Originally posted September 18, 2014
Berkeley-Apparently worried their slim majority is growing too slim, Pacifica’s rogue board has taken to individually targeting their “enemies” with local board trials to remove them from the 501c3’s national board of directors. The first to undergo the treatment was Richard Uzzell, a Houston-based retired architect and contractor who served on KPFT’s local station board from 2004-2010 and was re-elected in 2012. Less than half the local board in Texas supported the removal at a vote taken on September 17th, so Uzzell will serve out his one-year term, but undeterred, the rogue board turned their attention to Los Angeles, scheduling another “trial” for the minority director there, Kim Kaufman.
The witch hunts are likely motivated by panic on the part of the ruling cartel, after Houston director Hank Lamb called for the removal of the chair of the board, Margy Wilkinson in July. Wilkinson claimed she won an 11-11 tie for chair of the board in February based on a mis-marked 5th place ranking in a 2-person race. She then orchestrated the firing of the executive director, Summer Reese, and inserted herself into Reese’s position twice, before and after Bernard Duncan resigned 10 weeks after being appointed.
Wilkinson was recorded last week confessing that she has no idea how much money Pacifica has. Wilkinson’s confusion is probably aided by the false financial statements being put out by CFO Raul Salvador and Pacifica treasurer Brian Edwards-Tiekert which mis-state the expiration date of a $650,000 programming contract to swell the 2013 deficit and reduce the 2014 deficit.
The time spent by the Houston local station on Uzzell’s trial (which encompassed several hours last month and several more last night) leaves KPFT less than sixty days from the expiration date of its 5th consecutive temporary stay to operate at half power. The station is unable to replace its aging equipment, which can’t run for 24 hours at 100 watts, which is required to get the station relicensed by the FCC. The station faces the potential loss of half of its operating range if it cannot raise a minimum of $50,000 for a down payment on new equipment. The 24-member local board could get the station re-licensed by raising the modest sum of $2,075.00 each.
At KPFK, the station’s second preliminary budget for the next fiscal year, which begins in 13 days, is reported to be hundreds of thousands of dollars in deficit after a first draft included government funding the station was notified it would not be receiving months ago. KPFK’s local board will be concentrating on Kaufman’s trial and is unlikely to be of much help to the station, which is operating without a general manager after Richard Pirodsky was let go in August, leaving only the station’s operations person to do both jobs simultaneously.
Unable to get their requested injunction from an Oakland-based Alameda Superior Court where mayoral candidate Dan Siegel holds considerable sway, the remaining PDGG vs Pacifica plaintiffs are dismissing their complaint in order to pursue other options to get the network back on track. A petition to support their efforts to prevent network dissolution can be found here.
Pacifica treasurer Edwards-Tiekert is proposing to solve deficit operations by reducing funds submitted by stations for shared network expenses, essentially shifting red ink from local stations to the 501c3 parent. Current expense reductions have come from operating without an executive director, a situation that looks likely to continue for the rest of the year. Pacifica has not started a fiscal audit 11 1/2 months after the end of the fiscal year, falling out of compliance with the Nonprofit Integrity Act, has lost CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) qualification, and postponed elections for its board for a second consecutive year.
Former director and 3-year board chair (2011-2013) Reese talked at length about the financial situation in this interview recorded in March.
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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.