Berkeley- Nine members of the current Pacifica Foundation board of directors (Pacifica Directors for Good Governance) have filed suit to try to bring to an end the self-destructive spiral of the nation’s first listener-sponsored radio network. The complaint alleges irreperable harms resulting from the board’s reckless termination of Reese and succeeding actions, and requests intervention to protect the nonprofit from uninsurability and operational gridlock. The suit requests preliminary and permanent injunctions enjoining the board from continually violating the nonprofit’s bylaws, breaching the director’s contract and taking further actions absent documentation of properly noticed meetings and the issuance of approved minutes.Continue reading Lawsuit Filed To Uphold Reese Contract, Rogue Board Paralyzed→
Berkeley-Armanino McKenna, the auditing firn which recently delayed Pacifica’s 2013 audit due to the inability or unwillingess of Berkeley station KPFA to provide reconciled accounting records, issued a management letter to the Board of Directors. In it, they observed that “the communications process and governance structure relating to individual divisons and the national office appears less than optimal. The overall success of the Foundation requires a collaborative operating mechanism between the national office and the individual stations. This was particularly in evidence with regard to the general lack of responsiveness during the audit from certain divisons in response to document requests from the national office”.Continue reading Auditor’s Management Letter to Pacifica Board Demands Accountability→
Berkeley-A lawsuit will be filed in Alameda County today by Pacifica Directors for Good Governance against the 12 Pacifica Foundation board members who have engaged in a series of illegitimate actions to destabilize the 65-year-old public radio network. The lead plaintiff is current board member Heather Gray, who is one of two representatives for Pacifica’s 180 program affiliate stations and is associated with WRFG (Radio Free Georgia). The 16+ page brief requests injunctive relief to protect Pacifica from adverse impacts resulting from the board majority’s illegal actions.Continue reading Pacifica Directors For Good Governance To File Suit Today→
Berkeley – Executive Director Summer Reese has a Monday morning telephone conference with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Inspector General where she will be discussing the current state of Pacifica with the agency, which is holding over a million dollars in community service grants from 2013. Another 3/4 million in 2014 grants is on the line, endangered by the inability of auditor Armanino McKenna to go forward with an audit of the foundation’s books on March 27th. Continue reading Snoop Camera and a Discussion with the CPB Inspector General→
This audio clip contains an outburst by national board member Manijeh Saba – a listener representative from WBAI-FM – at the conclusion of the open session of the last board meeting. Her strong statement was removed from the audio archive of the meeting, but we have a copy here.
(It begins at about 2 minutes into the recording. The recording has all the discussion after the board vice-chair unilaterally declared the meeting “adjourned” without a vote).
There are some people whom I do not trust on the Pacifica National Board (PNB), but I really think most PNB members and Local Station Board members (at least for KPFT), even ones who often vote differently than I’d like, want to do their best to help Pacifica. But it’s difficult to know how to vote, especially the first year on the PNB, being bombarded with so much misinformation and rhetoric. (Those of you not on the PNB may not realize the PNB members get way more than even what’s on these Pacifica e-mail lists.)
It often boils down to whom do you trust, especially the first year on the board, because there are plausible-sounding justifications for voting just about any way on any issue. Sometimes we make mistakes regarding the trustworthiness of various individuals. I’ve found that some people who are polite can’t be trusted, while some who misbehave regularly can be right. So you can’t determine trustworthiness by watching who’s polite and who isn’t.
With WBAI and WPFW in better (still not good) shape now, perhaps they’re afraid she’ll be able to direct more of her attention to the west coast stations, and that she’s going to clean them up, and lay off a few employee friends of theirs who the stations cannot afford to keep on the payroll, and maybe find some things they’d rather keep hidden (such as why the general ledgers at both west coast stations have taken a year or more to get reconciled so the audit can proceed). Continue reading Bill Crosier #2: Why Do They Want Summer Reese Out?→
