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Pacifica in Exile Newsletters

June Comes After May and Guns and Butter Goes Away

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*Note* – As you’ve noticed, Pacifica in Exile had ceased regular publication earlier this year. The reasons for that have been multiple and have included increasing demands on the time of the editor, the change in Pacifica leadership and resolution of the Empire State Building obligation, and the financial stress of maintaining the publication schedule on a largely uncompensated basis for multiple years.This edition is being published due to problematic occurrences at KPFA. We will try to resume publication periodically when circumstances warrant, as we can. It is noted that the quality of conversation and availability of information suffers in Pacifica in Exile’s absence and we regret that. This issue will be largely KPFA-centric, but we believe the matters involved bear on and have significance for all the stations in the network. – Editor

Berkeley-At a contentious and surprisingly crowded KPFA local station board meeting, scores of people turned out to object to the station’s sudden kiboshing of 17-year public affairs and analysis show Guns and Butter. The meeting had been previously billed as a “town hall”, but as the meeting actually unfolded, it became clear the reason for 90% of the attendance was the abrupt cancellation of Guns and Butter. (Quaintly referred to by KPFA board member Andrea Turner as the “reduction” of the program.”). Guns and Butter, came on the air in 2001, one of the first programs greenlighted by KPFA’s community-based program council that existed in those years. Guns and Butter, then hosted by Bonnie Faulkner and Kellia Ramares, and for the last decade, solely by Faulkner as an unpaid staffer, had a charter statement to bring to the air deeply alternative voices it was hard to hear elsewhere, with an emphasis on the intersection between economics and politics, and what are often called conspiracy theories, including non-mainstream versions of the events of September 11. The show has *always* pissed people off, and faced significant opposition from KPFA’s News Department and some program hosts at the get-go, and has regularly spurred controversies. It also has one of the largest and most dedicated audiences of any program in the Pacifica Network.  Continue reading June Comes After May and Guns and Butter Goes Away →

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An Open Letter Regarding The Cancellation of Guns and Butter

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This is an open letter regarding KPFA’s cancellation of Guns and Butter, a public affairs show that has run weekly on KPFA-FM since 2001.

Pacifica In exile’s editor, Tracy Rosenberg,  was employed at the time as KPFA’s program coordinator, and in that capacity facilitated a program council at KPFA that greenlighted the program for broadcast 17 years ago. I firmly believe that over the program’s 17-year life span that it has been a service to KPFA’s listeners, has been appreciated by them and provided an important source of alternative information on a variety of issues, and has made a great deal of money for the station and for Pacifica Radio. There is no doubt that the programs’s overall impact has been beneficial. I am distressed at the cavalier treatment of a long-time programmer. Continue reading An Open Letter Regarding The Cancellation of Guns and Butter →

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Pacifica Announces Settlement With Empire State Building and Empire State Realty Trust (Pacifica press release)

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New York – The Pacifica Foundation announced today the settlement on a series of agreements that release WBAI, the organization’s New York radio station, from a court judgment as well as the last two years of its lease at the Empire State Building as of May 31, 2018. The Foundation is also in the final stages of completing an agreement to relocate its transmission facility to a new site nearby. The agreements and move will preserve Pacifica’s service to millions of people in the New York Metro area.

The settlement, announced by the Pacifica National Board, relieves Pacifica of a $1.8 million 2017 judgment for Empire State Realty Trust (the organization that operates the Empire State Building) and against WBAI and Pacifica, additional rent and penalties accrued since the judgment was issued, and any remaining obligations that would have incurred after May 31, 2018. Continue reading Pacifica Announces Settlement With Empire State Building and Empire State Realty Trust (Pacifica press release) →

Pacifica in Exile Newsletters

Information Shortage

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Berkeley – Information from Pacifica’s National Board out to the members it represents has been a little scarce as of late, with 4 consecutive closed session meetings on January 25 and Feb 1, Feb 8 and Feb 15 not providing the routine report out. The audit committee has also not filed report outs from its last three closed session meetings. Part of the problem has been the transition between executive directors as Tom Livingston takes over for Bill Crosier and part the annual turning over of the national board. This year’s rotation of national board members has been far from smooth with repetitive director elections from KPFA’s local station board, which has been hemorrhaging members at the rate of one a month, and filing lawsuits against Pacifica. More on the KPFA directors mess below.  Continue reading Information Shortage →

Pacifica in Exile Newsletters

The Return of Self-Selected Boards or Control At Any Price

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Berkeley – Every January, according to Pacifica’s badly written bylaws, the Pacifica National Board resets itself. This leads to regular chaos and 2018 was no disappointment in that regard. So the business of financial recovery has gone on almost exclusively in closed sessions of the board. We will fill you in on all the craziness below, but in deference to the seriousness of the situation, we are going to cover a few things of more significance first.

