This sound clip comes from an August 17th KPFK staff meeting and contains a description of the bookkeeping problems at KPFK, including embezzlement and staff reactions to the news.
Category Archives: Audio
August 15th Homophobia Special on KPFK
Among other questionable Radford programming decisions at KPFK contributing to plummeting fund drive results, the new manager put the struggling pledge drive on a “break” this weekend to air a 30-hour Afrikan Mental Liberation Marathon, an independently produced dawn to dusk black nationalist-oriented program . The program has disturbed queer-identified listeners with aggressively homophobic positions presented with little to no counterpoint.
A KPFK staffer provided this clip of an interview with female psychiatrist Frances Cress Welsing in which she compares queer sex to human-dog mating, states that male semen is a dietary protein like sweet potatoes and greens, and that homosexuality in Ancient Greece was caused by shock at the larger sizes of African genitals – among other bizarre statements deeply disrespectful towards LBGT people. You can hear for yourself here.
Edwards-Tiekert: If Management Doesn’t Grab Money
A snip from the Pacifica National Board meeting of July 9th. A fascinating exchange where the board votes to tap KPFA’s bequest money to pay off the remaining $65,000 on the bill for the last audit, as the auditor will not start the already overdue FY 2014 audit without full payment. PNB treasurer Brian Edwards-Tiekert of the Save KPFA faction was very quick in previous years to accuse Pacifica of “raiding KPFA’s bank accounts”, often falsely. Now that the Siegel/Brazon faction controls Pacifica, he changes his tune and announces at the end of this snippet that “If management doesn’t grab money from anywhere in the network it can to meet the foundation’s obligations, it is failing in its duty of care” Edwards-Tiekert’s public accusations and petition in 2009 are documented in this Berkeley Daily Planet article www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-…llen-Taylor and the retraction issued the following week by the reporter: www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-…llen-Taylor. Akio Tanaka’s editorial followed: www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-…Akio-Tanaka
It’s Almost Like A Poll Tax
Selected snippets of discussion from Pacifica National Board governance committee meeting on July 7th, 2015. Subject is the proposal of Save KPFA’s Mal Burnstein to raise the Pacifica voting member fee to $40. Speakers in order are KPFA listener representative Mal Burnstein, KPFK listener representative John Wenger (speaking against the idea) KPFT listener representative Nancy Saibara Naitoma (also speaking against the idea) and then Mal Burnstein again. The motion died at the end of the discussion.
Finance Committee Q+A
Question and answer session from national finance committee on February 9, 2015.
The audio contains a 19-minute exchange (in two parts) between former PNB vice-chair Bill Crosier (who just rejoined the finance committee as volunteer treasurer for Texas’s local station board) and Pacifica’s CFO Raul Salvador.
Does He Work There, Or Not?
Attorney Jose Luis Fuentes moved for and voted on the hiring of the conflicted law firm Siegel and Yee to “represent” Pacifica Foundation Radio in front of the California Attorney General in the upcoming correspondence audit, although Siegel and Yee is an employment law firm with no expertise in accounting or nonprofit law.
Fuentes began working at Siegel and Yee as an associate attorney in 2003 and remained in that position when he joined the Pacifica board in January of 2014, taking the seat formerly held by his boss Dan Siegel, who resigned in order to run for the mayoral position in Oakland (Siegel came in fifth).
California law is very clear that board members with “affiliations” to vendors must be removed from votes that would result in financial benefits for the affiliated vendor. Fuentes both moved the action and then voted for it. When challenged, he said that he had resigned from the law firm of Siegel and Yee in September of 2014.
However a call to Siegel and Yee’s Oakland office (510-839-1200) in the morning of January 9th, 2015 directed the caller to extension 224 where Mr. Fuentes announced that he was either out of the office or on the phone, and to leave a message after the beep.
A screen shot of the Siegal and Yee website taken on January 8, 2015 showed Mr Fuentes listed on the firm’s attorney list.
And Mr Fuentes sent email to the Pacifica board list from his [email protected] months after his resignation date.
Fuentes email address 12-1-2014
Is this a Clintonesque definition of “working at”?
* Jose Luis Fuentes responded to this material by stating he was working with Siegel and Yee clients for no pay 4 months after his resignation date.
Audio Announcement of Quarter Million Dollars in Staffing Reductions at KPFA
National Finance Committee 1/5/2015
Initial announcement of quarter million dollars in cuts: https://soundcloud.com/tracy-
National Finance Committee 1/5/2015
Follow-up question on quarter million dollars in cuts: https://soundcloud.com/tracy-
(*Note that $250,000 at KPFA’s union scale wage is equal to 11,383 work hours or 284 hours for every remaining week of the fiscal year, not including the removal of employees from health insurance coverage).
KPFA Local Station Board Treasurer’s Report 12-13-2014
KPFA Local Station Board treasurer reporting an $8,000 surplus for the first two months of the current fiscal year and stating “KPFA is not in a hole” https://soundcloud.com/tracy-
National Finance Committee 1/5/2015
Entire KPFA section of finance committee meeting: https://soundcloud.com/tracy-
Why KPFA Is Broke Per Brian Edwards-Tiekert
How can you blame the inability to pay your bills on not getting a grant that you knew you weren’t going to get?
Is the assertion being made here that KPFA has to lay off employees because it spent CPB funds it knew it was ineligible to receive 6 months ago?
How Did KPFA Lose A Million Dollar Annual Grant?
This announcement is running on KPFA encouraging listeners to donate to make up for money withheld by a “quasi-governmental agency.” It does not mention that the money is being held up due to incomplete bookkeeping both at the radio station and its parent, the Pacifica Foundation.
Chief Financial Officer Report – Pacifica National Board Meeting 12-18-2014
The enclosed sound clip details the CFO report from the Pacifica National Board meeting of 12-18-2014. The report provides details on the stalled 2013 audit, the financial straits of the network and its radio stations and a heated discussion with KPFT listener rep Richard Uzzell about months of promises that the audit would proceed in as soon as June of 2014, although it did not begin until November 15th, ended after less than a week due to the inability to provide audit schedules and now has no scheduled date of completion. Pacifica stations will not be able to get out of suspended status with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and regain a million dollars in annual funding unless the 2013 and 2014 audits are completed and filed by March 31, 2014.