Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Chef Reimers' recipes: Artificial flavoring?

Berthold Reimers is still using QuickBooks, an accounting system that apparently is simpler than Great Plains, which s what the rest of the stations rely on. For someone who in his resumé claims a background steeped in accounting, Reimers' admitted inability to handle Great Plains is somewhat astounding, but so are the figures he and his two interns come up with.

Indigopirate points out some of the discrepancies in the following summary, to which he has attached two pertinent links. This will undoubtedly sound as messed up to you as it does to the honest committee members. 


Apropos confusion, it reigned at Tuesday's (Aug. 25) telephonic meeting of the PNB Finance Committee, from which I have included KPFT representative 
Adriana Casenave expressing her considerable frustration with all these meaningless figures that seem to be pulled from nowhere and tell vastly different stories.

The 2014 Pacifica Audit, to be conducted by Armanino LLP, has not yet begun. There is confusion and consternation as to this fact.

This first short clip, extracted from the Pacifica National Board Finance Committee Meeting of the evening of 25 August, consists of, first, a passing reference by Efren in which he refers to $142,000 having been paid by the National Office for the 2013 Audit, and, secondly, his response to a question as to whether or not the 2014 Audit has in fact begun. He says that it has not, and questions follow as to why it hasn’t.

The second clip is from the Pacifica National Board’s Audit Committee, which took place simultaneously, also on the evening of 25 August. In this clip, which is far longer, we have at the very beginning a reading from an email from Armanino which is interpreted as referring both to the fact of the 2014 Audit not yet having begun and also is interpreted as that being the case because Armanino had not yet been paid in full for the 2013 Audit – at which point these considerations spiral onward to dominate the meeting. At one point, far into the discussion, one member, Virginia, raises the possibility that the email was ambiguous or misinterpreted as to the question of whether or not payment to Armanino for the 2013 Audit had been completed, and that it might be the case that Arminino had indeed been paid in full as stated by John Proffitt before his having left for vacation.

My guess is that Virginia will be proven right.

In any event the real attention-getter, panic and accompany-ing suspicions aside, is that the 2014 Audit upon which hopes of CPB money depends, has not yet begun.

~ ‘indigopirate’

Here we have another brief audio clip from the August 25 PNB FC meeting. Pacifica's Acting Controller, Efren Llarinas, offers to teach Berthold Reimers how to use the Great Plains software, which he says can easily be done via phone. Inexplicably (well, perhaps not), the Siegel-allied JUC rep from WBAI, Cerena, takes a dim view of this and comes up with laughably weak excuse for not teaching Reimers any new tricks. He is already overburdened with work, she says, echoing what his cronies (Mitch Cohen, et all) like to tell us when we wonder what, if anything, he is doing to earn $100,000.00 a year. Obviously, having an inept GM is something these people find beneficial. Notice how Chair Brian Edwards-Tiegert, a member of the destructive group, refers to this important impediment as a good source for "conversation"—by others. These people are very transparent.

Cerena's subsequently proposal that Reimers be allowed to continue using the QuickBook software was voted down. What will she try next?  

20 comments:

  1. charles barron . doing some hatin on whitey .
    and sista nellie licking it up . Sad.

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  2. Deadline for the Audits is March 31 each year after the budget year closes. A one time 90 day extension gives them until June 30th. Each day it is late 1/365th of the grant is lost. This means that the money from 2013 is now history. (and they spent $142,000 to get nothing in return other than CPB checking off that they had done the 2013 audit.) Each day past June 30, 2015 is 1/365th of the 2014 grant gone. As of today that's 58/365ths gone and they haven't started the audit. ** IF** (I'd put that in flashing bold red if I could) they could get it done by November 1 - we'd be looking at 33% of the grant gone. And with the excellent bookkeeping at Pacifica , November would be unlikely, in my opinion. I know KPFA is not including and CPD CSG money in their 2015-16 budget income. I hope the other stations are doing the same.

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    1. Thanks for that information re CPB grant monies. I’ve heard the 30 June hard deadline referred to at meetings, but I hadn’t heard the 1/365th per day aspect referred to, or else I didn’t register it (wonder if it’s 1/366th in a leap year, I’d guess it is).

      Do you happen to know whether or not completing the 2013 Audit was necessary or advantageous for future consideration even though it wouldn’t result in grant monies for that period?

      Also, though I haven’t heard it mentioned recently, wasn’t KPFK disqualified for grant consideration for having fallen below the minimum listenership threshhold?

      ~ ‘indigopirate’

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  3. Hi, Chris!
    Your summary of these two meetings was excellent. I wish some of the committee members were paying as much attention. You spelled the troublesome names "Efren Llarinas" and "Berthold Reimers" correctly (sometimes I don't), but you may want to correct the misspellings for "Cerene Roberts" and "Brian Edwards-Tiekert."

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  4. (JustAListener)
    So WBAI still has no phone line.
    Hard to imagine it would take more than a couple of days to have phone service set up.
    So it must be the station doesn't have the money. And if it can't afford to pay a phone bill how can it pay to build out a studio etc?
    Perhaps the station owes a large amount to Verizon and can't afford to settle that bill.
    Probably lots of scary stuff lurking in Reimers desk drawers.
    Bet payday is like a mad race as paid staff hopes to cash their checks while there is still something in the account.

