Category Archives: Audio

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Pinocchio’s Nose: Carole Travis at KPFA Local Board 2-27

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In this astounding clip from the 2-27 KPFA Local Station Board Meeting, SaveKPFA-affiliated board chair Carole Travis grows her nose by saying the KPFA Foundation shell corporation was set up *because* of complaints filed with the CA Attorney General to “scoop” things up in the event of government intervention. The papers were filed with the CA Secretary of State who stamped them received on September 24, 2013, six months *before* the initial complaint was filed with the CA Attorney General. Travis also says the KPFA Foundation is “dissolved” and then “collapsed”. It’s still listed as an active nonprofit organization with the CA Secretary of State *today*.

KPFA Foundation-Articles

Attorney General Complaint Non-Confidential

https://soundcloud.com/tracy-rosenberg/carole-travis-at-kpfa-loca-station-board

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No More Listener Supported Radio

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In this action-packed snip from the 2-23 Pacifica national finance committee, WPFW’s general manager announces that his station is “on the precipice of major underwriting” and that WPFW has changed its motto from “listener-supported radio” to accommodate support from business organizations.

The upshot of the meeting appears to be a straw man confrontation engineered by the Siegel/Brazon board majority for either Pacifica to accept business underwriting after 67 years of eschewing it, or be driven into bankruptcy court with the assets parceled out to various board members.

In other news, CFO Agarwal says that he and volunteer ED Lydia Brazon have developed proposals in secret for alternate sources of funding besides listener support that have “legal ramifications”.

Agarwal also stated that the 2014 audit (after 17 months) was both “on-track” and “backlogged”, that there was no immediate prospect of CPB funding, and that Pacifica’s monthly income statements are neither reliable nor accurate.

In a funny exchange with nominal board chair Tony Norman, Agarwal complained that Norman’s station WPFW is not transparent with their financial info and refuses to allow him access to their bank account. Norman promised to get right on it if Agarwal would just cc: him the correspondence and Agarwal says that he has been cc:ing Norman all along and Norman is fully apprised.

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Flip-Flopper

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In the February 9th, Pacifica National Board finance committee meeting, former Pacifica ED and board chair Lydia Brazon is heard insisting that “of course” members of Pacifica boards and committees get to stay on as voting members until they are replaced. The Pacifica National Board had its last two meetings disrupted because the Siegel/Brazon majority stripped voting rights from all the NY station representatives claiming neither the new ones nor the old ones could vote. If only Ms. Brazon had piped up with her statement at the national board meeting where her colleagues didn’t do what “we’ve been doing”. Twice. Continue reading Flip-Flopper →

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The Only Call: Safe Harbor’s “Community Conversation

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Safe Harbor’s attempt at a community conversation went terribly awry when the only caller in the hour-long program, Denise, said the program was getting on her nerves, called the hosts kids in a candy store cursing because they could, and said she would never donate to KPFK again. Continue reading The Only Call: Safe Harbor’s “Community Conversation →

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“We Want Him Off The Air”

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In a candidate forum, Siegel/Brazon candidate Chuck Anderson said the station “absolutely did not want” to keep paid programmers, called overnight programmer Roy Tuckman “goy of hollywood” and said “we absolutely want him off the air”.

Tuckman, who goes by the nom de plume Roy of Hollywood runs KPFK’s overnight programming from Monday to Thursday from midnight to 6am and is the only Pacifica programmer nationwide to substantively monetize the overnight hours.

Anderson mis-stated numbers: 70% of KPFK’s budget is not for “paid programmers”, it’s for salaries as a whole including engineers, membership/subscriptions staffers, managers, IT, traffic etc. The station, when fully staffed, has about 9 FTE for paid programming, about 1/2 of the payroll.

 

 

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Mr. Destructo

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Former Siegel and Yee associate attorney Jose Luis Fuentes, who replaced his then-boss Dan Siegel on the Pacifica National Board in January of 2014, has the solution to Pacifica’s problems: jettison the executive director position and sell everything off.

Fuentes has been aggressively pursuing the Siegel/Brazon faction’s bankruptcy strategy, and spent all of Tuesday nights Pacifica governance committee meeting discussing bylaws amendments to dispense with a paid executive director permanently (the network has only had one for 7 of the last 21 months) and to enable the lame duck board to sell off assets without the permission of the network’s members and donors.

Fuentes’ boss of 12 years, Dan Siegel colluded with Margy Wilkinson when both were board members in 2013 to secretly set up a new foundation under their sole control to recover foundation assets should be they be sold off. Wilkinson then went on to orchestrate the firing of the networks ED, replace her with herself and hire Siegel as the corporate counsel.