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→
A clip from the 5-18 PNB elections committee. The actual conversation about the motion to agree not to decide anything was twice as long, but this is enough the provide the idea. This followed a 45 minute question and answer session with the 2015 election supervisor Joy Williams for her to present her report and that session had already occurred. The sub-committee report referred to had reading time as tested with a stopwatch at about 3 minutes 15 seconds.
This clip from Pacifica’s finance committee has CFO Sam Agarwal explaining the delayed payroll on May 15th. The snip also includes some general discussion from the meeting including:
— Payroll update
— WPFW restricted funds
— Proposal regarding programming issues at stations with financial shortfalls
— Major deficiencies in 2015 accounting records. “For the past two years, we don’t know what the balances are that the stations owe to the national offices or what in turn we owe to other entities”
— Whether it is alarmist to invoke the threat of bankruptcy
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 producerHank 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→
