Los Angeles – As more details emerge on last week’s attempt to shut down Pacifica Radio and transfer our assets to a private receivership, Pacifica listeners will experience a feeling of deja vu as we once again tell you about a secret nonprofit set up to receive your radio station licenses.
This time it is called Pacifica Safety Net and once again, papers were filed to set up a new not for profit organization under the sole control of the marauders. Unlike last time however, they actively went to a court of law requesting that Pacifica’s assets be formally taken from the members.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Christina Huggins, current chair of the KPFA LSB, Andrea Turner, one of KPFA’s four current PNB directors, Donald Goldmacher, current delegate on the KPFA LSB, and Craig Alderson, former secretary of the KPFA LSB. Their new secret nonprofit was set up by former ED Sherry Gendelman with Goldmacher and Alderson as the officers. All 5 are members of the group known as Save KPFA, which has recently been emailing Pacifica members under the nom de plume Pacifica (KPFA) Protectors. They did not inform the members of their planned escapade in their email blasts.
We’ve acquired some documents for your review, but before making them available here, we want to call on Pacifica members to speak up and speak out. For too long, some members have felt free to set up shadow corporations to capture Pacifica Radio assets – with zero accountability and zero consequences. It has to stop.
Now to documentation. Here at Pacifica In Exile, we don’t expect you to believe anything without documentation. So we make our best effort to procure the evidence you need to see.
Articles of Incorporation Filed by Sherry Gendelman
Form SI-100 Filed by Donald Goldmacher, Craig Alderson and Sherry Gendelman
Judge’s Order Denying Receivership
Website of Proposed Receiver Matthew Taylor (a review of the cases link on the website shows auto parts and plastics businesses along with numerous distressed real estate. No experience with media properties or FCC licenses. The main claim to fame seems to have been selling off OJ Simpson’s house to settle the civil claims against him).
If you don’t want to click, here is a brief summary of the reasons provided for the denied receivership request and some commentary about them.
1. Failing to diligently pursue FCC license renewals for 4 of the stations with the first due in Feb 2021. (It is not possible to fail to do something in the future. It is only December of 2020).
2) Incurring indebtedness of $3.2 million (The indebtedness was incurred in 2005, when the 15 year predatory contract with the Empire State Building was signed).
3) Failure to pay auditors (FY 2017 audit is complete. FY 2018 may be delayed due to payment issues).
4) A proposed change to the central services formula that might result in KPFA covering more expenses (Judges don’t intervene in the internal allocations of resources between the divisions of a nonprofit). .
5) Indebtedness to accounting contractor NETA (If an accounting contractor costs more than you can afford, then you probably will stop using that contractor. It’s not exactly a problem of the state).
6) Suspension from CPB music rights group (Ameliorated. Complaint was not updated before filing).
7) Alienation of listeners by programming that includes Holocaust denial, virulent anti-semitic rhetoric, and alternative health products. (No comment)
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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 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-sponsored radio.
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