Wednesday night, at the stroke of midnight, LA station KPFK’s website disappeared from the Internet for about three hours, putting a sad cap on a month-long fund drive that ended on Friday 11/6 at $608,000 or $142,000 short of the goal.
Why did the website completely go down? KPFK didn’t pay the bill. Continue reading KPFK Website Gone For Hours
Berkeley-In last night’s Pacifica National Board meeting, held in executive session, the national board voted to order KPFA to refund to the Pacifica Foundation national office the proceeds of one of two large bequests deposited into KPFA’s Mechanics bank account by then-IED Margy Wilkinson. One of the checks (totaling at least $400,000) was donated to the Pacifica Foundation. In the spring of 2015, the “Hall Trust bequest” was characterized as a restricted gift to KPFA, but information derived from a directors inspection convinced the board of directors the gift was instead left to the Pacifica Foundation and misappropriated for the exclusive use of the Berkeley station. The funds were not deposited into the national Pacifica operating bank account where they belonged. Continue reading KPFA Ordered To Refund Bequest
By Kim Kaufman – published in the LA Progressive on October 24, 2015
A quiet coup has taken place at Pacifica, and the results are disastrous. The National Board has failed to carry out its obligations to have elections in a timely manner. Their negligence has led to board members holding seats past the expiration of their terms. One faction now controls the local board at KPFK and the National Board. They are in the process of changing the fundamental nature of our station and the Pacifica network. It is on the brink of bankruptcy.
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
The enclosed statement was provided by Derek Rath, Betto Arcos and Yatrika Shah-Rais after their consecutive on-air resignations last week from KPFK. Continue reading Statement from KPFK Programmers Who Resigned On-Air
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
