This email came out of KPFK today. It attributes GM Radford saying that KPFK, the largest radio signal west of the Mississippi, may go dark on October 1st. According to Pacifica’s financial statements, the station generated $2.7 million dollars in revenue through July 31st of this year, with an additional 19 days of fund drive in August. Continue reading KPFK: The Whole Thing May Be Closing Down
by Ann Garrison
KPFA has only three staff candidates for three staff seats in the upcoming KPFA Local Station Board election: Anthony Fest, Tim Lynch, and Sabrina Jacobs. All three are running because other members of the staff asked them to run and all three are sure to be elected, or, one might more aptly say that they already have been. This is to ask that National Election Supervisor Joy Williams and Local Elections Supervisor Nelsie Bautista make a formal announcement to that effect. Continue reading To The Pacifica National Board: Don’t Squander $
The California Employment Development Department has denied Pacifica’s application for work sharing benefits for employees slashed to half-time due to Pacifica’s failure to negotiate with SAG-AFTRA prior to implementing reductions. Continue reading EDD Denies Pacifica Worksharing Benefits Due to Union Busting
Berkeley – Pacifica executive director John Proffitt has resigned less than a week after returning from a three week vacation.
Proffitt held the position for four months. Continue reading Coup Redux
Berkeley – Employees at KPFK, Pacifica’s LA station currently embroiled in arbitration with the SAG-AFTRA union, were startled when general manager Leslie Radford handed out “personnel action forms” on September 9th. In the signature line for the executive director, Lydia Brazon signed her own name, without changing the title or indicating she is not Pacifica’s executive director. An example is here. It has been cleansed of any personally identifying information to protect the employee who provided it. The employee in question, as with most union employees in the SAG-AFTRA bargaining unit, refused to sign the form. Continue reading Lydia Brazon, Executive Director
The enclosed open letter was sent to selected press and the Pacifica National Board on September 13, 2015
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We, the undersigned local station board candidates in the 2015 election, call on Pacifica Radio to keep their commitment to the network’s donors and send out ballots for board elections now. It has been three weeks since Pacifica announced ballots would not be mailed. Continue reading Open Letter To The Pacifica National Board Regarding Board Elections
After meeting for all of 8 minutes to conclude they had no budgets, no update, and nothing they could think of to do, Pacifica’s national finance committee adjourned their meeting. Continue reading National Finance Committee Runs For The Hills
Berkeley -“There have been so many grievances filed it will make your head spin” were the words of one of KPFK-FM’s two SAG-AFTRA union stewards on Friday September 4th, a week after the LA entertainment union stated it was taking Pacifica Radio into arbitration alleging union-busting and contract violations. The handling of staff reductions has been an unmitigated disaster, with laid off employees receiving notices days late with incorrect job titles on them, Pacifica not applying for promised workshare benefits until one day before all employees were shifted to half-time, and employer-provided cell phones shut off this week with no notification. Continue reading Grievances To Make Your Head Spin
September 2, 2015 – by Karen Ocamb
Since 1959, KPFK, the Pacifica radio station in Los Angeles, has broadcast a wide range of liberal and hard-left-leaning programming under the rubric of multiculturalism. KPFK, for instance, airs the only LGBT-specific broadcast in the Greater L.A. area—IMRU, produced by award-winning out journalist Steve Pride.
But constant rebellion doesn’t necessarily entail respect among the programmers and community board members of the commercial-free, listener-sponsored station, so Pride created a Hate Speech Prevention policy. It took seven months to pass, but the interim policy was in effect on Aug. 15-16 when KPFK aired an unchallenged homophobic rant in which a psychiatrist compared homosexuality to bestiality, among other offensive comments. Continue reading Frontiers Mag: KPFK Airs Homophobic Rant As The Station Faces Financial Failure
Update 8/26/2015:
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.
Continue reading Audit Information Was A Lie? Paid, But Not Started
