Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Cerenely not yours—Exile update...



Berkeley - In an abruptly called "special meeting" on Tuesday evening, one of two Pacifica National Board meetings called for this week, the outgoing board majority decided they didn't like the results of the 2016 board elections and threw them out after certification by the independent national election supervisor and True Ballot, a nationally recognized election services firm. They declared in a motion they wanted a "recount" and that the seating of newly elected delegates, and any officers and national board members they elect, and any business they transact were all "provisional" until further notice.


The Siegel/Brazonites banana republic maneuver was probably motivated by their large losses in three of Pacifica's five signal areas. They lost elections overwhelmingly in Houston, New York and Los Angeles (all by a 2-1 or greater margin) and faced losing their majority in the upcoming year due to the strongly expressed desire of Pacifica members for a change in direction after botched audits, CPB disqualification and rapidly declining membership numbers.

The almost three hour meeting began with an opening salvo of refusing, yet again, to seat directors from WBAI who do not belong to the Siegel/Brazon faction, after they were elected to fill the year-long vacancies caused by the board majority's failure to seat directors from WBAI who do not belong to the Siegel/Brazon faction, last January. The motion, unsurprisingly, was from Cerene Roberts. The long rambling motion focused on one former board member whose term is over claiming he didn't get to vote, although his single vote would not have changed the results in any way. The NY Siegel/Brazonites had 8 members in attendance and the independents had 13. But logic was not in evidence and the board voted to reject the seating of the WBAI independent directors yet again.

But they weren't finished. Having spent an hour and a half on the WBAI directors, they then proceeded to spend 10 minutes on the delinquent FY 2014 financial audit and then moved on the real business of the evening.

The motion for a "recount" of the 2016 delegate election referred to a CD with the ballot scan files that PNB secretary Janet Kobren has refused to publicly post, although Pacifica elections require that be done. The availability of the complete ballot data allows anyone to independently verify the results using a simple piece of open source election software. Kobren has not stated why she is suppressing the ballot scan files and refuses to publish them.

The completed election results that have been certified with 251 pages of round by round totals can be seen here

Both national election supervisor Lynne Serpe and election services vendor True Ballot are owed money by Pacifica, which has already racked up  $150,000 in expenses for the delegate elections, which are paid for by member charitable donations. It is unlikely that either will engage in this new "recount" until their previous bills are cleared. Pacifica was told their FY 2014 audit would not be released until further payment is made to auditor Armanino. They have not started the FY 2015 audit that was due to California's Attorney General and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in June of 2016. $285,000 in expenses were incurred up in a failed labor arbitration with SAG-AFTRA in September. December fund drives at several of the stations, including KPFA, KPFK and WBAI are coming up short of projected revenues. The board majority indicated they had no idea how much their "recount" would cost or how it would be paid for.

The refusal to accept the certified election results throws the organization into chaos, with KPFK having already turned their board over and the other four stations scheduled to do so over the next six days. Local board members unable to let go after the end of their elected terms, have already jumped on the "recount" to suggest  they can continue on, notably former KPFT LSB chair Dewayne Lark, who having lost his bid for re-election, jumped in to announce that the old board would meet and vote on "unfinished business" Wednesday night after the expiration of their terms.

The refusal to acknowledge the election results echoes the events of 2007-2008, when then IED Dan Siegel, now Pacifica's corporate counsel, fired national election supervisor Casey Peters due to his displeasure at the election results - and replaced him with himself. Siegel kept expired board members on the Pacifica National Board for months after their elected terms ended by refusing to recognize the election results, until stopped by a NY court. Peter's report on work as a Pacifica election supervisor can be read here. He does not mince his words. That was the last time Pacifica members voted to remove a Siegel/Brazon board majority and replace it with an independent one. Pacifica was sued by NY law firm Silverman and Silverman for $95,000 in unpaid legal bills Siegel racked up for his maneuver to block the 2007 election. According the court records, a seizure warrant was executed against Pacifica in November of 2016 to extract the $95,000 from one or more Pacifica-owned bank accounts, although the board of directors was not informed of any forcible seizure of funds. 

Pacifica members must make it clear to the outgoing board majority they do not want their increasingly scarce charitable donations  spent on an unncessary recount when the Foundation is on the brink of a financial precipice. The will of the voters must be respected even if the Siegel/Brazon faction is unhappy they lost the elections. Please take a moment now to write to the board of directors at pnb@pacifica.org. More dramatic action is likely to be necessary given the intransigence of the outgoing board majority.

46 comments:

  1. Is that guy on the right Bob Lederer? He has one foot in the grave. He needs to visit Gary Null stat.

    KGT

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  2. It's just too funny how blatant these phonies are in wanting to hold onto their seats. A good, costly lawsuit is in order.

