Hi all,

A couple of things. I think it would help to publish an accounts payable listing. The throwing around of vague figures regarding the total amount of debt isn’t really that helpful. Can you provide a list of amounts owed?

If this $8 million dollar figure is true, then what it means is that Pacifica’s debts have doubled, increased by 100%, with no help from a Democracy Now contract, in the last four years – ie. from the close of the 2012-13 fiscal year at 9-30-2013 to the current day.

If your audits are not complete garbage (which may be possible), then the majority of that doubling occurred in the period following the end of the 2014-15 fiscal year or between 9-30-2015 and today.

If you look at your audit for the period ending 9-30-2013, you will see national office A/P at $3.2 million, including approximately $2K to DN, another $800K in station-specific debts, with the majority of that ($500K) divided between KPFA and WPFW, and no current debt to ESRT.

If you look at your audit for the period ending 9-30-2015, you will see the national office A/P at $3.03 million (no detectable change), another $250K in station-specific debts (with the majority of that divided between KPFA and KPFK) and the addition of $877K in back rent to ESRT for approximately the same $4 million dollars overall.

So besides short paying Empire for another two years, which accounts for about 3/4 of a million dollars in additional debt, what is the cause of the additional $3.25 million in debt accrued in a bare two years?

I looked in my files and I see a Y/E financial statement for 9-30-2016 showing an operating loss of $633K for the consolidated total for the 2015-16 fiscal year.

Then I see a financial statement for the period ending June 30 2017 showing a gain of $537K for the consolidated totals for the first nine months of that year. (Oct 2016 to June 2017).

I haven’t seen any financial statements past June of 2017.  Nothing there accounting for an additional $3.25 million in debts.

One thing that is definite is that you need to have accurate figures to make decisions. Please provide an accurate total of amounts owed, who they are owed to, and if there is anything compelling payment by a certain date.

You would not be able to enter bankruptcy without such documentation, so it is not possible that it does not exist. The members have a right to the information and it needs to be provided.

Secondly, as many predicted, the national board has sat on its hands until the very last minute and ESRT has come to the conclusion that it will never get paid unless it loots your bank accounts (and even that is unlikely to work as you don’t have a million and a half dollars in all your bank accounts all put together).

Your answer, after missing deadline after deadline following summary judgment to strategically leverage your assets to pay the judgment, is to wring your hands and say you have to file for bankruptcy because you are afraid to take out a loan. I have no idea what exactly it means that “you would be in default as soon as you signed a loan agreement”, and presumably someone can explain that, but the usual way the world works is that you are not in default if you make the payments according to the schedule on the loan agreement. Why this loan is an exception to the rules of the universe, I can’t say.

What ESRT is telling you by filing the judgment in CA and Texas is that your creditors committee will be impatient and that your assets will not be protected in bankruptcy. Real estate is liquid, licenses are not, and you will not emerge from bankruptcy without a full settling of the $3.5 million+ owed on the balance of the lease. That is KPFK or KPFA’s building. If you are right and your debts total more than $8 million, then it is both. Me, I’d take my chances with a loan. Same outcome if it goes bad and possibly a better one, plus you don’t jack up your debts with a million + in legal fees to no end.

Remember, 85% of organizations don’t emerge from Chapter 11.

If you want to commit suicide, why don’t you just do it without shoveling another million dollars in listener donations to lawyers. Donate the station licenses back to the FCC for a noncommercial auction, sell the buildings to pay the debts, anything left over can be donated to peace organizations per the founding bylaws and call it a day.

This is getting idiotic. Chapter 11 is not your salvation, it’s your death.

– Tracy