Originally posted December 1, 2014

Berkeley-Pacifica’s audit remains on slow-mo after the auditor was pulled off field work and the audit halted due to Pacifica’s inability to produce the required schedules. CFO Salvador blamed East Coast stations WPFW and WBAI for the delay, although last year’s audit was completed months earlier in 2013. Salvador confirmed several of Pacifica’s five stations have left the system-wide Great Plains/Microsoft Dynamics accounting program, saying he had no access to DC’s books and they had “traveled” to California and then Texas. If the stations were using the accounting system, general ledger and AP/AR data would be available from all 5 stations by logging in to the accounting system on a computer. Continue reading Slow Motion →

Originally posted November 15, 2014

Berkeley– More than a little late, and punctuated by an audible “oh shit” by unelected board chair and IED Margy Wilkinson, the Pacifica National Board voted by a narrow 1-vote margin to change the amount of shared service contributions. The new rule, which Wilkinson and Salvador implemented weeks ago without board permission, sets network service payments by the average of the last four years of listener support rather than real-time accounting of actual contributions received this year. As a result of the new policy, stations that experience significant drops in contributions in 2015 may face increased levies at the same time they lose Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding. Fund drive tallies for the September/October fund drive cycle showed 4/5 stations experienced between 18% and 25% shortfalls from their original fund drive goals. Continue reading Punishment →

Originally posted November 8, 2014

Berkeley-In this past election cycle, one of the few bright spots was the strong support for lifting the minimum wage. At Pacifica Radio however, things are going in the opposite direction as indicated by an ad for an early AM part-time position at KPFT in Houston – paying $10 an hour. Continue reading $10/Hr To Work In The Media →

Originally posted November 2, 2014

Berkeley– It’s a Pacifica election for Halloween. Maybe. The national board after considering a timeline developed by their elections committee, rejected the timeline, but did issue an order to unelected chair of the board/interim executive director Margy Wilkinson to hire someone to run the election by December 1st. This is not the first time the board has so instructed, but since Wilkinson voted to tell herself to make the hire, perhaps she will. Who will be hired is a mystery since the most qualified candidates Bill Crosier and Sanchez Montebello have both been ruled out, Crosier due to factional antipathy and Montebello withdrawing in anger after Wilkinson never acknowledged receiving his application. The election has many unanswered questions including how Pacifica will transition to online voting, where the money will come from to pay for it, and what seats are up for election –  as 1/2 of the delegates terms expired in December of 2013 (including Wilkinson’s term) and the other 1/2 expire in December of 2015. The rejected timeline proposed a completed election by July of 2015.  If the election covers all the seats, Pacifica subscribers will have to rank 18 candidates out of the 36-50 that will run in each signal area. Pacifica’s bylaws prevent delegates and directors from extending their own terms without the permission of the full membership. Continue reading Boo It’s An Election →

Originally posted October 27, 2014

Berkeley-Pacifica’s finance committee bears the responsibility for reviewing and recommending divisional budgets for the 5 stations, national office and archives and consolidating those 7 documents into an organizational budget for the upcoming year. That task is supposed to be completed by September 30th. But a month after the end of the fiscal year, the end is nowhere in sight. Pacifica is careening into 2015 with no fiscal plan at all. Continue reading The Nonprofit Without A Budget →

Originally posted October 17, 2014

Berkeley-The new corporate call center collecting pledges for Pacifica stations KPFK in Los Angeles and KPFA in Berkeley is owned by Bruce Hough, an Oregon republican who runs a Tea Party campaign advertising/fundraising business called Impact Marketing with his partner, rabid Tea Party congressman Sal Esquivel. Esquivel traveled to Arizona to stand with Michelle Malkin, the Minutemen and others in support of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law SB 1070. Hough (who regularly threatens to move his Medford-based call center Comnet to Nevada should the Oregon legislature raise taxes) and Esquivel are regularly called out for Tea Party shenanigans including funding vicious attack ads against local Democratic candidate and military veteran Jeff Scroggin. The ads were so disgusting that two out of three local Republican County commissioners refused to endorse Tea Party candidate Doug Briedenthal,  whose “Friends of” committee had the same address as Hough’s Impact Marketing and paid for the mudslinging ads. Hough and Esquivel were labeled “Rogues of the Week” by the Williamette Weekly for an unethical scam to charge gulliable voters to email Congress. Hough and Esquivel also house conservative PACS (political action committees) at Impact Marketing giving aways hundreds of thousands of dollars to local and national Tea Party candidates.  Each call to donate to KPFA or KPFK routes .90 cents a minute to Hough’s company or $3-5 per call. Continue reading Donating to the Tea Party and Expelling Spanish Speakers →

Originally posted October 12, 2014

Berkeley-Pacifica narrowly acquired FCC permission to engage in fundraising for an outside organization – 4 days after doing it – and by accident. After happening to listen to an edition of the Sojourner Truth program on KPFK-FM in Los Angeles last weekend promising 1/2 the pledges raised to a health charity for Ebola relief in West Africa, former PNB treasurer Tracy Rosenberg sent a note to Pacifica’s FCC lawyer giving him a heads-up on the third-party fundraising and asking him to make sure KPFK would not be fined. The attorney hand-delivered a notification to the Federal Communications Commission two days later and received permission based on the relevant facts presented in his written request. Continue reading Ebola-Gate →