    Maybe that nut Jill Stein can raise the money for a recount. It seems to be her forte in life...

    SDL

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    1. Stein has in common with these bozos a fabricated "love" for Mumia. When holding on to a seat on the Pacifica Board or holding on to air time on WBAI is that important to someone, it is a clear sign of an empty life screwed up values. For a few it is simply greed.

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  3. TPCS is a repeat of last week's show on PRN now.

    SDL

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    1. Isn't it too early for TPCS? All I her is Linda Perry.

      BTW, in your browser, enter radio.garden for a thousand alternatives.

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    2. I said on prn.fm, Null's station. They do 6PM there.

      SDL

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    3. Thanks.... got it!

      Don't forget to try radio.garden—curious to hear what you think.

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    4. Interesting. Basically an SDR for AM and FM.

      SDL

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    5. Pretty good site. I always enjoy tuning around the world and seeing what local radio is like.

      I always say news people should know about SDRs. They would allow them to easily tune into hotspots to get a local vibe about things.

      SDL

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    6. That's a good point, SDL. Haskins might even discover that the Atlantic slave trade is over. :)

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    7. Think he'd have the heart to tell Mimi?

      SDL

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    8. No, unless someone first told her that she's not black. That, of course, might give her a heart attack.

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  4. From the report by Casey Peters, the previous election supervisor:

    "A few days later, Dan Siegel entered my home illegally without any prior notice, and without ringing the bell, knocking on the door or announcing himself.

    Siegel startled my wife Marilyn, who was home alone, in our living room and she yelled at him to get out. His intent was to confiscate election equipment and materials without compensating me for work completed. Siegel had apparently been drinking, and sat in a rented SUV flashing his headlights into our bedroom.

    Marilyn called the police to stop the harassment. We seriously considered pressing trespass and assault charges, but felt any publicity about the incident would not look good for the Pacifica Foundation."

    A typical example of how Pacifica management views it's supporters as suckers meant to be abused for entertainment and financial gain.

    Too bad Mr Peters didn't press charges.

    And this behavior from a Mr Siegel that has a desire to be elected to public office?

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  5. prescod honoring paul robson for the umpthenth time . Hurry she has to raise $ 2750 before the
    end of the hour , and doesn't know how long she could offer it . prescod is even gonna buy it .
    only 15 left folks. hurry ! lmao

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    1. Either the Robeson commercial is bringing in money (why else would they keep airing it?) or Maggie P has been lying about only having 15 left. I wonder if she realizes how foolish she looks as these outdated pitches eat away any credibility she might have started out with.

      Self-professed "finance guy" Berthold Reimers has bungled another drive... one that would not have been needed if he had gotten things right before. I don't think it takes much brain power to figure out what aan idiot this man is.

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    2. I did not hear the Robeson commercial. I went to Stuyvesant H.S.(a place I, and 99% of the rest of the students despised, along with Eric Holder whom I knew since childhood) with Dave Robeson, Paul's grandson. I didn't get to know him because we were only in one class together, freshman English in 1966 and I didn't know of Paul Robeson then and he had a different group of friends. He died at age 46 in 1998, cause unknown to me.

      KGT

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    3. Interesting. I heard many stories about Robeson from Alberta Hunter, who starred with him in the 1929 London production of "Showboat" and was close to the family. Once she asked me if I knew how Robeson became so radical. I suggested that racist experience had a lot to do with it. "Yes," she said, "but Lady Astor was always coming backstage and whispering political stuff in his ear—that made him even angrier. I think she was a Communist."

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    4. In another repeated infomercial, Prescod referred to Fidel Castro as being "very old", and Haskins came to say that Castro was in fact dead. Reminds of the old Saturday Night Live newscast: "This just in; Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead."

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    5. They are making a mockery of all this. Today I heard another ridiculous infomercial by Amy Goodman. It was from 2013, but that was never announced, of course.

      I haven't heard any new assembly line "documentaries" this time around, just a rehash of all-too-familiar nonsense.

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    6. Maybe they can be a bit historical and play some old pitching tapes from the Vietnam War days? I bet many of the listeners would think that we were back over there with a new war.

      SDL

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    7. We pitched back then, but only once a year for about 2 or 3 weeks, and we offered no product, just a promise to keep WBAI on the air. The station was worthy back then, so there was no need to lie or embellish. We did have annual memberships (about $15), but our pitch for new members and renewals were usually brief, to the point and read by the announcer at station breaks—no ridiculous, poorly produced, overly long commercials. BTW, our announcer/board operators could read, pronounce names, etc.

      As for Vietnam, we had Dale Minor reporting spectacularly from there, and we had great coverage from the South of the Civil Rights activities.

      I don't think any of the current bozos have a clue as to what WBAI used to be.