Pacifica’s financial audits, the subject of so much suffering for so long, seemed to be within shooting distance of finally getting current in mid-2017, when the FY 2015 audit was completed in August in record time. But 7 months later, the FY 2016 audit, which needed to be done by June 2017 or as soon thereafter as possible, hasn’t gone anywhere. Pacifica in Exile readers will remember that an audit fundraiser was held in March of 2017 to raise funds to pay for the two back audits with great success. Pacifica remains under some pressure to get the FY 2016 audit done with an original deadline from the CA Attorney General of mid-February 2018. Pacifica’s first attempt to get an extension was rejected, and a second attempt is underway. The ability of all the stations to accept charitable donations would be at risk if Pacifica’s tax-exempt status were pulled, a possible consequence of failing to submit timely financial audits.  Continue reading The Return of Self-Selected Boards or Control At Any Price →

Pacifica in Exile Newsletters

The End Less Near – Pacifica Board Approves Loan

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Berkeley – On the evening of January 18, the Pacifica Foundation board formally approved and accepted a loan put together by the organization’s members in Southern California to pay off a pending judgment to the Empire State Building and keep the organization out of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

The member loan is a short-term bridge loan intended to pay off the judgment immediately and transition the organization into a 3-year line of credit that will follow.

The three to three and a half year timeline will allow Pacifica to explore several options to pay off long-term debts and finally get clear of the extortionate Empire State deal that swallows so much revenue without having to engage in fire sales, and retains the organization’s independence. Continue reading The End Less Near – Pacifica Board Approves Loan →

Pacifica in Exile Newsletters

Paying Off The Judgment

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Berkeley – This is a very happy update to send.

Friends of Pacifica in Southern California have now secured bridge loan funds of $2 million dollars to pay off the summary judgment amount to the Empire State Building. An escrow account has been set up and full payment will follow shortly afterwards. Full payment of the  judgment due will remove the threat of asset seizure.

Huge thanks to the Southern California community which worked together to locate the much-needed funds in record time. Continue reading Paying Off The Judgment →

Pacifica in Exile Newsletters

Dollars And Cents

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Berkeley – When making decisions about how to go forward, we believe it is always helpful to look at the actual numbers. The adage “follow the money” applies to well, just about everything. Pacifica has released a draft profit and loss statement for the last fiscal year that ended on September 30, 2017. (Finally).

We need to disclose that it is a “draft” financial statement, so the numbers are not finalized, but at 95 days after the end of the fiscal year, most financial transactions should have been recorded in the books by now.

It is important that members have access to the financial statements, so we are making them available to you here. Continue reading Dollars And Cents →

Pacifica in Exile Newsletters

What The Dickens Is Going On?

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Berkeley – (Editors note: After more than three and a half years of regular weekly bulletins, Pacifica in Exile did not come out for the last eight weeks. The primary reason for that has been to avoid providing surplus information to Pacifica’s main creditor, the Empire State Realty Trust, that could hamper negotiations. At this point, however, we believe the member’s right to know has to be the priority, and since various members of the Pacifica community have been putting out information of varying levels of accuracy for some time now, we decided the time was right).

When we last left off publication, Pacifica had been hit with a $1.8 million summary judgment from the Empire State Realty Trust for back rent from 2013 to 2017, The rent is for WBAI-FM’s transmitter which broadcasts from the iconic NY skyscraper. A 15-year lease had been signed in 2005 by very temporary IED Ambrose Lane, a WPFW broadcaster who presided briefly between Dan Coughlin and Dan Siegel. The lease was signed under somewhat mysterious circumstances in that members of the 2005 board of directors have not confirmed that they saw it or reviewed it prior to signing. The lease took full advantage of the skyscraper deficit in New York City after the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001, hiking the rent abundantly every year for a decade and a half until 2020, where it topped out at more than 3/4 of a million dollars a year, a prohibitive amount for any community radio station.  Continue reading What The Dickens Is Going On? →

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Request For Information (and Notes on Suicide)

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This is a public copy of an email sent to the Pacifica National Board on 12-16-2017

Hi all,
A couple of things. I think it would help to publish an accounts payable listing. The throwing around of vague figures regarding the total amount of debt isn’t really that helpful. Can you provide a list of amounts owed?

If this $8 million dollar figure is true, then what it means is that Pacifica’s debts have doubled, increased by 100%, with no help from a Democracy Now contract, in the last four years – ie. from the close of the 2012-13 fiscal year at 9-30-2013 to the current day.

Continue reading Request For Information (and Notes on Suicide) →