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    1. I think they neither have the money to get the phones installed nor a studio built. The situation described by Reimers and puppets like Mitch Cohen is utterly false —there is rent owed to the Atlantic Avenue landlady (and no lease has been signed, as far as I know) and while the allegedly successful never-ending "negotiations" with the Empire State Building owners has seriously reduced the amount WBAI has to pay each month, the rest of the rent (the "savings," as it were) is accruing. So, that appears to be a painkiller rather then a cure.

      Needless to say, Reimers has not accomplished anything more than possibly to to stave off the inevitable// In the meantime, poor taste, unprofessionalism, cronyism, anti-mission agendas, huge egos and greed eat away at the carcass called WBAI... and vultures circle over Berkeley.

      We know that we have a case of gross mismanagement at WBAI as well as at Pacifica, but I am also convinced that outright criminality is involved.

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  5. As I have said, I really believe that there are certain people at the top of the Pacifica hierarchy, as well as associated with them on the outside, who are orchestrating the mess because it is the only way they can get Pacifica to dissolve and grab some of the network's assets.

    If not that, then they are, at least, convinced that Pacifica is doomed and allowing this destruction to take place of its own accord to grab assets.

    Either way, the above mentioned people expect Pacifica to dissolve and to grab network assets for themselves.

    SDL

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    1. Whichever way this is going down (and it is, literally), I cannot imagine that some of the perps will get away scot free. There are so many lies being bandied about on both sides of the Pacifica wall. Were the organization and its stations still of any importance, the press would not be ignoring this mess, but I don't see any journalist giving it attention.

      Should someone decide to chronicle the fall of Pacifica, she or he will have a wealth of information, literally at their fingertips.

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    2. I've said before that Pacifica is lucky to be so under the radar. A book about the fall of Pacifica would be a headache. Imagine trying to find documents and do interviews? Everyone would have a different story. It would be a total mess, like Pacifica.

      When the people at the top want the company out of business, there is NO hope. Others may want to keep it going just as a personal cash cow, but that is obviously failing.

      Still, if you can get a hut on the edge of town, put in a transmitter and a small antenna on the roof, you have a radio station. I still think WBAI has a way to go, unless Pacifica implodes. It looks like events in California are the main driver now, and not events in NYC.

      SDL

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  6. Cerene Roberts is a crook -she is someone who needs to be investigated!!!

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    1. That whole group cries out for scrutiny. Cerene is a chronic liar who evidences not a whit of decency nor integrity. Take comfort in the fact that they will have even fewer listeners, if any, when they go back to their respective gutters. It will happen soon.

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  7. i'm confused, is this about katrina or an excuse for more hatin on whitey .
    It sounds like the latter . After all this is bai .

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    1. It's halfwit Haskins desperately spewing his race cocktail and foisting upon his handful of listeners a regurgitation of customized "history."

      Whatever he was told by Reimers and the Katz woman obviously disturbed his little muddled mind. That leads me to believe that he caught Berthold Reimers during a rare moment of truth. It's all hitting them right now and there's no slithering out.

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  8. amy talking about katrina .. you know where this is going .
    this is bai after all . so predictable and sad

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    1. I don.t see anything wrong with Amy talking about Katrina on its anniversary. Her revisit at least has been factual, as opposed to Michael Haskins' morning hate session with that old fool who published a book of conveniently re-designed "history."

      I think Haskins' store-bought armchair rebellion is deflating like a Patriot's ball.

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  9. i can't argue about the haskins part of that , and i like amy , i think she does some really good stories.
    just tuned in , and they are doing the same thing , Was supposed to be talking about high blood pressure,
    but quickly turned into a black conversation . Mostly how the white man is oppressing the black man , racism
    white suprmacy ....etc etc etc

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    1. I know, it is as if their keeping their air time depends on them getting into the subject of racism or, in some way, relating whatever they are talking about to real or imagined oppression of black (and now Hispanic) people by the white man.

      This has been escalating to a point where it now keeps up with the exodus of intelligent listeners, and, quite frankly, it has long since become tired.

      However, we are, for the most part, not dealing with people who can rise above the intellectual level where reason is a part of the thought process. They are simple-minded, gullible and now rather desperate. As I have said before, my friends (regardless of ancestral background) cringe when I play for them some of the crap that WBAI airs, To them, crooks like Bernard White and dummies like Haskins are a source of embarrassment—that even goes for Ron Daniels, the Reparations-pushing "professor", who is articulate but shamelessly opportunistic.












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    2. margaret prescod and danny glover .almost guaranteed
      this will turn into a conversation about slavery. Sad.

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  10. i guess doug henwood feels like there wasn't enough blackness today.
    So must add more . bai ... where too much blackness is never enough.

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  11. It occurs to me that perhaps Gary Null, who is certainly wealthy, after thirty plus years of selling snake-oil on BAI's air, may be floating the station at this point.

    Null knows that his online stream/podcasts will never have the reach of a 50kW station, no matter how diminished, and he doesn't want to give up that NYC outlet, with its devoted, and well-off fan base. Null wouldn't care about the phone lines, as he has his own at his studio, but he does want to keep BAI's transmitter warm.

    I listen to his show as lunchtime entertainment (H.L Mencken: "Why do people go to zoos?"), and have noticed a decided uptick in straight-out promos for his "retreats" and "health" products.

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