Originally posted September 13, 2014

Berkeley-Un-elected chair/IED/IED Margy Wilkinson launched into a bit of a plaintive wail at Monday’s national election committee meeting, stating in response to a question from Houston rep Teresa Allen that she “didn’t know how much money Pacifica has, and didn’t know how much the stations have in their budgets”. The audio clip of Wilkinson’s statement can be found here. 

Wilkinson referred to her age and retired status, and expressed resentment at working full time as the interim executive director. The board of directors received letters of interest from at least two experienced radio mangement professionals in June, but failed to fill the job after Bernard Duncan resigned after 10 weeks.

The IED also failed to appoint an election supervisor to oversee Pacifica’s bylaws-mandated elections, which were postponed from 2013 to 2014 and are now more than six months behind the 2014 schedule. This places Wilkinson herself, and a number of other holdover delegates elected in 2010 into un-elected status, as their 3-year terms ended last December. Since Pacifica’s 2001 bylaws prevent board members from extending their own terms without a vote of the members authorizing them to do so, Wilkinson and several other 2014 delegates would not be eligible to sit on Pacifica’s boards – in a precise reading of the organization’s bylaws.

A pending complaint to the CA Attorney General Registry of Charitable Trusts by 8 former board members can be found here (in a slightly updated version). The AG is responsible for California charitable compliance. Pacifica members can send a note to the AG here. 

The elections job has been advertised for more than 4 months, but Pacifica continues to insist the pool of 6 isn’t diverse, so angering one of the candidates Sanchez Montebello, who handled KPFK’s election in 2009, that he withdrew his application in disgust, saying he was appalled by the lack of sincerity. Montebello’s letter is available here.  Two-time election committee chair Bill Crosier remains an applicant, having provided detailed plans for lowering election costs and declaring his willingness to accept delayed compensation to help Pacifica through financial travails. A political blacklist may be in effect, with an unwillingness to hire individuals perceived not to be in full political alignment with the slim board majority, despite job-related qualifications.

Employees in DC, NY, Houston, and the national headquarters had a bit of a scare last week when United Health Care benefits were temporarily canceled on September 2nd due to failure to pay premiums. The policy was reinstated a few days later with a brief interruption in coverage. CFO Raul Salvador also told the finance committee his office had trouble covering its payroll last month. 4 of the 5 Pacifica stations held mini-drives in July and August, raising $1.6 million in pledges, which should have resulted in a net in-flow to the national office of $100-$150K in August. The CFO also reported a donation of $150,000 from the family of Joe Toyashima to Pacifica national in July, but has not reported how those funds were used by the national office.

Real estate investor Aris Anagnos loaned New York station WBAI $156,000 for a year to pay taxes due on severance checks paid to 19 long-term AFTRA employees at WBAI in March after the station’s payroll was slashed in 2013 after a decade of large operating deficits. The long delay in making the cuts is attributable to national board politics and continual postponements, with board members making repetitive requests for written plans instead of bringing expenses down immediately. The loan terms are akin to a handshake: with no agreement in effect about what happens if WBAI is late or misses any of the 5 payments over the next year. WBAI is currently 3 months in arrears on its prohibitively expensive tower rental lease at the Empire State Building which runs until 2020. At the moment, no resources have been allocated to help WBAI pay back the Anagnos loan. A collection action by Anagnos could result in an override of the bylaws provision that members must approve any sale or transfer of foundation licenses, although by code non-commercial radio licenses cannot be named as collateral in a loan.

Members objecting to the break-up of the radio network can sign a petition here.

Budget season is upon Pacifica with the end of the 2013-2014 fiscal year in 17 days, but not much progress has been made with 0 of the 7 divisional budget documents approved by the board or the finance committee, and still no starting date for the audit of the 2012-2013 fiscal year. There appears to be discussion at some stations of reducing some part-time employees to 30 minutes a week below the threshold for health insurance benefits. This is a Walmart-style tactic. 

 

 

 

Since the mid-1990’s, Pacifica has had a patchwork unionization model with 3 AFTRA bargaining units, 1 CWA unit, and non-unionized workers at three divisons, KPFT in Texas, the national office, and the archives. It is unusual for one nonprofit organization to have employees performing similar or identical job functions, some with unionized status and some with non-unionized status, as would be the case for a membership and subscriptions coordinator in California vs. a membership and subscriptions coordinator in Texas. The 1990’s also led to the expulsion of 500+ unpaid programmers from Pacifica’s former bargaining units. 

The board majority’s unofficial corporate counsel, Dan Siegel, looks unlikely to succeed in his bid to become the mayor of the City of Oakland per the latest poll, which show Rebecca Kaplan trouncing incumbent mayor Jean Quan. Open Disclosure published the campaign contribution reports on the web and reports Siegel’s campaign was largely self-funded, with 72% of contributions from himself and related family members and the lowest percentage of total donations from small donors of any of the top seven candidates (2.69%). Former and current members of the Save KPFA faction on KPFA’s local board donated about $2,500 to Siegels campaign, representing about 7.5% of non-related contributions.

Berkeley-based satirical sound collage Twit-Wit Radio, a 3-minute collaborative spoken word collage produced by noted theatrical director George Coates, continued to spoof the board-induced craziness on July 27th, with snippets of audio drawn from Pacifica’s actual board meetings.

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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.