Berkeley-Some communications between KPFK volunteer coordinator/amateur security guard Adam Rice and unpopular general manager Leslie Radford have been sent to this publication. The first consists of a set of instructions from Rice of actions for Radford to take as KPFK’s manager. The to do list is provided here in its entirety, with explanatory notes provided by this publication. Continue reading The To Do List
I am writing today because the disingenuous reaction to the report of guns in the workplace at KPFK is not, in any way, acceptable. And as is not unusual, you as a board of directors, are being misinformed. When it is a question of personal injury up to and including death, that cannot be allowed to continue. Continue reading Armed Self-Defense: An Open Letter to the Pacifica National Board
Berkeley-At this evening’s Pacifica National Board meeting, NY listener representative Stephen Brown notified the board he was in receipt of a statement from a KPFK employee about a volunteer who said “they had brought a gun into KPFK” and their “friend outside in KPFK’s parking lot was also packing a gun”. The assertions were reported to a senior employee, who reported them to outgoing executive director John Proffitt on Monday, October 12th and and received no response at all. Brown stated on the board’s Internet stream that KPFK’s former web director Ali Lexa, who was laid off in September, had let him know today of the lack of response from Pacifica to the report of firearms at the station. Continue reading Weapons At Work
Berkeley-In the wake of Pacifica’s latest executive transition from permanent ED John Proffitt who resigned after 4 months, to Siegel/Brazon faction leader Lydia Brazon, information out of Pacifica’s national office (which is supposedly on the block for mortgage according to Brazon, who had earlier shown the property to real estate brokers in 2014), has slowed to a trickle. Despite apocalyptic statements from controller Efren Llarinas at the last national board meeting about bills due at the end of September, it appears enough money was borrowed to clear paychecks and preserve employee health benefits. However Llarinas continues to sound the alarm, telling the finance committee: “It is really unpredictable if PNO can fund its own PNO employees’ salaries this October 15 payroll ” and “There is no assurance right now that PNO will be able to advance the November healthcare bills (approx. $65K) which are all due on Oct. 31“. Meanwhile, the Pacifica Archive is desperately trying to collect money owed to it from stations, including “PRA Days” at LA and NY, premium billings from DC, and thousands owed from LA for the use of their bookeeper after the last temporary KPFK bookkeeper was terminated for embezzling and the sucessor quit in less than a week. Continue reading Loans at 20% Interest
Berkeley – On Wednesday, Yatrika Shah-Rais became the third veteran programmer to resign on-air at Los Angeles radio station KPFK. Shah-Rais, the former music director of the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, announced her departure one day after Betto Arcos announced the airing of his final show, and two days after Derek Rath resigned on-air, all three of them long term producers of the station’s Global Village series. Former Doors drummer John Densmore called into KPFK during Arcos’ final show. You can hear Shah-Rais’ goodbye here. GM Radford is said to have tried to prevent the live on-air Global Village broadcast Wednesday morning. Continue reading Dominos Topple: Third On-Air Resignation at KPFK In Three Days
A third long-time music producer and host KPFK signed off on-air, becoming the third to do so in the last three days. Yatrika Shah-Rais is an 18 year veteran of the LA Pacifica station as well as the former Music Director of the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Continue reading Yatrika Shah-Rais Sign-Off
Berkeley – Several KPFK employees were greeted Monday morning with anonymous letters in their company mailboxes with a September 23rd postmark from Santa Clarita, CA. The anonymous letters contained an email sent from their fomer interim general manager and long-time operations manager Zuberi Fields to interim ED Margy Wilkinson and CFO Raul Salvador. The email, dated December 15, 2014, consists of an inquiry into the costs of layoffs for a number of employees specified by name as: Mark Maxwell, Grant Fitzgibbon, Daniel Fritz, Rita Neyter Skiles, Bridgette Ramasodi, Janee Taylor, Ian Masters, Ali Lexa Al-Hilali, Kevin Walker, Margaret Prescod, Sonali Kolhatkar, Bipasha Shom and Margaret Le Pique. Continue reading How To Terrorize Your Employees
Berkeley– 22 months after scheming to depose her predecessor and replace her with herself and secretly setting up a nonprofit corporation to scoop up one or more Pacifica broadcasting licenses or other assets, Pacifica’s lame duck board of directors is facing the consequences and moving to mortgage real estate. In a startling national board meeting last night, reality overcame fraudulent financial statements trumpeting a “profit” for the year and chirpy election propaganda from Wilkinson’s faction sent out just a day prior. Continue reading Margy Wilkinson’s Pacifica Skids Off The Rails
The Progressive Radio Network broadcast an hour discussion of Pacifica in 2015 on September 22nd. You can listen to it here or on the prn.org site. Continue reading Mid-Week Update: KPFK/PRN
Berkeley- The news coming out of KPFK in Los Angeles is muddled and episodic, but Pacifica in Exile will try to relay what information is available.
GM Radford, responding to last night’s revelation of a proposed station shut down on October 1st, sent out a chirpy “go team” type to station staff this morning, detailing that the station would go into a “no-premiums-at-all” minidrive on September 24th that would continue until they raised $30,000 and then they would stop the fund drive and re-start it on October 5th with the goal of $750,000, $175,000 more than the station raised in the 5-week fund drive that concluded on August 21st. Radford instructed each programmer to pitch “four times an hour” during the mini-drive. Continue reading KPFK: The Plan, Such As It Is
