Berkeley – The second Pacifica National Board meeting in three days went no better than the first with another three hours of invalidating elections on the agenda. The board took no action to change or correct their Tuesday action of decertifying the entire 2016 delegate election, despite a legal opinion informing them the certified election results are final. There has been no word from IED Brazon, National Election Supervisor Lynne Serpe or election vendor True Ballot if or when the board’s requested “recount” would be performed.
Having decided the results of the elections, 60 newly elected delegates in all five signal areas, and any actions those new delegates take are “provisional” for an indefinite period of time, the board majority went on to finish the total disenfranchisement of NY station, WBAI, once the pride of the network for its fearless reporting and countercultural dominance. After throwing out WBAI’s election of national representatives that occurred on December 7th, the board majority then threw out the WBAI election of national representatives that occurred on December 14th, invalidating a total of 13 elections in 3 days. You can hear an 11-minute summary reel of the meeting here. Continue reading Catch 22→
Berkeley – The upcoming week features not one, but two, Pacifica National Board meetings on December 13 and December 15. The long-scheduled December 15th meeting is when the board will select two affiliate directors for 2017 from among 5 applicants, and a recently called special meeting was initiated by directors Cerene Roberts, Adriana Casenave and Janet Kobren for December 13. The reason for the sudden meeting on the 13th isn’t entirely clear with the meeting notice saying the meeting is about 2016 local board elections and the FY 2014 audit. The 2016 elections were certified as complete last Wednesday. A draft of the FY 2014 was distributed to Pacifica’s audit committee last Monday. Roberts, Casenave and Kobren have not indicated what motions, if any, they may be presenting for board for consideration. Continue reading Are Two Meetings Better Than One?→
Berkeley – Election update. As of press time, voting has been extended at KPFT in Houston and WPFW in Washington, DC until October 7th and at KPFK in Los Angeles until October 10th. Elections at WBAI and KPFA are closed. Continue reading The Return→
Thanks to some detective work, there is an update of sorts on the audit situation.
The payment pulled from KPFA’s bequest fund in July was made to Armanino in the amount of $45,000. Although Pacifica’s lead auditor at Armanino Grant Lam apparently is unaware, Armanino cleared the check.
However the audit has not started. The statement by Grant Lam that no work has been done on the 2014 audit despite it being 60 days past the deadline for both CPB and the Registry of Charitable Trusts at the CA AG Office is correct.
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Pacifica’s fiscal 2014 audit (for the period 10-1-2013 to 9-30-2014) was due to the State of California Registry of Charitable Trusts (which is currently investigating Pacifica for failure to comply with charitable laws) and to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which suspended Pacifica from eligible status for public media funding in June of 2014) was revealed on Tuesday night to have been neither paid for nor started, 11 months after the close of the fiscal year and 56 days after the legal deadline for submission to the State.
