Berkeley– On December 20, the Pacifica National Board considered the new set of bylaws initiated by the Pacifica Restructuring Project to gut the democratic reforms introduced in 2003. The new set of proposed bylaws, which were written by a small group of people primarily in Berkeley, with a few helpers in Texas and LA, would return the Pacifica network to a majority of self-selected individuals on the board of directors.

Supported by a membership petition signed by 1% of Pacifica’s overall contributing membership, the Pacifica Restructuring Project went to court to force this vote. Their lawsuit (technically an alternative writ of mandate) was filed in Alameda County Superior Court on the auspicious date of October 7th, the same day that former Pacifica IED John Vernile and two directors from Texas, Adrienne LaViolette (who just resigned from the Pacifica National Board) and Bill Crosier, swept into New York City and took WBAI off the air, setting up a month of legal battles that ended on November 6th, when NY State Supreme Court judge Melissa Crane returned WBAI-FM to the air.

Continue reading Bylaws-Palooza →

Berkeley-The full transcript of the November 6th court hearing that reversed the shutdown of WBAI-FM is now available. We recommend giving it a read. The format is not the best, but the majority of the hearing is captured. You can download it here. It is a reasonably compact (by legal standards) 23 pages. In summary;

Continue reading NY Supreme Court Transcript Released →

Berkeley-On November 6, 2019, NY State Supreme Court judge Melissa Crane reinstated in full the October 7 temporary restraining order against the Pacifica Foundation and required the brand new interim ED John Vernile and a portion of the board of directors to stop piping in reruns on WBAI’s transmitter and return the station’s bank accounts, web page and airwaves to the WBAI staff and local board. WBAI began broadcasting at the stroke of midnight this morning. 

Judge Crane also declared the national board meeting of October 20th to be properly noticed and valid and all motions therein passed and binding upon the Foundation per the bylaws. Those motions included:

1. Restoring local control and local content at WBAI-FM

2. Placing interim executive director John Vernile on paid leave

3. Terminating the legal relationship between Foster Garvey and the Pacifica Foundation

4. Terminating the legal relationship between Ford Greene, corporate counsel, and the Pacifica Foundation

5. Removing Sabrina Jacobs as vice chair of the Pacifica National Board

6. Removing Bill Crosier as secretary of the Pacifica National Board

7. Allowing all elected directors to vote on any matters relating to WBAI-FM

Continue reading NY Judge Undoes The Coup →

Berkeley-Apparently distressed by the unwillingness of the federal courts to support the unauthorized shutdown of WBAI, comrade Donald Goldmacher has issued an appeal to the aging Stalinists of Berkeley to dig deep into their land-owner pockets and fund a new lawsuit to take control of the Pacifica Foundation away from board of directors that just won’t vote the way he wants.

The new communist revolution that Goldmacher appeals to his “comrades” to support has a distinctly capitalist tinge. His need to “bring the national board to a standstill” requires a corporate attorney. A corporate attorney with “connections” and a “steep hourly rate“. They need big bucks. NOW.

You can read the full email here.

Continue reading Comrade Goldmacher Wants Your Money →

Berkeley-To recap, after WBAI was forcibly shut down by Pacifica’s new interim director without board authorization, a temporary restraining order has prevented the termination of WBAI’s staff while allowing program content to be piped in from California. In the after-shutdown vote of the Board of Directors, which was held over two nights on October 12th and 13th, after five board members were prevented from voting on the 12th, the Board voted 12-9-1 to restore WBAI, change their officers and remove attorneys Foster Garvey from the case, but their decisions are frozen pending the federal court. 

The board members who have turned Pacifica over to the federal government after being out-voted are:

Christopher Cory (KPFA), Sabrina Jacobs (KPFA), Jan Goodman (KPFK), Mansoor Sabbagh (KPFK), Bill Crosier (KPFT), Donald Goldmacher (KPFA), Adrienne La Violette (KPFT), Wally James (KPFT), and Gerry Boast (Affiliate).