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    8. Not only do the WBAI bozos have no idea, but the KPFA, KPFT, etc. bozos probably have no idea of what those stations used to be. And as for the Pacifica board members, forget it.

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  6. Reimers on now.

    SDL

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    1. I'll listen to the archive. Now I am hearing propagandist Sally O'Brien pushing her crap. It's embarrassing.

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    2. He came on for like 20 minutes to try to tell us how Fidel's Cuba was like Haiti, or some such verbal meanderings. I guess he thinks WBAI has a lot of Haitian listeners, who will fork over money if they hear about Haiti.

      SDL

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  7. I had to see if Fass is on any of his other stations. Sure enough, he is, or, at least, his Fassists are. It seems they're having a technological disaster of a show, and bitching about WBAI playing infomercials over their much vaunted show that doesn't pitch.

    http://tunein.com/radio/WAZU-907-s125881/

    SDL

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    1. They've stuck him up the WAZU? Are the Fassists taking calls from he hinterland listeners? I hear them talk about the Indians with a female caller. What about the other stations? Is this what we would hear if BAI was airing Fass instead of some idiot telling us that the U.S. Government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to make us believe that Egypt is not a part of Africa.

      The mind boggles.

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    2. HAHA! I can't remember the call letters of the other stations to check them. However, I would imagine they are airing this, also. I guess if it isn't on WBAI, Bob isn't even interested in doing his own show.

      SDL

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  8. Prescod "premiering" cuba an african odyssey for the 89th time .
    Looks like fidel's death is the perfect excuse to talk more about africa.

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  9. 90th time now ... unbelievable !

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  10. I thought I'd mention that WFDU 89.1 FM has gone through some big changes, including having 3 channels now, of which HD 2 is primarily jazz. HD 1 and their on air is primarily oldies, like in a real oldies station, not WCBS.

    SDL

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    1. The racist contrived make-believe "radicals" at WBAI are not only maintaining their downward course, they are crawling a little faster.

      Thank you, SDL, here's the url you sent: http://wfdu.fm

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    2. WBAI is insufferable. How they even have any Remnants remaining is beyond me, if for no other reason than the redundancy. The Remnants must be truly dumb to stick around and listen to a station that is nearly half pitching with the same premiums shows ad nauseam.

      WBAI would probably be better going full tilt ultra loonie leftie and having idiots rambling about speciesism, ableism, etc. Then they might get some college dummies to give dinero.

      SDL

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    3. Where else can they hear old farts like "Dr. Ben" and Henrik Clarke twist history beyond recognition? When I hear Prescod, Bates, et al recite as fact the unbelievably bogus story of how just about every extraordinary achievement in human history was made by people of African ancestry, I have to wonder why not a trace of that genius can be detected in them—on the contrary, these are incredibly dumb people whose impaired vision seems to blur anything beyond the tip of their nose.

      Having been at it for so long, they have succeeded in dumbing down WBAI's listenership, leaving but remnants of what once was and never again will be.

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    4. Don't talk that way about Dr. Ben. I grew up on his Converted Rice.

      KGT

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  11. Michael G. Haskins and Randy Credico are on WBAI this morning trying to get donations hawking [for $75] John Pilger's documentary "The War You Don't See" which is available to watch for free on Youtube. Meanwhile the crap is hitting the fan at the war we don't see behind the scenes at Pacifica and WBAI.

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    1. Another biased documentary bashing the media. Yawn. The only mystery is how they managed to talk to Dan Rather. Its not that difficult to understand. Most reporters are aiming for those coveted spots in DC and New York and/or an anchor seat. Instead of bashing the media for bias and then doing biased pieces, how about providing a true alternative that acknowledged there is more than one side to an issue?

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    2. At WBAI issues have only one side. The biased crap they are trying to sell listeners as "documentaries" are not really that, but rather thrown together bits and pieces of speeches and interviews with music added, and they only tell one side because much of this is taken out of context.

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    3. Its a shame. You can't grow the audience with biased crap. The folks at KPFA are criticizing us for having 6,000 members in the largest media market and are looking for a sale or swap of WBAI. Of course, they forget about that wonderful transmitter deal they stuck us with.

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    4. That's not the extent of their memory loss... Quick to label WBAI as a unique voice of truth (which is why one should buy their bogus products), these con artists forget that—truth be told—the station has become a major purveyor of what is now called, "fake news".

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  12. How many know that Felipe Luciano and Nancy Rodriguez, both of WBAI were "married" at one time and are parents of "Felipe Luciano, Jr."? Oy Vey!

    KGT

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    1. Or I should say, "Mazel Tov"!!?

      KGT

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  13. sista mimi and brotha ken gonna do the slave thing again ....
    Seriously , Does anybody at this station have half a brain? anybody!?

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  14. Chris, you may want to check out RPM's list for our little repartee about the current beg-a-thon.

    SDL

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