This sound clip comes from an August 17th KPFK staff meeting and contains a description of the bookkeeping problems at KPFK, including embezzlement and staff reactions to the news.
Audio
It’s Almost Like A Poll Tax
Selected snippets of discussion from Pacifica National Board governance committee meeting on July 7th, 2015. Subject is the proposal of Save KPFA’s Mal Burnstein to raise the Pacifica voting member fee to $40. Speakers in order are KPFA listener representative Mal Burnstein, KPFK listener representative John Wenger (speaking against the idea) KPFT listener representative Nancy Saibara Naitoma (also speaking against the idea) and then Mal Burnstein again. The motion died at the end of the discussion.
Finance Committee Q+A
Question and answer session from national finance committee on February 9, 2015.
The audio contains a 19-minute exchange (in two parts) between former PNB vice-chair Bill Crosier (who just rejoined the finance committee as volunteer treasurer for Texas’s local station board) and Pacifica’s CFO Raul Salvador.
Does He Work There, Or Not?
Attorney Jose Luis Fuentes moved for and voted on the hiring of the conflicted law firm Siegel and Yee to “represent” Pacifica Foundation Radio in front of the California Attorney General in the upcoming correspondence audit, although Siegel and Yee is an employment law firm with no expertise in accounting or nonprofit law.
Fuentes began working at Siegel and Yee as an associate attorney in 2003 and remained in that position when he joined the Pacifica board in January of 2014, taking the seat formerly held by his boss Dan Siegel, who resigned in order to run for the mayoral position in Oakland (Siegel came in fifth).
California law is very clear that board members with “affiliations” to vendors must be removed from votes that would result in financial benefits for the affiliated vendor. Fuentes both moved the action and then voted for it. When challenged, he said that he had resigned from the law firm of Siegel and Yee in September of 2014.
However a call to Siegel and Yee’s Oakland office (510-839-1200) in the morning of January 9th, 2015 directed the caller to extension 224 where Mr. Fuentes announced that he was either out of the office or on the phone, and to leave a message after the beep.
A screen shot of the Siegal and Yee website taken on January 8, 2015 showed Mr Fuentes listed on the firm’s attorney list.
And Mr Fuentes sent email to the Pacifica board list from his [email protected] months after his resignation date.
Fuentes email address 12-1-2014
Is this a Clintonesque definition of “working at”?
* Jose Luis Fuentes responded to this material by stating he was working with Siegel and Yee clients for no pay 4 months after his resignation date.
Audio Announcement of Quarter Million Dollars in Staffing Reductions at KPFA
National Finance Committee 1/5/2015
Initial announcement of quarter million dollars in cuts: https://soundcloud.com/tracy-
National Finance Committee 1/5/2015
Follow-up question on quarter million dollars in cuts: https://soundcloud.com/tracy-
(*Note that $250,000 at KPFA’s union scale wage is equal to 11,383 work hours or 284 hours for every remaining week of the fiscal year, not including the removal of employees from health insurance coverage).
KPFA Local Station Board Treasurer’s Report 12-13-2014
KPFA Local Station Board treasurer reporting an $8,000 surplus for the first two months of the current fiscal year and stating “KPFA is not in a hole” https://soundcloud.com/tracy-
National Finance Committee 1/5/2015
Entire KPFA section of finance committee meeting: https://soundcloud.com/tracy-
Why KPFA Is Broke Per Brian Edwards-Tiekert
How can you blame the inability to pay your bills on not getting a grant that you knew you weren’t going to get?
Is the assertion being made here that KPFA has to lay off employees because it spent CPB funds it knew it was ineligible to receive 6 months ago?
How Did KPFA Lose A Million Dollar Annual Grant?
This announcement is running on KPFA encouraging listeners to donate to make up for money withheld by a “quasi-governmental agency.” It does not mention that the money is being held up due to incomplete bookkeeping both at the radio station and its parent, the Pacifica Foundation.
Chief Financial Officer Report – Pacifica National Board Meeting 12-18-2014
The enclosed sound clip details the CFO report from the Pacifica National Board meeting of 12-18-2014. The report provides details on the stalled 2013 audit, the financial straits of the network and its radio stations and a heated discussion with KPFT listener rep Richard Uzzell about months of promises that the audit would proceed in as soon as June of 2014, although it did not begin until November 15th, ended after less than a week due to the inability to provide audit schedules and now has no scheduled date of completion. Pacifica stations will not be able to get out of suspended status with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and regain a million dollars in annual funding unless the 2013 and 2014 audits are completed and filed by March 31, 2014.
Open Hiring Practices?
The enclosed sound clip is from the Pacifica National Board meeting of December 18th 2014 and chronicles a weird interchange where in response to a question from KPFA listener rep Janet Kobren about open hiring practices at KPFA-FM in Berkeley, IED Margy Wilkinson hems and haws and basically admits hiring processes for temporary and casual positions were not open and that should be changed. KPFA staff rep Brian Edwards-Tiekert strangely jumps into the dialogue to aggressively defend the hiring of a temporary producer for his own program “Upfront” only to be reprimanded that the question was not specifically about his own program.
Pacifica’s personnel policy specifies that the nonprofit is an equal opportunity employer that practices affirmative action to increase workplace diversity.
Public Comment by Carol Wolfley and Robin Collin (KPFA CAB) at KPFA Local Board Meeting on 12-13
Public Comment by Carol Wolfley and Robin Collin (KPFA CAB)