Continue reading Canceled Meetings, Compromises and Data →

Berkeley-The legal wheels are spinning at a rapid speed and it is not easy to keep up. We will try to keep you as informed as we can. 

Unable to accept their 12-9–1 loss at a board vote on 10-13-2019, the 9-person shutdown crew on the Pacifica National Board appealed to the federal courts to strip control of the Pacifica Foundation from the members and their elected representatives and the judge has at least partially complied. The Pacifica Foundation board’s ability to take actions is constrained until October 21st per the United States government

An AM order prevents the restoration of WBAI until a hearing on October 21st, prevents the majority of the Pacifica National Board from changing their officers, and prevents them from restoring WBAI for six days, essentially making the foundation a ward of the court, and stripping democratic control of and autonomous action by the Foundation. Membership donations of $1,000 provided the bond for the suspension of membership rights. 

Continue reading Legal Wheels Spin →

Berkeley-On the evening of Sunday October 13th, the majority of the Pacifica Board of Directors voted to restore WBAI-FM to local content and staffing and undo the heist that occurred on October 7th. This vote also occurred on Saturday, October 12th, but on that day the perpetrators decided to “not count” the votes of five members of the national board from three different signal areas and then muted their telephone lines so they could not participate in the board proceedings. 

The twelve directors who met on Sunday night, who represent an absolute majority of the Pacifica National Board and include at least one director from each of the five signal areas, also did the following:

1. Removed the vice chair of the board from the vice chair position

2. Removed the secretary of the board from the secretary position

3. Instructed law firm Foster Garvey to withdraw from all litigation on behalf of Pacifica

All 12 board members, who represent a quorum of the nonprofit’s board of directors formally waived notice requirements for the special meeting and convened on a conference line that did not permit the involuntary muting of participants. 

Continue reading Majority of Pacifica Board Votes to Restore WBAI →

Berkeley-Faced with an imminent loss on an after-the fact and in-secret Pacifica National Board vote to approve the shutdown of WBAI-FM, the perpetrators are changing the voters. During a closed session meeting on Saturday night, a letter was presented proposing to invoke conflict of interest charges against 75% of WBAI’s elected directors, who are charged with being the voice of WBAI’s 8,000 members on the Pacifica Foundation board. The charges of conflict of interest invoked Section 5233 of the CA Corporations Code which is about financial conflicts of interest. The 5233 accusation seeks to prevent three of WBAI”s elected directors from being allowed to vote on all matters affecting WBAI members indefinitely. The three votes being eliminated are unable to vote on whether or not they are eliminated, allowing a minority of the board of directors to “vote” to disenfranchise the majority and therefore win a series of votes they would otherwise have lost.

The vote on the Pacifica National Board is vital because the actions to terminate all of WBAI’s staff and turn the NY community radio station into a repeater can only be legally supported as an action of the licensee, which are the 22 members seated on the national Pacifica board. If the majority of the directors seated on the Pacifica National Board do not support the shutdown of WBAI, the action is not an action of the licensee. 

The removal of voting rights is being applied to WBAI staff representative Shawn Rhodes because is WBAI staff, and WBAI directors Alex Steinberg and James Sagurton because they are plaintiffs in WBAI vs Pacifica, the request to the Supreme Court of New York to issue a temporary restraining order to halt the shutdown of community radio operations in the New York metropolitan area. 

Continue reading The Turn of the Screw: WBAI’s Elected Directors Prevented From Voting On WBAI Shutdown →

Update 10-9-2019 WBAI programmer Paul DiRienzo reports that WBAI programmers and staff finally made it back into their facility to discover that all of the computers had been removed, wires were ripped out from the inside of microphones and station’s emergency alert system had been taken. A WBAI programmer purchased a new one on a credit card. DiRienzo also reported that the hotel rooms the Pacifica operatives stayed in had been reserved “months ago”.

Update 10-8-2019. In a day of fast-moving events, SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents WBAI’s employees filed a complaint that Pacifica Foundation had violated Article XVI(a)(1) of the bargaining agreement by failing to provide notification to the union. WBAI plaintiffs then filed a complaint of contempt of court against the Pacifica Foundation for failing to comply with the 10-7 court order issued by the Supreme Court of the State of New York.

