As a financial meltdown continues to endanger the Pacifica Foundation, emails demonstrate national board officers have been spending their time cancelling meeting notices.
Board chair Tony Norman, whose station (Washington’s WPFW) does not have sufficient funds in the bank to meet the month-end payroll, unilaterally canceled a special board meeting on the financial crisis called by Crosier and LA board members Grace Aaron, Jan Goodman and Jonathan Alexander for July 28th.
Norman wrote: “The “special” meeting called for July 28, 2016 is hereby CANCELLED. The Chair directs the PNB Secretary not to notice this invalid meeting”.
Crosier responded at length. The full text of his response can be read here, with some snippets excerpted below.
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“Dear Lydia, Tony, and Janet,
Is this a game you are playing, or did one of you accidentally cancel (at least twice again today and for at least the fourth time this week) the special PNB meeting that I and three other Directors called for July 28?
Tony, I want to respectfully remind you that you have no authority to cancel the special PNB meeting called by four Directors for July 28. Article Six, Meetings of the Board of Directors, Section 2: Special Meetings: Special meetings of the Board of Directors may be called by the Chairperson of the Board, any two Officers of the Foundation, or by any three Directors.
So to keep you out of further trouble, I un-cancelled the meeting again. The meeting is still on and will happen, regardless of whether you continue, in your childish manner, to cancel the meeting listing on the kpftx calendar. I wish you would be willing to cooperate, but we’re going to have the meeting on July 28, whether you like it or not.
I realize you don’t want us to meet to talk about our financial crisis and what we should do about it.. We get that. We have no hidden agenda. We want to deal with our finances and find and implement solutions in order to save Pacifica. Why do you want to keep putting that off, month after month, indefinitely it seems? What is your agenda?
You don’t need to do anything more to demonstrate how intensely you (Lydia and Tony) want to prevent us from dealing with our financial crisis.
Tell me why we should wait until we are in a smouldering heap at the bottom of the valley to decide to discuss what to do about our problems.
People keep asking “Why doesn’t management do something”, “Why doesn’t the PNB do something”, and “Is there a conspiracy to create some awful financial conditions so we’ll be forced to take drastic actions that will forever change Pacifica”. And I have to keep telling them I don’t know.
More that I hope you will consider:
Most of us in Pacifica don’t like censorship, including censorship that is (poorly) disguised as attempts to follow some non-existent rule.
Most of us in Pacifica don’t like being bullied or intimidated into staying silent, and not talking about important matters facing Pacifica, especially very critical problems threatening our survival.
Most of us in Pacifica don’t like shutting up whistle blowers and keeping them from talking about problems.
Most of us in Pacifica don’t like people in governance who forget they’re supposed to be protecting Pacifica assets, which by the way are paid for by the members.
If you still don’t want to talk about our financial crisis and choose not to attend this special meeting on July 28, then that’s up to you. But please don’t stand in the way of those of us who do want to fulfill our fiduciary responsibilities, who understand that we can’t keep ignoring our financial crisis, and that we have to stop putting off (again and again) taking actions to solve this crisis or at least reduce its severity before we crash and burn and our beloved Pacifica is no more.”
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Crosier, Goodman and Aaron called and then convened a special meeting on finances on June 26th. The entire 14-person board majority boycotted the meeting. Norman and interim ED Brazon said prior to the meeting (which is captured on a recording that Norman and Brazon refuse to release, despite many direct requests) that they could not “use Pacifica’s resources”. The four then invited 4 elected directors from NY’s WBAI who have been excluded from Pacifica board meetings all year, to join them, and held and streamed the meeting.
The full audio of the June 26th meeting can be heard here, a summary version here, and a list of recommendations that came out of the meeting can be seen here.
The Siegel-Brazon majority then convened their own “special meeting on finances” on July 14th. It was a brief one, as half of the 3 hours were spent in closed session. The only action taken was a vague directive to pull “surplus funds” from the stations and use them to pay for the 2014 audit fee and to mail election ballots. ED Brazon was further instructed to use the 2014 audit report to secure a loan on the network’s national office building and use the loan proceeds to cover a list of other crucial expenses.
Brazon used an unexpected bequest gift to KPFK to pay for the mailing of election ballots. She did not pay the 2014 audit fee. nor did Pacifica meet the July 15th payroll at Pacifica’s NY station WBAI.
The failure to pay the audit fee stalls negotiations with the Empire State Building to reduce WBAI’s transmitter costs, prevents the renewal of the board’s liability insurance which expires on August 11th, and leaves Pacifica delinquent on the audit filing with California’s Attorney General and out of compliance with the Nonprofit Integrity Act.
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