Berkeley –Information from Pacifica’s National Board out to the members it represents has been a little scarce as of late, with 4 consecutive closed session meetings on January 25 and Feb 1, Feb 8 and Feb 15 not providing the routine report out. The audit committee has also not filed report outs from its last three closed session meetings. Part of the problem has been the transition between executive directors as Tom Livingston takes over for Bill Crosier and part the annual turning over of the national board. This year’s rotation of national board members has been far from smooth with repetitive director elections from KPFA’s local station board, which has been hemorrhaging members at the rate of one a month, and filing lawsuits against Pacifica. More on the KPFA directors mess below. Continue reading Information Shortage→
Berkeley – Every January, according to Pacifica’s badly written bylaws, the Pacifica National Board resets itself. This leads to regular chaos and 2018 was no disappointment in that regard. So the business of financial recovery has gone on almost exclusively in closed sessions of the board. We will fill you in on all the craziness below, but in deference to the seriousness of the situation, we are going to cover a few things of more significance first.
Pacifica’s financial audits, the subject of so much suffering for so long, seemed to be within shooting distance of finally getting current in mid-2017, when the FY 2015 audit was completed in August in record time. But 7 months later, the FY 2016 audit, which needed to be done by June 2017 or as soon thereafter as possible, hasn’t gone anywhere. Pacifica in Exile readers will remember that an audit fundraiser was held in March of 2017 to raise funds to pay for the two back audits with great success. Pacifica remains under some pressure to get the FY 2016 audit done with an original deadline from the CA Attorney General of mid-February 2018. Pacifica’s first attempt to get an extension was rejected, and a second attempt is underway. The ability of all the stations to accept charitable donations would be at risk if Pacifica’s tax-exempt status were pulled, a possible consequence of failing to submit timely financial audits. Continue reading The Return of Self-Selected Boards or Control At Any Price→
Berkeley – On the evening of January 18, the Pacifica Foundation board formally approved and accepted a loan put together by the organization’s members in Southern California to pay off a pending judgment to the Empire State Building and keep the organization out of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
The member loan is a short-term bridge loan intended to pay off the judgment immediately and transition the organization into a 3-year line of credit that will follow.
The three to three and a half year timeline will allow Pacifica to explore several options to pay off long-term debts and finally get clear of the extortionate Empire State deal that swallows so much revenue without having to engage in fire sales, and retains the organization’s independence. Continue reading The End Less Near – Pacifica Board Approves Loan→
Friends of Pacifica in Southern California have now secured bridge loan funds of $2 million dollars to pay off the summary judgment amount to the Empire State Building. An escrow account has been set up and full payment will follow shortly afterwards. Full payment of the judgment due will remove the threat of asset seizure.
Berkeley – When making decisions about how to go forward, we believe it is always helpful to look at the actual numbers. The adage “follow the money” applies to well, just about everything. Pacifica has released a draft profit and loss statement for the last fiscal year that ended on September 30, 2017. (Finally).
We need to disclose that it is a “draft” financial statement, so the numbers are not finalized, but at 95 days after the end of the fiscal year, most financial transactions should have been recorded in the books by now.
Berkeley – (Editors note: After more than three and a half years of regular weekly bulletins, Pacifica in Exile did not come out for the last eight weeks. The primary reason for that has been to avoid providing surplus information to Pacifica’s main creditor, the Empire State Realty Trust, that could hamper negotiations. At this point, however, we believe the member’s right to know has to be the priority, and since various members of the Pacifica community have been putting out information of varying levels of accuracy for some time now, we decided the time was right).
When we last left off publication, Pacifica had been hit with a $1.8 million summary judgment from the Empire State Realty Trust for back rent from 2013 to 2017, The rent is for WBAI-FM’s transmitter which broadcasts from the iconic NY skyscraper. A 15-year lease had been signed in 2005 by very temporary IED Ambrose Lane, a WPFW broadcaster who presided briefly between Dan Coughlin and Dan Siegel. The lease was signed under somewhat mysterious circumstances in that members of the 2005 board of directors have not confirmed that they saw it or reviewed it prior to signing. The lease took full advantage of the skyscraper deficit in New York City after the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001, hiking the rent abundantly every year for a decade and a half until 2020, where it topped out at more than 3/4 of a million dollars a year, a prohibitive amount for any community radio station. Continue reading What The Dickens Is Going On?→
This is a public copy of an email sent to the Pacifica National Board on 12-16-2017
Hi all,
A couple of things. I think it would help to publish an accounts payable listing. The throwing around of vague figures regarding the total amount of debt isn’t really that helpful. Can you provide a list of amounts owed?
If this $8 million dollar figure is true, then what it means is that Pacifica’s debts have doubled, increased by 100%, with no help from a Democracy Now contract, in the last four years – ie. from the close of the 2012-13 fiscal year at 9-30-2013 to the current day.
Since word has leaked out of some shall-we-say disagreements about the national board’s course of action, I’m going to take a moment to go over some of this. There is some obfuscation going on, in traditional Pacifica style, and at this point in time, the less of that the better. There are also some assertions being made that, at a minimum, need some back-up before being taken at face value. For ease of reading, I’m going to divide this into three broad sections, although some of the discussion will cross categories because the issues are inter-related. In broad strokes, the topics are a) Bankruptcy i.e. Chapter 11 Reorganization b) Summary Judgment and c) Swap/Sale of License Continue reading An Open Letter To The Pacifica Community→
Berkeley – To no one’s real surprise, a NY court ruled on October 4 that the Pacifica Foundation owed $1.8 million dollars plus attorney’s fees to the Empire State Realty Trust, the multimillion dollar real estate firm that owns the Empire State Building, where Pacifica has lodged WBAI-FM’s antenna since 1966. A 15-year contract signed in 2005, after the collapse of the World Trade Center, made antenna space in NYC a hot commodity, and featured soaring prices and a 9% annual escalation, which left the price of the rental by 2015 at more than 4 times the market value and in excess of $500,000 a year, a vast amount for a listener-sponsored radio station.
Berkeley – Clean-up work continues as the recovery of the network from the 2014 Siegel/Brazon coup enters its 7th month.
Financial statements through June 30, 2017 are available here. For the first time in recent history, the Pacifica Foundation is listed as “Current” status (rather then Delinquent status) at the California Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts, after the fiscal year 2015 audit was completed prior to the deadline. The audit report, which is also available on the www.pacifica.org website, can be downloaded here.Continue reading Current For The First Time In A While→
