Originally posted December 1, 2014
Berkeley-Pacifica’s audit remains on slow-mo after the auditor was pulled off field work and the audit halted due to Pacifica’s inability to produce the required schedules. CFO Salvador blamed East Coast stations WPFW and WBAI for the delay, although last year’s audit was completed months earlier in 2013. Salvador confirmed several of Pacifica’s five stations have left the system-wide Great Plains/Microsoft Dynamics accounting program, saying he had no access to DC’s books and they had “traveled” to California and then Texas. If the stations were using the accounting system, general ledger and AP/AR data would be available from all 5 stations by logging in to the accounting system on a computer. WPFW-DC interim manager Michelle Price has resigned, sending a long letter to the national board containing complaints against CFO Salvador. No replacement has been named.
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Two months after the end of the fiscal year, the national board has reviewed no unit budgets nor the general budget for the non-profit. The finance committee has recommended 8 budget drafts, but at their last meeting the committee admitted the LA station budget had already proven unworkable with station receipts tens of thousands of dollars short of projections. In approving the last two station budget drafts (from WPFW-DC and KPFK-LA), the committee expressed frustration with missing and/or confusing information including setting “fake” fund drive goals higher than what the station actually anticipates. PNB treasurer Brian Edwards-Tiekert however, informed the committee it was “not their place to tell the stations how to budget”.
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.
Texas station KPFT secured its 6th consecutive 6-month extension to run at half-power, after failing to replace its dying transmitter yet again. The request filed at the FCC stated Pacifica is currently engaged in raising funds to replace the equipment, although the network’s financial statements indicate approximately $25,000 raised for a new transmitter and antenna and held in a restricted account, has been spent on general operating expenses and is no longer reserved for equipment. The decision to double-count depreciation allowances in the current fiscal year means neither KPFT nor any of the other stations plan to reserve any listener funds in the upcoming year for equipment. KPFT suffered transmitter problems for several days during its last fund drive, which came in 18% short of projections.
The care, replacement and upgrading of equipment and infrastructure within Pacifica continues to be a problem. A $50,000 restricted grant in Los Angeles for renovation of the station’s music studio “A” has also been emptied with $30,000 transferred to the national office on June 27 and June 30, 2014. Only $100 remains in the account. The board of directors was not notified in either case of the decisions to empty restricted accounts.
Despite personnel changes both at WBAI and nationally, alternative health products, which have been the subject of many complaints, continue to be plentiful in New York. After much handwringing about snake oil premiums, the new regime has changed virtually nothing at WBAI, relying heavily on Gary Null and hypnosis training courses, promising greater wealth and power to participants. The primary difference is the relative lack of success as WBAI’s fall 2013 drive booked more than $500,000 and the 2014 fall drive booked less than $400,000.
Approximately $75,000 donated by Pacifica listeners for emergency ebola relief has not yet made its way to West Africa. About half the funds were finally sent to Partners in Health on November 20th, 6 weeks after the emergency fundraising appeals began airing on KPFK, WBAI and WPFW. KPFK received retroactive permission for 3rd party on-air fundraising after the appeals had already begun. WBAI and WPFW never submitted waiver requests for on-air third-party fundraising. Pacifica has not responded to requests about when the balance of the emergency relief funds will be forwarded.
Berkeley station KPFA came under fire from listeners after the station went to pre-recorded programming shortly after the Ferguson grand jury failure to indict police officer Darren Wilson was announced, providing no real time coverage of the large uprisings in the streets of Oakland, 3 miles down the street from the station’s studio, for three consecutive nights from November 24-26. One cranky listener opined on the station’s website:
WOW, who bought off Pathetica?
Submitted by elephant in the room (not verified) on Mon, 2014/11/24 – 9:26pm.
WOW, who bought off Pathetica? So much happening in major cities, and you’re playing your little programs, never expected this. Listen to what you’ve broadcast and compare it to tonight’s events. Looks like you are owned. There are many investigative journalists there, perhaps they can look into who has hijacked the stations.
Pacifica’s board elections continue to be stopped-up. Un-elected board chair Margy Wilkinson, whose 3 year term as a Pacifica delegate expired a year ago on December 4, 2013, was tasked by the board with hiring an election supervisor by December 1st. As of Sunday the 30th, she had not done so. At least one candidate who applied, former PNB vice-chair and elections committee chair Bill Crosier has not been interviewed after submitting an application 6 months ago. Another candidate Sanchez Montebello, KPFK’s 2009 election supervisor, dropped out in disgust after receiving no acknowledgment of his application. It is not believed the remaining candidates have any experience with Pacifica elections. With half the board of directors now un-elected, and the other half becoming so in December of 2015, Pacifica’s democratic experiment is growing increasingly creaky and reliant on board members extending their own terms.
Long-time Berkeley volunteer programmer Mary Berg passed away on November 28th. A tribute to her aired on November 30th and can be heard here. A dedicated advocate for the network and especially its unpaid staff, Berg served for many years on Pacifica’s local and national boards and was commited to community participation in local radio. In 2011, she commented on the now-removed AM unpaid staff strip The Morning Mix: ”
“This show thoroughly carries on the fine tradition of KPFA, which started as an educational station, in 1949. Its concept, unique in all of radio, was to offer not money for a few but a priceless opportunity for everyone with the passion and love to put in the hard work and be on the air. Over and over, throughout all the years, we have heard the miracle repeated as myriad new voices, tentative and hesitant at first, continue to be transformed into deft, accomplished ones – each unique – and all doing really good radio. This miracle happens again now on “Morning Mix”. It never fails to be deeply moving.”
Happy Holidays.
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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.