Berkeley-In the morning, a crew of Pacifica Foundation board members led by brand new IED John Vernile, locked out the staff at WBAI-FM in New York and then fired them all, told the landlord to rent the space to someone else, and started piping in content from the West Coast over mid-Manhattan. In the night, the Supreme Court of New York told them to stop it and restored WBAI’s facilities, equipment, studio space, employees and control over the airwaves. 

If this feels to you like a flashback, well there’s a reason for that. Two decades ago, the Pacifica Foundation locked out employees at Berkeley’s KPFA and started piping in content from Texas. At that time, the nonprofit’s board was united in their desire to teach KPFA a lesson and extract the millions in license value. Not this time. At least half of Pacifica’s elected board wasn’t informed, had no idea. and never consented. That’s probably why Supreme Court judge Frank Nervo (at home and in his pajamas) called a halt to things. This is what he said. 

The Supreme Court of the State of New York has issued a stay and temporary restraining order enjoining the Pacifica Foundation from 1. Seizing any property files or equipment from WBAI 2. Terminating any employees of WBAI 3. Preventing WBAI from broadcasting it’s regularly scheduled programming. 4. Interfering in the business or orderly administration of WBAI pursuant to Section 1315 of the NYC Not for Profit Code and the Pacifica Foundation bylaws until a hearing to be held on October 18th.

Continue reading Supreme Court of New York Stops Pacifica’s Attack on WBAI →

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Saturday September 28, 2019

It’s Not Free Speech Radio Anymore

Dear Readers – It has been a long interval since Pacifica in Exile has published. Like many of you, we were relieved when Pacifica was able to avert catastrophe in the wake of the Empire State Building disaster. It seemed like the Pacifica National Board was in saner, stabler hands by 2018. After many years of regular bulletins and long hours of assembling the documentation that accompanies these reports to you, it was time for a break. But recent events have changed that assessment. It is necessary once again to inform you of things you won’t otherwise be told. Understand that the news is not good. In between the unsettling reports, Pacifica’s finances are in bad shape. I hope you will consider, to the extent that your resources allow, increasing your financial support. But with financial support comes accountability, and it is time for that as well. Every time you open your pocketbook, you can also open your mouth and put a stop to things that are happening that should not be. Please do both. 

Berkeley- When a nationwide uprising hit Pacifica Radio in the late 1990’s, it adopted the mantle of saving “free speech radio” from a takeover driven by beltway politics and powered by a lack of democratic accountability and transparency from a self-selected board of directors. That board, while grappling with real questions like shifts in the media landscape, technological innovation, and the balance between grassroots volunteer-driven community media and professionally produced strip programs that would be competitive with NPR-style offerings, chose to hunker down and embrace totalitarian tactics to strip the communities that built and owned these stations from any say in what would happen to them. They were sent packing in 2002. 

17 years later, it is fair to say that the democratic model has done good things and bad things. It has protected all 5 stations, and none have been sold off for scrap metal. The stations remain non-commercial and free of ubiquitous corporate sponsorship. All of them have at least some volunteer corps making content for the love of it, and voices are still heard on Pacifica that get play on very few other mass media platforms. Despite the episodes of boardroom Game of Thrones, the network has continued to exist when much more well-resourced media platforms have curled up and died. But there’s no doubt that all the challenges inherent in the questions on the table in 2000 have not been met and the stations have been slow in embracing technological innovation, jumping on the latest currents in alternative thought and culture, incorporating young people, and expanding programmatic content. This slowness has led to the loss of listener-members and contraction instead of growth. Changes are in order. But they can’t happen without you speaking up now. Because in the absence of transparency (which this publication’s absence aided and abetted), all the wrong things are going down. That’s why transparency matters. It’s a tool so you can make things right. Here’s some stuff that needs to be straightened out. 

Continue reading It’s Not Free Speech Radio Anymore →