CFO Agarwal report: Time to get real.

Can Reimers, et al, continue pouring water in the Pacifica tank? Pacifica CFO, Sam Agarwal seems to think it's high time this game is decided.

Indigopirate's no-nonsense extract should be all you need to hear of the Tuesday, June 21, 2016 meeting of the PNB Finance Committee. 

His preamble, astute as always, reads as follows:

I’ve attempted to capture the tenor and the substance of the meeting – the substance, such as it is, provided primarily by the CFO. In attempting to do that I’ve pulled in at a number of points, and I’ve not used click-track to indicate edit points, relying on pacing to fulfill that function, and I’ve attempted to be fair in so doing.

All that said, it’s the usual and ongoing mishegas, complete with the mad wailing of Adriana Casanave. The woman’s intelligence appears to be substantially less than that of the typical eggplant, but she seems to attempt to compensate for this shortcoming by virtue of sheer volume and her level of perpetual hysteria and indignation that her preferred policies are invariably ignored or explicitly rejected.

BET as usual, focuses on the central issue though, of course, also as usual to little or no effect:

‘The real issue which this committee knows and we’ve been discussing since the last budgeting cycle is… We have structural deficits. We don’t have enough money coming in to pay the expenses we’re committed to. WBAI’s been operating at a perpetual loss. WPFW’s been operating at a loss for several years. The rest of the stations are hanging on by their fingertips. We have to have a conversation as an institution that involves hard choices. Some combination of cost cuts, financing, liquidating assets, or, inshallah, successful fund raising strategies – but it can’t be pie-in-the-sky wish lists. ’ – Points he’s made repeatedly for many months and which have of course been effectively ignored as trivia or process have long remained purposive drivers and determinants for these folks.

R. Paul Martin, to give credit where due, repeats his mantra that programming needs to be addressed, which, of course, in effective terms, it never is.

Gotta love these folks… well, then again, perhaps not.

Perhaps not.   —'indigopirate'

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For the resolute completists among you—here is also a lengthy two-part audio of the full meeting. 

This time, you will not hear a frenetic score by Mozart, not even incidental music by the Beepers, but if you pay close attention, you should detect a game plan or two bubbling near the surface—that's Pacifica's creme de la scheme engaging in the Board's perpetual pingpong game of proposed, distracting redirects. Not participating in that game is CFO Sam Agarwal, a realist among dreamers, sounding a wakeup call that few of those present appear to hear.

The deflating ball of confusion bounces awkwardly towards a pit from which there is no return, no alternate path.

Part 1, Part 2