LA Superior Court Throws Out Goldmacher-Huggins-Turner Lawsuit 

Berkeley – Three strikes and they’re out. On Friday, July 30, Judge Michael Stern dismissed the Pacifica Safety Net lawsuit for the failure to make a viable complaint after four tries. A demurrer filed by defendants Grace Aaron and Alex Steinberg was upheld without leave to amend and the plaintiff’s case dismissed with prejudice. 

The court order can be seen here. 

Berkeley – As you’ve probably heard by now, the New Day Bylaws were defeated in the just-completed referendum with a rejection by the staff member class of 58% (No) to 44% (Yes). 76% of the listener members did not vote in the referendum, but of those who did, 56% supported the proposed new bylaws. This outcome has led to much knashing of teeth from New Day and the Pacifica Safety Net, with loud angry posts about a “staff veto”. This is bizarre for a very simple reason. 

Or How to Solve The Problem When People Just Won’t Vote Right

Firstly, we want to apologize for breaking our vow not to send more than one edition a week. We take that promise seriously and are only taking this step because an unexpected development arose that it seemed important for people to know. We appreciate your patience. 

Berkeley – A puzzling (and completely outrageous) demand letter was filed by New Day Pacifica coordinators Jan Goodman and Beth Kean on Monday morning – and came to us in the evening of May 26th. The demand letter seeks to prevent Pacifica staff from being able to vote in their own election on the adoption of the New Day Pacifica bylaws. The reason?

If the staff, specifically at WBAI and WPFW vote no with an overwhelming turnout as they did last year during the prior bylaws referendum, they will be able to thwart the New Day proposal. 

There are a number of administrative reasons why the request is a non-starter and we will mention them below, but before we do that, we just want to take a second to review the broader implications of the letter, which you can read here.

Berkeley – In a Third Amended Complaint filed in LA Superior Court on May 17, Pacifica Safety Net plaintiffs Donald Goldmacher (KPFA LSB delegate), Christina Huggins (KPFA LSB delegate) and Andrea Turner (PNB Director) expanded on their previous charges that Jan Goodman is guilty of illegal acts, misconduct and self-dealing. The Third Amended Complaint, filed after the first two complaints were rejected, follows a first complaint that attempted to transfer all of the Pacifica Foundation’s broadcast licenses and real estate assets to a San Bernardino lawyer, Matthew Taylor. 

Goodman, a former PNB director, would be installed as the vice-chair of the Pacifica National Board until 2024 if the members endorse the “New Day” bylaws revision in a referendum election to be held in June. 

The complaint, filed under penalty of perjury, does not mince words. It accuses Goodman on pages 11 and 12 of “unlawful acts”, “prohibited self-dealing”, “dishonest acts”, “gross abuse of authority”, “an obvious conflict of interest” and “executing an illegal loan”. A copy of the complaint filed by the three can be read here. 

Berkeley – An agenda has been released for the May 15 KPFA local station board meeting. This is the first meeting since March 20 and the next one will not occur until mid-July. Disappointingly, the agenda contains basically nothing but a multi-hour discussion of the “New Day” bylaws proposal. The local station board’s vote on the proposal is meaningless as its fate will be decided by a membership referendum to be held in June. The outcome should be predictable as all 4 of KPFA’s Pacifica National Board representatives, from all factional groups, already voted no in the earlier meaningless vote held by the Pacifica National Board on April 15. In that vote, the “New Day” bylaws proposal was defeated by a 16-4-1 vote, and received zero votes from the Berkeley, New York and Washington stations. 75% of the 4 support votes the new Day proposal received were from KPFT in Houston. So the outcome should not be in doubt, unless some KPFA local station board members choose to vote differently on the local level than on the national level. 

While that may sound bizarre on paper, it is not impossible due to some confusion that seems to be going on in the Save KPFA/UIR/Pacifica-Safety-Net/New Day/Protectors circle. (We’re sorry – they keep coming up with new names for themselves). Andrea Turner, a Save KPFA-affiliated representative, and one of the Pacifica Safety Net plaintiffs who tried to get the Foundation’s assets transferred to a San Bernardino attorney in December, voted no on the national level. However, the website that supports her lawsuit and raises money for it (pacificasafetynet.org) is advocating for a yes vote on the New Day bylaws proposal.

Berkeley-In a second amended Turner vs. Pacifica Foundation complaint filed at the end of February, KPFA board chair Christina Huggins, KPFA LSB member Donald Goldmacher and Pacifica director Andrea Turner accuse Jan Goodman, the proposed new vice-chair of the board in the “New Day” bylaws proposal, of prohibited self-dealing and financial misconduct while on the board. 

