Originally posted July 25, 2014
Berkeley- At the Pacifica National Board meeting on Thursday night, the final seven bylaws amendments proposed by national board members bit the dust, with only one surviving of the dozen proposed – an amendment that would allow a 2nd bylaws amendment process later this year (because the first one was so successful).
The nasty meeting, which featured a great deal of yelling by board members, an attack by PNB treasurer Brian Edwards-Tiekert on the affiliate station representatives on the board, KFAI’s Janis Lane-Ewart (the former director of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB), and Radio Free Georgia’s Heather Gray, and an attempt by secretary Cerene Roberts to conceal her vote on a controversial bylaws amendment that would have reduced equilateral representation on the board for all 5 stations.
.jpg)
At least 2 directors (WPFW’s JIm Brown and Tony Norman) voted against bylaws amendments they themselves proposed and endorsed – adding new dimensions to the epic time-wasting on the national board – and WPFW’s Benito Diaz voted to restrict his own station’s representation on the national board and prevent WPFW from having an equal say in national affairs.
KPFA’s Brian Edwards-Tiekert spoke strongly in favor of a motion to cut affiliate representation on the national board from 2 to 1. Affiliate stations play Pacifica programming and provide about a quarter million dollars in annual funding to Pacifica in affiliate fees. The 180 affiliate stations cross the country and the world and range from tiny LPFM stations to long-established stations with multi-million dollar budgets of their own. Edwards-Tiekert stated he didn’t want “people like Gray and Lane-Ewart on the national board”, not apparently realizing their long track record and sterling reputations in community-based broadcasting.
The board also voted down a bylaws amendment requested by Pacifica’s FCC and CPB attorney, John Crigler, modifying meeting notice requirements in Pacifica’s bylaws so they were the same as Section 396(k) of the Communications Act, in response to CPB requests that Pacifica be in compliance with its own bylaws requirements as one condition for restoring funding cut off over a year ago by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The board’s refusal to modify the meeting notice language could finalize the forfeiture of 2013 funding of over a million dollars, money the struggling network really needs. 2014 funding is waiting for Pacifica to complete an annual audit, which it has not begun. The final CPB deadline for 2014 funding passed on June 30th.
Members objecting to the board majority’s chaotic actions over the past six months, which will lead to the network’s dissolution, can sign a petition here.
(6).jpg)
At Tuesday’s national finance committee, before slipping into a session closed to the public, the fired/rehired CFO stated that audit preparation work remained undone and that KPFA, the network’s Berkeley station, had still not submitted any audit schedules, a week past the latest self-imposed deadline. The audit work has been slowed by a flood of departures of employees from the national headquarters after 5 complaints about hostile working conditions were never addressed, and an outside investigator’s report was hijacked and kept from the board of directors for 4 months. Two employees have quit and a third has gone on medical leave for job-related stress. Two board members, affiliated with the PDGG group on the board, performed a director’s inspection to get the report from unelected chair/IED/IED Wilkinson, but were forced to sign affidavits keeping the information private.
Director Hank Lamb’s motion to remove unelected chair Wilkinson for “abusing her authority as chair, withholding documents from the board, forcing illegitimate votes, and blackmailing the board” has now been kept off the board’s agenda for two consecutive meetings. Since receiving IED Bernard Duncan’s resignation letter on June 13 after 7 weeks on the job, the board has taken no action to fill the vacant executive director position. The board’s personnel committee postponed a motion for a November 2014 timeline to fill the position, causing some to speculate that the rogue majority plans to hold the position empty until their lawyer Dan Siegel is available to fill the position for the 3rd time in a decade.
The board majority continues to delay the election postponed from 2013. The March 1 deadline to hire an election supervisor passed 4 1/2 months ago and nominations should have opened in June. Plans to convert to an online voting system to save $50,000 in printing and postage costs cannot be implemented until the board appoints someone to do the job. Former PNB vice-chair Bill Crosier applied for the job months ago and issued detailed plans for how to proceed, but the PNB election committee stated at their last meeting that the applicant pool is not diverse. Local board members elected in 2010, including Wilkinson, would enter their 2nd unelected year if the election does not go forward.
###
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.