This sound clip comes from an August 17th KPFK staff meeting and contains a description of the bookkeeping problems at KPFK, including embezzlement and staff reactions to the news.
Tag Archives: kpfk
Two Credit Cards Are Better Than One
Berkeley -The severe financial distress at KPFK-FM, which resulted on Monday in an announcement by Margy Wilkinson-appointed general manager Leslie Radford of the immediate reduction of all KPFK employees to 50% work schedules and the layoff of three employees, has been accompanied by growing evidence of a year and a half of financial mismanagement of the station, Pacifica’s highest earner as recently as 2013. KPFK abruptly fired its second consecutive temporary business manager after finding out about monthly checks issued to an outside person by the business manager, along with unauthorized cash advances never paid back. The business manager was personally hired and trained by former CFO Raul Salvador to “fix” the accounting mess at KPFK in the fall of 2014, and per a motion passed by the national board in 2014, reported directly to Salvador rather than the station’s general manager. Continue reading Two Credit Cards Are Better Than One
KPFK Work Reductions Letter – August 17, 2015
Leslie Radford presented this work schedule reduction less than three months after being hired by Margy Wilkinson as the station’s general manager.
The reductions include three staff members, 2 unionized and at least 4 months of reduction to half time for the station’s remaining 50 staffers. Continue reading KPFK Work Reductions Letter – August 17, 2015
August 15th Homophobia Special on KPFK
Among other questionable Radford programming decisions at KPFK contributing to plummeting fund drive results, the new manager put the struggling pledge drive on a “break” this weekend to air a 30-hour Afrikan Mental Liberation Marathon, an independently produced dawn to dusk black nationalist-oriented program . The program has disturbed queer-identified listeners with aggressively homophobic positions presented with little to no counterpoint.
A KPFK staffer provided this clip of an interview with female psychiatrist Frances Cress Welsing in which she compares queer sex to human-dog mating, states that male semen is a dietary protein like sweet potatoes and greens, and that homosexuality in Ancient Greece was caused by shock at the larger sizes of African genitals – among other bizarre statements deeply disrespectful towards LBGT people. You can hear for yourself here.
Majority on Pacifica Board Refuse To Discuss Secret Corporation to Acquire KPFA License
Berkeley – In a shameful display, the majority on the Pacifica National Board refused to discuss the public matter of the 2013 secret incorporation of the KPFA Foundation by Margy Wilkinson and Dan Siegel for the purpose of acquiring KPFA’s broadcast license. Continue reading Majority on Pacifica Board Refuse To Discuss Secret Corporation to Acquire KPFA License
Rogue Radio
Berkeley – Despite receiving over $9.3 million dollars in charitable contributions between October 1, 2014 and May 31, 2015, Pacifica Radio has indicated that it is unable to pay a $55,000 outstanding bill to auditor Armanino LLC in order to meet legal requirements to continue operating as a licensed not for profit organization in the State of California. California’s Nonprofit Integrity Act requires all California charitable corporations with gross revenues of $2 million or more to prepare annual financial statements audited by an independent certified public accountant (CPA). The audited financial statements must be made available for inspection by the Attorney General and the public no later than nine months after the close of the fiscal year covered by the financial statement. Pacifica’s deadline was June 30, 2015. The radio network is in the middle of an investigation launched in December of 2014 by the Registry of Charitable Trusts at the California Attorney General’s office.
A Good Board Is A Secret Board
Berkeley – Seemingly uncontroversial proposals to videotape a regular public meeting of the KPFA local station board were met with opposition by the Save KPFA faction. Save KPFA-affiliated board member Mal Burnstein – just days after trying unsuccessfully to raise the minimum annual donation for Pacifica membership and voting rights from $25/year to $40/year – ranted in response to the videotaping request:
“The KPFA Local Station Board is not a public entity; it is therefore not covered by the First Amendment. and the First Amendment has nothing to do with what KPFA should or should not cover”. Continue reading A Good Board Is A Secret Board
Empty Pockets
Originally posted July 1, 2015
Berkeley – In fairly stark terms, Affiliates Director Ursula Rudenberg addressed the national board and asked them to support a plan she has been developing for over a year for Pacifica to administer a group underwriting plan for the 200+ Pacifica affiliates (independent radio stations that partner with Pacifica – most of them already take underwriting as independent entities). Rudenberg told the board they could embrace the plan or face the erosion and end of the Affiliates program which she said was “no longer competitive”. Some snippets from the meeting were recorded by a NY-based listener and are available here. The national board did not embrace the plan. The NY listener characterized the meeting as follows: Continue reading Empty Pockets
Factional Lawyering
Originally posted June 25, 2015
Berkeley – The Pacifica National Board, after 15 months of ad-hoc legal consultation, is moving ahead with appointing a corporate counsel. Unfortunately, the fix appears to be in for the law firm of former board member Dan Siegel. Siegel and Yee has been an active factional entity within Pacifica for years, sending three of the firm’s employees to the KPFA local station board in the last six years as listener representatives with the Save KPFA group. Jose-Luis Fuentes, a Siegel and Yee associate from 2002-2014, is on the search committee appointed by the board, despite his 12 years of employment at one of the applicant firms. Continue reading Factional Lawyering
Citizen Arrests and the CIA: An LA Weekend
Originally posted June 16, 2015
Los Angeles – Pacifica’s National Board held one of its increasingly rare in-person board meetings in Los Angeles this past weekend, as LA station KPFK, the most financially successful Pacifica station as recently as 2013, contines its rapid free fall into insolvency. In May, outgoing IED Margy Wilkinson saddled KPFK with a community college teacher as a new general manager, Leslie Radford, whose only credential appears to be a few years as a factional fighter on the local and national boards. Continue reading Citizen Arrests and the CIA: An LA Weekend