The complaint states: 

On or about March 28, 2018, the transaction of a $500,000 loan to PFI from Pacifica Supporters Loan LLC. The principals of PSLLC are Jerry Manpearl, an attorney and Goodman’s husband, and King Reilly. At the time of the subject loan transaction, Goodman was a member of the Pacifica Foundation board. … Despite her obvious conflict of interest on account of being married to a principal of the lender, Goodman did not recuse herself or abstain from the PFI Board of Directors vote approving the loan, but instead voted to approve the loan. $28,000 was paid to Manpearl, Goodman’s husband, for legal fees and expenses and $10,000 was paid to Reilly as a brokers fee…. The PSLLC-PFI loan was unlawful and a prohibited self-dealing transaction”. 

Now to be clear, like pretty much everything in the sloppy lawsuit from “Pacifica Safety Net”, this charge is bogus and untrue. For one thing, Goodman did recuse herself from the closed session vote on the loan. But what is important to note  is that Goodman is being put forward as the future vice-chair of the board for 3 full years, with the power to personally select enough of the other board members under the New Day proposal to ensure her agenda will prevail. Yet some of those at KPFA on the record loudly supporting the New Day bylaws revisions have no compunctions about swearing in a court of law that Goodman’s behavior has been unlawful and unethical. 

Berkeley-Pacifica Radio members have no shortage of advocacy emails imploring them to sign things, un-sign things, attend meetings to make angry public comments and support this or that group going by this or that confusing name. Our hope is to deconstruct some of this mass confusion, and make it easier for listeners to hold accountable partisan efforts that do little to build and sustain the network.

Berkeley-After receiving a couple of inquiries from Pacifica members who are somewhat overwhelmed by the recent phenomenon of multiple blasts from closely intertwined groups using different names, we decided the confusion they expressed is probably fairly widespread and deserves an answer. Here is one such inquiry (among many):

Happy Holidays! I do have a question though. Who is KPFA Protectors? I get so much email from all kinds of people claiming to be in the best interests of Pacifica, that it is confusing. I will not support any group that has tried to sell off KPFA or any part of Pacifica in the past because the network is “bankrupt”, when a combination of a recession, people losing their jobs, COVID pandemic and just plain bad mismanagement has put the network in danger. I also oppose those people who insist upon maintaining salaried employees (although I feel bad over people losing their jobs) when it isn’t sustainable for the network. Thanks, and thanks for all of your hard work.

The answer, as diagnosed using email headers and links, appears to be surprisingly simple. The differing names are simply red herrings. By using multiple names, it is easier to evade accountability and claim plausible deniability for ventures that do not go well, such as the initial bylaws misadventure that was defeated by a 2-1 margin or the recent request to the court to place Pacifica assets into a receivership trust account held by a Rancho Cucamonga lawyer, which was denied by the court. 

Red herring campaigns are designed to confuse the audience, but they generally leave a trail of bread crumbs behind them.

Los Angeles – As more details emerge on last week’s attempt to shut down Pacifica Radio and transfer our assets to a private receivership, Pacifica listeners will experience a feeling of deja vu as we once again tell you about a secret nonprofit set up to receive your radio station licenses. 

This time it is called Pacifica Safety Net and once again, papers were filed to set up a new not for profit organization under the sole control of the marauders. Unlike last time however, they actively went to a court of law requesting that Pacifica’s assets be formally taken from the members. 

Three members of KPFA’s local station board, Chair Christina Huggins, Andrea Turner, Donald Goldmacher and their lawyer, traveled down to Los Angeles on Tuesday, violating California’s COVID19 shelter in place order, to try to convince a court to place Pacifica’s assets into a receivership and remove control of the Foundation from its members. Update: There is a 4th plaintiff, former KPFA LSB member Craig Alderson. The attorney is Stephen Jaffe, an SF employment lawyer and unsuccessful congressional candidate). Their effort was unsuccessful and their emergency request was denied by the court.

Their filing, apparently an error-riddled 800 page tome, was not available on the LA County Superior Court site as of the time of this newsletter, but was said to have asserted incorrectly that Pacifica’s buildings were about to be foreclosed upon and that the fiscal year 2017 audit had not been completed. (It was completed some time ago). The judge denied the request in a brief hearing of less than 30 minutes duration and castigated the plaintiffs for procedural irregularities. 

Among the procedural irregularities was the failure to serve the lawsuit. The plaintiff’s attorney merely called a few officers of the board on the telephone at 8:00 am the day before the hearing.