Berkeley-Pacifica’s expedited executive director search (to replace unelected board chair Margy Wlkinson) hit a snag when the board majority’s favored candidate declined the job, apparently spooked by the upcoming attorney general audit. The search process, which has been marred by consistent charges of corruption including the running of private want ads by Wilkinson directing applications to herself instead of the board-appointed search committee, and restoring candidates to the final pool after they had objectively received lower scores in early interviews than candidates who were eliminated from the final pool. The process finally concluded with a rushed vote only 3 days prior to the expiration of the 2014 boards term of office. Continue reading Chicanery→
Berkeley-As another month ticks by without a completed audit for the fiscal year that ended September 20, 2013, Pacifica’s audit committee reported in writing that auditor Armanino LLC had declined to sign an engagement letter for Pacifica’s next audit (for the year that ended in September of 2014). The report stated: (you can read the full public version here):
The PNB should be advised that, based on available information, it does not appear feasible to meet the regular March 31 due date for the FY2014 audit for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The issue at hand is that this work cannot begin until the FY2013 audit is completed, nor can we even engage Armanino to commit to this work, as approved by the PNB at the December 3 meeting. Continue reading Pacifica’s Auditor Declines To Sign 2014 Engagement Letter→
Berkeley-At the January 22nd national board meeting, it was revealed Pacifica has defaulted on a loan from board member Lydia Brazon’s employer, Aris Anagnos. The $156,000 loan was approved by the board in September with the first $25,000 repayment due on October 28th, 2014. The board violated California Corporations Code in September by having interested director Brazon voting favorably on the transaction. Brazon stated repeatedly that she had not voted, which was a lie as this audio clip of the September vote reveals. It’s not clear why an elected representative would lie about a vote recorded on audio. Brazon did not reply when provided the audio recording of her vote. It provides a disproportionate level of influence for a single board member to mediate on behalf of an organization which is in default to her employer. Continue reading Lying To The Listeners→
Berkeley-Local management at KPFA has been under fire for their increasing reluctance to provide live coverage of community rallies and demonstrations, backpedaling on a denial of the “Block The Boat” broadcast from the Port of Oakland and acknowledging a tepid response to the Black Lives Matters protests that swept the station’s Berkeley neighborhood in the first week of December. That reluctance has amplified, with staffer Frank Sterling in receipt of angry emails after submitting a proposal for a 90-minute special program for the March For Real Climate Change Leadership planned in Oakland for February 7th. Continue reading KPFA Threatens Staffer For Trying To Broadcast Oakland Climate Change Rally→
Berkeley-In response to a March 2014 complaint from 8 former board members who served on the Pacifica National Board between 2008 and 2013, the Registry of Charitable Trusts, the division of the California AG that supervises California nonprofit organizations, has launched a comprehensive audit of Pacifica Radio’s accounting and compliance functions. The scope of the initial document request is broad and encompasses most financial records from the past five years of operations. (see list below). Continue reading California Attorney General Launches Audit of Pacifica Radio→
Berkeley-A listener representative from Houston has resigned from the Pacifica personnel committee in disgust, citing severely flawed hiring practices. Richard Uzzell submitted his letter of resignation, which can be found here. In the letter, he provided two examples. The first statement is that board chair and current interim executive director Margy Wilkinson (who is not on the search/personnel committee) ran separate private ads for the executive director position. She directed the application materials to herself at the national office, instead of to the search committee. The private ads had different deadlines and requested different materials from the applicants than ads run by the personnel committee, which was the only body authorized to collect candidate materials. The second statement was that after the committee developed a survey for candidates to be scored numerically on a list of qualifications for the position, members of the rogue board majority, upset that a favored candidate or candidates had not scored high enough, narrowly passed a motion to include several applications with low scores in the semi-finalist pool, including some not even ranked in the top half of the 25 applications. Continue reading Corruption in Executive Director Hiring Process→
Berkeley-Pacifica unelected board chair Wilkinson did hire a national election supervisor on December 1st. She went all the way down memory lane and hired L. Joy Williams, the very first local election supervisor at WBAI back in 2003. The only problem being that in Ms. William’s first go-round at Pacifica, she required the appointment of a co-election supervisor and vacated the position in the middle of the vote count, leading to the appointment of Phil Botwinick as the supervisor so the election could be finished. Botwinick filed this election report at the completion of his term. In his report he states: Continue reading Not Again! Why Can’t Pacifica Stop Trying To Censor Its Staff?→
Berkeley-Pacifica’s audit remains on slow-mo after the auditor was pulled off field work and the audit halted due to Pacifica’s inability to produce the required schedules. CFO Salvador blamed East Coast stations WPFW and WBAI for the delay, although last year’s audit was completed months earlier in 2013. Salvador confirmed several of Pacifica’s five stations have left the system-wide Great Plains/Microsoft Dynamics accounting program, saying he had no access to DC’s books and they had “traveled” to California and then Texas. If the stations were using the accounting system, general ledger and AP/AR data would be available from all 5 stations by logging in to the accounting system on a computer. Continue reading Slow Motion→
Berkeley– More than a little late, and punctuated by an audible “oh shit” by unelected board chair and IED Margy Wilkinson, the Pacifica National Board voted by a narrow 1-vote margin to change the amount of shared service contributions. The new rule, which Wilkinson and Salvador implemented weeks ago without board permission, sets network service payments by the average of the last four years of listener support rather than real-time accounting of actual contributions received this year. As a result of the new policy, stations that experience significant drops in contributions in 2015 may face increased levies at the same time they lose Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding. Fund drive tallies for the September/October fund drive cycle showed 4/5 stations experienced between 18% and 25% shortfalls from their original fund drive goals. Continue reading Punishment→
