from all the chaos on the PNB is a pattern of malfeasance that often comes as a *cover* for “other” criminal behavior. I am sure I’m not the first to see that.
Vivendi Universal, HQ’d in Paris, now one of the only remaining 3 “super powers” in the recording industry, posted a loss of 23 billion euros (with a “B”) and change, in 2002. It’s go-to-guy, Jean-Marie Messier, came “under intense media scrutiny” and stepped down, replaced by Jean-René Fourtu.
Monsieur Messier (his French name becomes one of those select few trans-language puns that rocks) was found guilty of embezzlement in 2011, but “not before he was given a US $20 million severance package”. (Given the scope of his crimes, perhaps that deal was struck to cover his legal expenses?)
You could find many more media interests where such pilfering is rife.
Needless to say, but let’s do for sake of emphasis, all the financial damage going on right now throughout Pacifica is reminiscent of the warning signs at Vivendi, and others.
Let’s only hope that the board of knaves (they know who they are) comes “under intense media scrutiny” really soon. All the red ink may has been many times the tell-tale sign of such crimes. Discovery of that by law enforcement, CA AG, etc., might be enough to stop the bleeding?
And hopefully that would be enough to get them divested? And incarcerated.
(It certainly would be motivation for them to continually block any and all meetings where the red ink might be discussed and illuminated.)
“Fool me once, shame on me…” I don’t understand why any of Pacifica’s listener reps, or anyone outside this (apparently) High Cabal of Bad Faith Actors, would even bother to continue to communicate with these individuals (Siegel, Brazon et al.). I guess it’s somewhat useful to establish a dossier of our efforts toward them, all disregarded.
They have shown by their actions, and their refusal to explain them (hence my note, “Fool me once…”) and blocking all attempts to resolve the financial mess, arguably all of their own making, that rational discourse is not an option with them.
Why not just call the cops? Are they there with any paper trail beneath them to support their legal presence? Aren’t they already voted out?
It seems like all their actions can be easily shown in court to be directed toward crashing the stations and the Foundation, and most probably all of the network as well, by logical extension.
But the weakness they have exposed is that they have run out of any creative thinking or analysis or any kind of contribution to the progress of the stations, and are now just trying to let a wrecking ball swing unimpeded, while stepping out of its way. That weakness should be challenged by our recently elected reps, like Novick and others?
But it’s not clear that they have overdosed on their own KoolAid, as you say. It would seem that it’s Mother’s Milk for them.
Maybe it’s an Undead kind of thing, bodily reactions in reverse, I can’t really say.