Berkeley-The emergency PNB meeting on finances with the CFO went off as planned on June 26th, despite attempts to block it. You can listen to the full 90 minute audio here. CFO Sam Agarwal’s written report prepared for the meeting can be read here. A shorter (28 mins) audio segment with selections from the meeting can be heard here. Continue reading Crackdown During Breakdown
Berkeley- In an apparent overdose on the Kool-Aid, volunteer executive director Lydia Brazon, board chair Tony Norman and PNB treasurer Brian Edwards-Tiekert are trying to shut down an emergency board meeting scheduled for the evening of June 26th.
The meeting was called to address warnings from chief financial officer Sam Agarwal that the network will not be able to meet payroll and employee benefit obligations within weeks, pay for the financial audit or fund the election of its board members and has no plans to cope with the oncoming catastrophe. Continue reading Siegel/Brazon Faction Shuts Down Emergency Board Meeting
Berkeley- Troubles continue at Pacifica’s archives following the announcement of long-time director Brian De Shazor’s resignation. Boston PBS station WGBH wrote to say they were withdrawing the American Archive of Public Broadcasting National Digital Stewardship Residency from Pacifica and would be removing their resident from the archives. Continue reading The Kool-Aid We’re Drinking
Berkeley- Pacifica Archives Director Brian De Shazor has announced his resignation from Pacifica Radio, effective June 30th. De Shazor’s resignation provoked a strongly worded rebuke to Pacifica from Dr. Josh Sheppard, director of the Radio Preservation Task Force at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Sheppard stated De Shazor’s resignation forced him to retract a Library of Congress offer to apply for grant funding to support the archives and would amount to several hundred thousand dollars in potential lost funds. Sheppard went further, stating the Library of Congress would change Pacifica’s status to that of an endangered archive and advised Pacifica management that “abandoning maintenance of the archive and the consequent degradation of these materials will effectively erase the history of Pacifica”. Sheppard’s full letter can be read here. Pacifica had recently threatened significant cuts to archival preservation staffing. Continue reading Erasing The History of Pacifica
Los Angeles Arbitration
Berkeley-A Los Angeles arbitrator has issued an interim decision in the conflict between labor union SAG-AFTRA and Pacifica Foundation. The arbitration began last fall after Margy Wilkinson appointed community college instructor Leslie Radford to be KPFK’s new general manager and Radford laid off two union staffers and cut the rest down to 50% pay. The interim decision affirmed the union on all counts and stated the labor union contract had been violated multiple times by Radford and Pacifica, including:
a. Not consulting with the union prior to implementing layoffs in violation of the bargaining agreement.
b. Layoffs of union staffers that were a violation of the bargaining agreement.
c. Involuntary pay cuts that were constructive layoffs and the denial of severance pay due to employees if they chose to leave KPFK’s employment in violation of the bargaining agreement.
ED’s Wilkinson, Proffitt and Brazon and GM Radford insisted attorney Dan Siegel had advised them they were not violating the SAG-AFTRA contract, but Siegel was unable to defend Pacifica against the union’s charges, which have now been upheld in independent arbitration.
Following the arbitrator’s interim decision, the parties will attempt to settle the remedies due to the workers and return to arbitration if they are unable to come to an agreement.
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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 Radio 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-supported radio.
Berkeley-In California, Alameda Superior Court denied Siegel and Yee’s motion to require the two listener-member plaintiffs in Yeakey vs. Pacifica to provide a $50,000 bond. The concise denial can be seen here and states: “The court concludes the plaintiffs are not required to post a bond because they have not pled any derivative claims”. Siegel and Yee have since filed a demurrer, yet another procedural feint that runs up Pacifica’s legal costs.Yeakey vs. Pacifica seeks to remove 7 directors whose three-year elected delegate terms expired in December of 2015 and 2 affiliate representatives who are not connected to stations currently affiliated with Pacifica. Continue reading A Crevasse, But No Bond
Berkeley-Houston’s KPFT, usually the quietest and smallest of Pacifica’s five radio stations, exploded into witch hunt mode this week after a dust-up about frequently absent board member Maria Elena Castellanos trying to “rescind” her resignation a month after submitting it. After the Siegel/Brazon majority in Houston supported the absurd claim, the board doubled down and proposed suspending 4 members of the independent faction for six months for sending emails advocating that Castellano’s resignation couldn’t be taken back a month afterwards per Pacifica’s bylaws – which state board seats become vacant upon the occurrence of a resignation. The targeted board members include Bill Crosier, the former president of the Houston Peace and Justice Center, George Reiter, a professor of physics at the University of Houston, long-time KPFT volunteer Teresa Allen and Prison Show producer Hank Lamb, a former Siegel/Brazonite who broke with the faction in July of 2014 after telling them to “cut the crap” and calling for Margy Wilkinson’s removal as board chair.
Continue reading Witch Hunts Redux
Berkeley-At Thursday’s national board meeting, the majority spent most of the meeting passing a resolution instructing station management to “run their operations more productively” by such actions as calling credit card donors whose credit cards don’t go through and encouraging past donors to renew. Houston listener rep Bill Crosier attempted to amend the resolution to also address the content being broadcast. He proposed rolling back program changes in the last 12 months that generated less net fund drive revenue than the pre-change content. Continue reading Striking Out Solvency
Berkeley-In bicoastal court appearances this week, Pacifica relied on procedural feints to further delay hearings on two requests for injunctive relief filed against them by their own members. In Northern California, Yeakey vs. Pacifica requests the removal of 7 national board members whose elected terms expired in December of 2015 and who were not re-elected, and the removal of two Pacifica affiliate representatives who are not affiliated with current Pacifica affiliated stations. The complaint can be seen here. In New York, Young vs Pacifica requests the seating of national board representatives from WBAI-FM who have been prevented from voting or participating on the national board for four months by the Siegel/Brazon majority faction. The East Coast complaint can be seen here. Continue reading Legal Bills For Procedural Quibbles
Berkeley-Unofficial corporate counsel Dan Siegel and his law firm responded to the Yeakey Vs Pacifica lawsuit, which requests the removal of two affiliate directors whose stations do not have current affiliate contracts with Pacifica and the removal of the 7 current members of the board of directors whose elected terms ended in December of 2015, by postponing a hearing on the merits of the case and demanding a bond of $50,000 from the two listeners who filed the suit. A bond request requires documentation of how the defendants would face a loss of that amount or more were they not to prevail in the case, which Siegel and Yee did not provide. The complaint can be seen here.
Continue reading No Defense
