Some people have complained about Summer Reese’s resume, or lack of some specifics they wanted to see there, or how it compares with certain other people’s resumes.  I’ve seen her resume and I’ll say publicly is that I think what matters most (especially in the Executive Director job) are someone’s dedication to the mission, accomplishments, energy, ability to get things done, ability to negotiate, follow-through, understanding of finances and leadership, attention to details as well as the big picture, and (especially for this job) an ability to put up with and work in spite of an incredible amount of harassment and BS and an extremely dysfunctional governance.

All of Pacifica’s managers need these qualifications, and especially the Executive Director (ED).  We have had other ED’s and interim ED’s who might have looked terrific on paper, but who came up short in one or more of these critical requirements for the Pacifica ED position.  Summer has what it takes.  Her major limitation is that because of the deficit spending she inherited and which she’s trying so hard to stop, and the insufficient number of national staff, she’s having to do the work of two or three people.  Unfortunately, she can’t quite work 24/7 and still hasn’t figured out how to walk on water.  But I’ll give her a pass on that.

The SSN story and other opposition when Summer became interim Executive Director (iED):

Since Summer’s Social Security Number, and how/why she became iED keeps getting brought up in public by certain current and past PNB members, here’s the story.

After the PNB voted in 2012 not to renew Arlene [Englehardt’s] ED contract, Arlene said that if the PNB would not allow her to continue working as ED, that she be allowed to leave before the end of her contract and collect severance for the remaining three months, so she could have time to look for another job.  (Her contract provided for severance, anyway.)  As you can imagine, being ED of Pacifica is a very intensive job that does not leave one time for anything else.

So I and others presented a motion that would do what she asked (even though we had wanted to renew her contract but the PNB would not agree to that)– to let her step down during the next month, with a few weeks of transition with both her and Summer working in the National Office so that Summer (who would automatically become the iED until someone else might be hired) could get up to speed on things in the National Office, even though Summer was already pretty familiar with them.  Summer did NOT make that motion for Arlene to step down and for Summer to become iED.  I did, because I felt that considering the vote against renewing Arlene’s contract, and in fairness to Arlene, it was the best thing to do.

Some of the Directors who don’t like Summer immediately objected and brought up several things about Summer to try to stop us from putting her in as iED, and then they even objected to paying her.  They said she should work for free.  Imagine anyone who opposes paying the chief executive of an organization like Pacifica, even if they don’t like the person.  Do we want her to be able to work for the Foundation while living under a bridge, or do we want her having to work another job so she would not have time to do the needed work that the ED position requires?  I don’t believe they proposed anyone else as iED, and it was clear to me that most of the things they brought up were trivial non-issues.

The people who opposed Arlene and Summer (the so-called SaveKPFA and Justice and Unity Coalition people in particular, plus their friends at KPFK) had consistently voted for budgets that had very large personnel components that the stations could not possibly afford, even when those stations already had the largest payrolls of any Pacifica stations.  I want to stress that it was the same people who opposed Arlene’s attempts to stabilize Pacifica financially, who were the ones fighting Summer. 

Personally, I think it’s because they were afraid that Summer would be more effective in making the needed changes.

The only item which got my attention, that Summer’s adversaries brought up in 2012 about Summer when she became iED, was when one of them said we should ask for Summer’s Social Security Number (SSN).  We learned that Summer does not want to give out her SSN.  She may not even have one — I truly do not know, and do not care.  Although her adversaries wanted us to think that this indicated some attempt to avoid paying taxes or do something illegal, a quick check revealed that was NOT TRUE.  On the first page of the IRS publication that one of her opponents sent to the PNB about this, it was clear that an employee did NOT have to provide a SSN.  Employers have to ask for one, but employees are NOT required to give one.  That first page of that same IRS document said what to do in such case — employers should withhold taxes at a higher rate, and report it to IRS.  If anything, it’s likely that Summer (through withholding) is paying MORE taxes than she would otherwise.  But that’s a personal employment matter that none of us have any rights to dig into.

The PNB needed to make sure that the law and proper Human Resource procedures are being followed, and it seemed clear to me that they were.  I pointed this out to the rest of the PNB at that time, but some people are persisting in bringing up this non-issue and trying to make it sound important.  No one’s breaking the law about the SSN issue.  The law is this way because, like it or not, and understand it or not, some people have religious reasons for not giving out their SSN.  Others do it for privacy reasons or as a political protest.  Again, I don’t know whether Summer has a SSN or not, but frankly IT’S NONE OF OUR BUSINESS as long as the law is being followed

We checked with HR people then (again, back in 2012) and they told us that employees do NOT have to provide a SSN to their employer, even though that’s uncommon and a number of employers (illegally, it seems) discriminate against people who don’t supply SSN’s for religious or political reasons.  I even wrote another message to the PNB back then, pointing out that Pacifica should be supportive of employees’ rights, and understanding of employees’ religious and political beliefs.  We need to make sure things are done legally, but we shouldn’t be prying into one’s personal affairs as long as we know the law is being followed.

Bill Crosier

kpft@crosierbiomed.com

3-27-14

Bill Crosier served on KPFT’s LSB from 2007-2012 (6 years), was vice chair of KPFT’s LSB the first year and chair the next two years. He sat on the PNB (and was vice chair of it) the last 3 years (2010-2012). He was also on multiple Pacifica national committees each year and chaired some of those.