It is way past time to put our radio network under the leadership of people who know how to supervise the operation of radio stations. The post-coup situation cannot continue. Not for another day and not for another week.
The executive director position needs to be immediately filled with an interim director with sufficient experience not to endanger the licenses. The Pacifica National Board (PNB) has had applications for months from at least two individuals with decades of experience managing radio stations. One of them needs to be placed into the interim executive director position immediately. Continue reading Wilkinson Lies To The Federal Communications Commission→
Berkeley-The network’s controversial CFO, Raul Salvador, has not responded to last week’s revelation that he did not, in fact, recently “discover” payments to the network’s profit-sharing pension fund had not been made in 2013, but made that decision himself in a meeting with the third party administrator in the summer of 2013. And he concealed it in the last Pacifica audit which reports the $200,101 accrued for both retirement plans was paid. The whereabouts of the $92,413 said to be paid to the pension plan, but never received, is unknown. Continue reading Archives Begone→
What’s Causing Static at KPFA: Money, Power and People’s Radio
(News for a People’s World 1993 by Nick Alexander)
Berkeley-KPFA, the nation’s premier listener-sponsored radio station is in the throes of a crisis that is at once political and administrative. Both sides of the conflict accuse opponents of resisting changes needed to fulfill station founder Lew Hill’s dream to fight for the rights of the marginalized, downbeaten and voiceless elements of society. At the center of the turmoil are a dispute over organizational hierarchy and charges that KPFA’s national board of directors is trying to create a left-leaning alternative to National Public Radio” (NPR). Continue reading Wayback Machine: What’s Causing Static At KPFA (Nick Alexander)→
Berkeley-Apparently worried their slim majority is growing too slim, Pacifica’s rogue board has taken to individually targeting their “enemies” with local board trials to remove them from the 501c3’s national board of directors. The first to undergo the treatment was Richard Uzzell, a Houston-based retired architect and contractor who served on KPFT’s local station board from 2004-2010 and was re-elected in 2012. Less than half the local board in Texas supported the removal at a vote taken on September 17th, so Uzzell will serve out his one-year term, but undeterred, the rogue board turned their attention to Los Angeles, scheduling another “trial” for the minority director there, Kim Kaufman. Continue reading Witch Hunts→
Berkeley-The turmoil engendered at Pacifica Radio earlier this year sunk to a new low last weekend, with a shockingly deliberate exhibition of cooking the books by Upfront host and current treasurer Brian Edwards-Tiekert, distributed in an email newsletter by the “Save KPFA” group. Continue reading Why Is A Journalist Deliberately Cooking Pacifica Radio’s Books?→
Berkeley-Un-elected chair/IED/IED Margy Wilkinson launched into a bit of a plaintive wail at Monday’s national election committee meeting, stating in response to a question from Houston rep Teresa Allen that she “didn’t know how much money Pacifica has, and didn’t know how much the stations have in their budgets”. The audio clip of Wilkinson’s statement can be found here. Continue reading Nobody Knows→
Berkeley-At Thursday night’s PNB meeting, the national board approved on somewhat nebulous terms a loan to Pacifica Foundation Radio of $156,000 from Southern California real estate magnate Aris Anagnos, the employer of board member Lydia Brazon. The reason for the loan was the payment of employee taxes for severance checks for 19 employees laid off from NY station WBAI in July of 2013. The loan is against WBAI’s future revenues, with $25,000 payments due after every station fund drive for the next year. The loan would cancel out for the next year a significant part of the potential cost savings from the hoped-for relocation of WBAI’s transmitter and antenna from its prohibitively expensive spot atop the Empire State Building. Continue reading Racking Up The Debts→
Berkeley-When local activists blocked the Zim Piraeus from unloading the majority of their freight at the Port of Oakland to protest Israeli massacres in Gaza City, KPFA board operator, apprenticeship program coordinator and LSB staff rep Frank Sterling wanted Pacifica’s Berkeley station KPFA to be there chronicling the port blockade in real time. Sterling’s proposal to produce the coverage, which finally aired the morning before the 4-day community/labor blockade began, underwent a difficult internal battle at the station, that included a rantby Save KPFA-affiliated local board member Jack Kurzweil that the proposal to cover the demo was “wrongheaded” and an initial veto by management. Sterling went public with his distress in a heartfelt email where he said KPFA was breaking his heart, and after emails from the community flooded the station, the decision was reversed. Save KPFA-affiliated local board member Mark Hernandez expressed anger at Sterling for his efforts describing the appeal to the community as “not a good career move” in a Facebook discussion group. Sterling is paid for four hours a week of operational work. Continue reading Bad Career Moves→
Berkeley-Conflicted attorneys Siegel and Yee are preventing workers at LA station KPFK from going ahead with a recall election for elected staff rep Rodrigo Argueta, whose actions on the PNB have not pleased many of his constituents. Despite a filed petition with the required number of signatures from paid and unpaid staff at KPFK, the law firm is preventing the recall election on the grounds that Argueta is not accountable for how he votes on the national board. Siegel and Yee’s trumped up letter of retainer as counsel is dated prior to the board discussion and board member Hank Lamb has disputed that the board ever authorized it. Continue reading Kangaroos Instead of Audits→
