Exile newsletter 12-19-2016

CATCH 22 and a Member Strike

Berkeley - The second Pacifica National Board meeting in three days went no better than the first with another three hours of invalidating elections on the agenda. The board took no action to change or correct their Tuesday action of decertifying the entire 2016 delegate election, despite a legal opinion informing them the certified election results are final. There has been no word from IED Brazon, National Election Supervisor Lynne Serpe or election vendor True Ballot if or when the board's requested "recount" would be performed.

Having decided the results of the elections,  60 newly elected delegates in all five signal areas, and any actions those new delegates take are "provisional" for an indefinite period of time, the board majority went on to finish the total disenfranchisement of NY station, WBAI, once the pride of the network for its fearless reporting and countercultural dominance. After throwing out WBAI's election of national representatives that occurred on December 7th, the board majority then threw out the WBAI election of national representatives that occurred on December 14th, invalidating a total of 13 elections in 3 days. You can hear an 11-minute summary reel of the meeting here. 

Invalidating the WBAI director elections allowed the board majority to prevent anyone from New York who is not in their own faction from voting for the two 2017 PNB-elected affiliate directors. The two affiliate directors will be the tie-breaking votes on the 2017 PNB after the independents won resounding election victories in Los Angeles, Houston and New York. Affiliate director candidates include the incumbents Efia Nwangaza and Themba Tshibanda, famed lawyer and professor Bob Fitrakis, DJ, teacher and equity consultant Jose Gutierrez and former PNB director David Beaton. Neither Beaton, Gutierrez nor Fitrakis is expected to have sufficient votes to defeat either of the incumbents unless the WBAI independent directors are seated in the national board's 3 vacant seats and allowed to vote.

In this brief clip from Thursday's PNB meeting, former IED Wilkinson can be heard in the first 30 seconds of the meeting sneering "yeah right" after KPFK listener rep Jan Goodman noted the WBAI directors had been elected on Wednesday night and should be added to the conference call. A colleague of Wilkinson's in the west coast wing of the Siegel/Brazon faction (Save KPFA) tried to say Wilkinson's vote to invalidate NY's second director's election was caused by a misunderstanding, but the snort indicates that is probably not the case. In case you are not following all of this closely, the invalidation of the WBAI directors election on the 15th was the second time the PNB refused to seat the delegate's choices in 3 vacant WBAI seats on the national board. On December 13th, they threw out NY's election results from December 7th. After the local board re-gathered the following week on December 14th and elected the same people again to fill the seats, the board majority threw out the 2nd election the following day and refused to seat them once again.

While we don't want to spend a lot of time chasing mirages, this 8-minute clip lines up side by side the excuses for invalidating the December 7 WBAI directors election followed by the excuses for invalidating the December 14 WBAI directors election the following week. Basically, it's a Catch-22,  to quote Joseph Heller's famous novel about a vicious circle of contradictory rules. "You can't call a special meeting of the delegates, only a regular meeting of the LSB, but at the regular meeting of the LSB you have to notice in advance an election after we threw the 1st election out the night before -- even though you didn't know we were going to throw the first election out and therefore couldn't notice the second election in advance".  Or something like that. Listen for yourself. 

As usual in a Catch-22, those setting out the crazy quilt of impossible rules do not follow those rules themselves. This meeting announcement for the January 16, 2016 WPFW local meeting when current directors Nancy Sorden, Ron Pinchback, and Jim Brown (all of whom voted to invalidate WBAI's director elections) and board chair Tony Norman (who did not), were elected to their own national director positions, contains no advance notice. 

In an even more ridiculous touch,  the board majority maintained Siegel/Brazonite Cerene Roberts on the board as a member, even after throwing out her election twice. Roberts continues to serve on the board as the sole WBAI director. The last time she was elected by the WBAI delegates in a "PNB-recognized" election was 23 months ago. KPFT rep Bill Crosier made a point of order Thursday night that the invalidation of WBAI's directors election, if allowed to stand, meant that all 4 WBAI's director slots were now vacant, not just those of the 3 independent. He was overruled. Board chair Tony Norman said the PNB had "placed Roberts on the board by vote for the entire 2016-2017 term". Actually, they didn't. The PNB's motion to allow Roberts to be a "stay-over 2015 director" can be found here and it says:

"That until an election of 2016 WBAI Directors is completed by the properly seated WBAI Delegates (as per the PNB's motion of January 21, 2016) and a report of the election results are submitted to the PNB secretary, only WBAI listener-Director Cerene Roberts shall be considered seated on the Pacifica National Board of Directors.

Needless to say, a report of the election results has been submitted. Repeatedly.

Many Pacifica in Exile readers have written to this publication over the past two and a half years describing their anguish and difficulty deciding whether or not to continue financially supporting the organization despite deep distress at the actions of the Siegel/Brazon majority since their March 2014 coup. Pacifica In Exile has always advised donations continue, due to financial fragility and the potential ability of members to fix the mess by exercising democratic voting rights. But with the Siegel/Brazon board majority's actions this week to de-recognize and de-certify every election result contrary to their continued dominance, and the continuing and acute decline in the integrity of the network, we no longer feel unethical behavior can or should be enabled. In the age of Trump, the deliberate weakening of the biggest progressive media network in the country by botched audits, grant forfeiture, misuse of restricted funds, abrogation of member voting rights, premium theft, and copyright abuse should no longer be tolerated. We can't afford to have the only mass media infrastructure in the United States free of corporate or government ownership held hostage.

Therefore, we are asking Pacifica members to say enough is enough and that they will not participate in year-end giving or the upcoming January/February fund drive cycle unless and until the rot is cleaned out.  We are asking for the immediate resignation and permanent severing from Pacifica governance of every single national board member who did not vote affirmatively on the national board against decertifying the 2016 election results and the invalidation of the two WBAI directors elections in defiance of basic voting rights. You can sign on to the Get the Rot Out Strike here. 

At KPFA's local station board, the last of the 2017 local station boards had newly elected members seated "provisionally" per the PNB dictate. The meeting contents mostly focused on the local station board's desire to set up a new nonprofit and force Pacifica to give them KPFA's license, building, transmitter site, the national office building and the Pacifica Archives for pennies on the dollar. The local board says they intend to sue to dissolve the Pacifica Foundation if the assets are not voluntarily handed over. LSB chair Carole Travis relayed that preliminary contact had been made with actor Peter Coyote to headline the effort to forcibly extract the assets into Wilkinson's new nonprofit at a fraction of their value.

At KPFA, where the December fund drive ended $164,000 short of the opening goal, bizarre fund drive pitches filled with the air, with long-time host Phillip Maldari telling people to donate to the station due to the perfidy of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Maldari said on-air "they {CPB} owe us the money, they're just not sending it". For good measure, he added "The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has an obligation to public media in this country that they're not fulfilling". Pacifica stations have been disqualified from CPB funding after missing June deadlines for the submission of audited financial statements in 2014, 2015 and 2016. The network has not released a 2014 audit, has not started a 2015 audit and would have to complete both the 2015 and 2016 audits by June of 2017 to restore funding eligibility and legal compliance. KPFA, like other Pacifica stations, likes to say the information the station provides can be heard nowhere else. Maldari's statement can certainly be heard nowhere else, because it is not true.