A snippet from Tuesday’s national finance committee meeting, which displays the Siegel/Brazon majority wiggling out of Bill Crosier’s sensible motion that requirements for Texas station KPFT to have reality-based budget numbers be applied to the other four stations as well. Continue reading Double Standards: All Budgets Are Not Equal
Berkeley-This edition of Pacifica In Exile is devoted solely to endorsements for the upcoming board elections. We will return to news and updates in a day or two.
Overview
In the year and a half since Pacifica in Exile began publication, the Pacifica Foundation has toppled into critical condition after a series of board coups, loss of Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding, an investigation by the California Attorney General of accounting irregularities, the establishment of nonprofits by board members to privately secure Pacifica’s broadcasting licenses, and severe declines in membership and revenues. Under “volunteer” executive director Margy Wilkinson, the network could not complete timely financial audits, borrowed from and did not repay restricted funds, relied on temps who embezzled and “damaged” accounting systems, and hired an inexperienced board crony to lead its largest station and most powerful broadcasting signal in Los Angeles. Pacifica’s democratic system, put into place after Northern California subscribers petitioned the California Attorney General for membership rights, allows current donors to kick the board out. That time has come. Continue reading Board Elections Edition
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
Global Village founder Betto Arcos announced his last day on-air at KPFK on September 29th, one day after colleague Derek Rath did the same. Arcos founded KPFK’s Global Village music strip in 1997.
Doors drummer John Densmore called in to say goodbye to Betto during the broadcast. Continue reading Dominos Fall at KPFK: Betto Arcos Announces Last Show Today
Berkeley – Several KPFK employees were greeted Monday morning with anonymous letters in their company mailboxes with a September 23rd postmark from Santa Clarita, CA. The anonymous letters contained an email sent from their fomer interim general manager and long-time operations manager Zuberi Fields to interim ED Margy Wilkinson and CFO Raul Salvador. The email, dated December 15, 2014, consists of an inquiry into the costs of layoffs for a number of employees specified by name as: Mark Maxwell, Grant Fitzgibbon, Daniel Fritz, Rita Neyter Skiles, Bridgette Ramasodi, Janee Taylor, Ian Masters, Ali Lexa Al-Hilali, Kevin Walker, Margaret Prescod, Sonali Kolhatkar, Bipasha Shom and Margaret Le Pique. Continue reading How To Terrorize Your Employees
