Berkeley-Pacifica’s national board, which met a whopping four times in the month of March, spent most of its open sessions suspended in the twilight zone, although some mild improvement was noticeable by the end of March. In a month that began for Pacifica with a smashingly successful one-day national fundraiser and ended with the timely submission of a stabilization plan to California’s Registry of Charitable Trusts, the board meetings were wildly out of touch, mostly focusing on the 2014-2016 Siegel/Brazon majority’s difficulties in adjusting to their current minority postion.
Berkeley-Pacifica’s one day national fundraiser on March 2 was a smashing success, raising over a quarter of a million dollars to fully fund both remaining delinquent audits (FY 2015 and FY 2016). Network members in NY, DC, LA and Houston pledged $82K on the phone, $54K via Mobile Cause pledge-by-text and fully used up an $86K match fund provided by the estate of Jim Krivo, a former WBAI programmer and supporter. In Berkeley, KPFA’s listeners didn’t hear the fundraiser due to the station’s own local fundraiser in progress, but a days worth of receipts will go to support the national effort. Pulled off only 19 days after the board changed executive directors and appointed Bill Crosier to the position, the effort ends three years of the network’s board of directors whining there was no money to pay for audits and clears the way for a return to legal compliance in 2017. Continue reading Those Who Can→
Berkeley – A turbulent 21 months at KPFK in Los Angeles has come to an end with a change in the station’s general manager position made on February 27, effective immediately. Leslie Radford was hired in May of 2015 to be KPFK’s general manager by outgoing IED Margy Wilkinson on Wilkinson’s last day. The hire was against the wishes of incoming executive director John Proffitt, who was literally driving from Texas when Wilkinson made the hire. Proffitt had asked Wilkinson to allow him to interview the KPFK candidates, but she did not do so and hired Radford, a former Siegel/Brazon-affiliated national board member, to the KPFK job. Continue reading Sunshine In Los Angeles→
Contact: Bill Crosier, Interim Executive Director Email: [email protected],
Management Change at KPFK-FM Los Angeles
Los Angeles – KPFK-FM will have a new general manager, effective immediately.
Senior Producer Christine Blosdale will be stepping into the general manager role temporarily, for a period anticipated to be 4-8 weeks, until a longer-term interim general manager is selected. Blosdale has been a long-time employee of the station, and her success in fundraising for KPFK has been widely noted. Continue reading {Pacifica Press Release} Management Change at KPFK-FM Los Angeles→
Berkeley- After a brief interval of being able to conduct business due to the voluntary exit of the remnants of the Siegel/Brazon faction from the February 10 board meeting, the respite ended on Thursday February 16. Four hours of chaos ensued.
Despite the able chairing of newly-elected chair Jonathan Alexander, the angry former majority put on a show, displaying their ample ability to interrupt, bully, shout, scream and disrupt. The board took two votes of almost no consequence, one to revote on acceptance of the affiliate director vote tally that includes the votes of WBAI’s directors that had been excluded, and one to postpone discussion of a bylaws conflict. Not much for four hours of work. The comparison to the productive meeting on February 10 is striking. Continue reading Disruptathon→
Berkeley-15 days after being seated, the 2017 Pacifica National Board finally threw off the shackles of the previous board, refusing to concede to an imperial order from 2016 officers Adriana Casenave and Janet Kobren to unilaterally adjourn the February 10 meeting without conducting any business. The expired officers got on the phone call, established a quorum was present, and then claimed the previous year’s officers had to “approve the meeting in advance” and therefore the meeting was to be adjourned without any vote. The ploy didn’t work and a quorum of the board remained on the call after half a dozen Siegel/Brazonites hung up, passing several motions and then moving on to an executive session. Quorum was re-established in the closed session and the 2017 board made a change in the interim executive director position, relieving former board member Lydia Brazon of the position and appointing Houston listener rep Bill Crosier, pending the hire of a permanent executive director. A 20-minute summary reel of the open session of the meeting can be heard here. The meeting notice can be seen here.Continue reading 2017 Board Finally Shows Up→
Berkeley – A new Pacifica National Board will be seated (or at least attempt to be seated) on January 26. After directors elections were completed at all five Pacifica stations, the 2017 station reps are Alex Steinberg, Ken Laufer, Kathryn Davis and Cerene Roberts from NY, Nancy Sorden, Benito Diaz, Maskeelah Washington and Jim Brown from DC, Bill Crosier, Bob Mark, Rhonda Garner and Adriana Casenave from Houston, Grace Aaron, Jan Goodman, Jonathan Alexander and Sharon Brown from Los Angeles and Akio Tanaka, Andrea Turner, Bill Campisi and Sabrina Jacobs from Berkeley.
A brief clip from the Pacifica National Board meeting of 1-12-2017 with the lame duck board. It starts with the usual protest about the board excluding 75% of WBAI’s representation, which they have now done for 345 consecutive days. KPFA director Jose Luis Fuentes seems to make an intoxicated aside. Then we move on to once again, for the second time, decertify the 2016 board elections. The board moves to pay someone undetermined $1,500 to recount the ballots and if the recount changes the results, then director and officer elections of the past month would all get redone. IED Brazon then contradicts and says the board is acting contrary to the bylaws (a point Pacifica in Exile has been known to make) and the 2016 LSB elections are indeed certified.
Berkeley – After throwing out two consecutive elections by WBAI’s delegates to fill 3 WBAI vacancies on the national board, and rigging the 2017 affiliates director election by not allowing any independent WBAI directors to vote, PNB treasurer and board majority member Michael Novick admitted that “in retrospect”, the board majority was wrong and the “flawed notice” was immaterial. In correspondence with a Pacifica employee, Novick said:
“I abstained on the vote not to seat the people elected at the LSB meeting in December. In retrospect I think the flawed notice was immaterial, as it had no impact on the outcome of the vote. Since I abstained, however, I am not in a position to move for reconsideration”Continue reading Notice Was Immaterial→
