Saturday, February 11, 2017

Exile Newsletter: February 11, 2017


2017 Board Finally Shows Up



Berkeley-15 days after being seated, the 2017 Pacifica National Board finally threw off the shackles of the previous board, refusing to concede to an imperial order from 2016 officers Adriana Casenave and Janet Kobren to unilaterally adjourn the February 10 meeting without conducting any business. The expired officers got on the phone call, established a quorum was present, and then claimed the previous year's officers had to "approve the meeting in advance" and therefore the meeting was to be adjourned without any vote. The ploy didn't work and a quorum of the board remained on the call after half a dozen Siegel/Brazonites hung up, passing several motions and then moving on to an executive session. Quorum was re-established in the closed session and the 2017 board made a change in the interim executive director position, relieving former board member Lydia Brazon of the position and appointing Houston listener rep Bill Crosier, pending the hire of a permanent executive director. A 20-minute summary reel of the open session of the meeting can be heard here. The meeting notice can be seen here. 

The leadership change occurred after a two week period during which the remnants of the Siegel/Brazon faction had blocked the new board from selecting their own officers and convened two frustrating meetings on January 26 and February 2. Using the made-up title of "Acting Chair", a position the 2017 board never granted her, Casenave presided over a 3 hour mess on January 26 that never got past a single point of order and was marked by a screaming match between Casenave and newly-elected KPFA director William Campisi. You can hear Campisi's frustration on this brief clip from that meeting. 

On February 2nd, still in the grip of the outgoing 2016 majority, the PNB never made it out of an executive session called to discuss pressing financial matters that include litigation with the Empire State Building and growing pressure from the Registry of Charitable Trusts investigation. Campisi issued a public report on the meeting that you can read here. Campisi was elected as a Save KPFA-affiliated representative, but was apparently unimpressed in his first encounters with his factional cohorts. On February 10th, all 4 KPFA LSB-elected directors remained on the telephone with the new board majority in the open session and did not participate in the attempted adjournment. 

After the failed adjournment, the board elected KPFK's Jonathan Alexander as a pro-tem chair and KPFA's Akio Tanaka as pro-tem secretary. WBAI director Kathryn Davis, one of three WBAI directors whose votes were excluded from the affiliate director election in December of 2016, introduced a point of order to reverse the exclusion. Her point was upheld by pro-tem chair Alexander, challenged by Campisi, and the chair was upheld on a 10-1-1 vote, indicating a 12 vote majority of the 22 person board was present and voting. The board's action seats the winner of the affiliate director election, David Beaton, as a member of the 2017 board. The board then moved on to the delinquent audits and unanimously passed motions supporting supplementary fund drives to pay for catch-up audits, an RFP for a possible 24-month audit to get back into legal compliance by June of 2017, and rehiring former CFO Sam Agarwal in a consultant capacity. The board also indicated it would be looking to replace corporate counsel Siegel and Yee in the near future.

In the following executive session, the board made the change in the interim executive director position. The board's report out can be seen here.  The Pacifica Foundation announced the change this morning on the website at www.pacifica.org. The leadership shift follows a series of disturbing incidents including a seizure warrant and frozen bank account at Los Angeles station KPFK over an unpaid legal bill for Dan Siegel's defense in 2007-2008, a $285,000 adverse judgment from arbitration with SAG-AFTRA for labor contract violations, a lawsuit from the Empire State Building for unpaid transmitter rental fees, and delinquency letters from the State of California for failure to file required audits. The board complained bitterly about Brazon failing to report these events to the board for months at a time and withholding documents from them. The final straw was probably Brazon's failure to inform the board of a mid-January request from the California Attorney General's office to meet with Pacifica's board. The meeting was conducted in secret by the outgoing 2016 board officers with no notification to the rest of the board of directors, before or after the meeting. In attendance were Dan Siegel's law partner Alan Yee, Brazon, Casenave, Kobren, 2016 board chair Tony Norman, and controller Efren Llarinas. The meeting's existence only became known after Norman privately informed Campisi and Campisi released the information publicly on January 27.


In other news, Pacifica Foundation corporate counsel Dan Siegel formally registered the "KPFA Foundation", the secret corporation he founded with Margy Wilkinson in 2013 to "catch" Pacifica's broadcast licenses, with the Registry of Charitable Trusts. Siegel appointed himself the chief executive officer and chief financial officer of the nonprofit and Margy Wilkinson as the secretary. The nonprofit, which uses the Pacifica Foundation's 1946 mission statement, replicated Pacifica's own troubles with the Attorney General, already collecting a delinquency letter of its own.  

NOTE: To subscribe to this newsletter, please visit Exile's website at www.pacificainexile.org


42 comments:

  1. I'm pleased with the changes. Its good to see a real commitment to get the house in order. My first address as a member was to recommend selecting at least one of the candidates from the affiliates in Florida, Ohio and Washington State. David Beaton would be a good choice. He is with Sarasota Community Radio in Florida and served previously. Its also good to see progress on getting a fundraiser together for the audits.

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  2. Pacifica stations should just go 24/7 fundraising and be done with it. The beg-a-thon crap is no different than the regular programming, anyway.

    SDL

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    1. Kathy's very tired eye doctor skit went off at 1:59AM. Reggie is supposed to come on at 2, with his "Soundboard" show, but—as he so often does, he is a no-show, so far. We have had 17 minutes of dead air... i's curiously refreshing, but no way to conduct a fund drive. I bet Reggie does not apologise to the two listeners when, ind if, he shows up.

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    2. It's not dead air. It's an experimental industrial electronic musical suite.

      SDL

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    3. I figured it might be, but the middle of the night in a dead spot at the middle of a dial is no place or time to air the world premiere of an important work.

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    4. Jeez, even Babbling Bob is better than this. Not by much, granted, but at least it's audio.

      Actually, I wonder if Reggie was told not to show up due to a extendomercial(s) replacing them. It's happened before to people.

      SDL

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    5. That could be, but he has a history of not bothering with schedule. Its now 35 minutes, so you'd think someone connected with the station would have done something. Anyway, even though Kathy Cake was recorded, I think the station is supposed to have an enginner on the premises.

      So now, 35 minutes late, he showed up, didn't apologize, just speaks in his inarticulate way. Now he has cut back into the end of Kathy's infomercial.

      These jerks are so unprofessional and unimaginative. WBAI needs to go away.

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    6. They really are amazing in their ineptitude.

      SDL

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    7. Yes, and it seem that the worse they are, the more secure their time slot is.

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    8. When you hit bottom, the only alternative is to rise... WBAI will never rise with these bozos weighing it down.

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    9. Just another case of such deep seated cronyism that you can't get rid of it without a sudden and total coup.

      SDL

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    10. I'm afraid you're right, but a coup won't do it at this late stage of the vandalism. Reggie gets worse with every show.

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    11. I used to give Reggie the benefit of the doubt, however, in recent times it's like his brain cells are dying. His English skills wouldn't pass 2nd grade most of the time now.

      SDL

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    12. Same here, but he is losing it, getting sloppier and obviously unaware of the need to go on the air prepared, especially when you really don't know what the hell you're doing.

      BTW, I knew David Mancuso and I I sed to go to the Loft in it's very early days—David knew about my connection to WBAI, but I never heard him mention the station. Reggie is full of BS.

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    13. People in general on WBAI are getting sloppier. I guess it is the overall vibe of the station, especially when you don't even have a real broadcasting studio.

      SDL

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    14. No studio, no management, no listeners, and no moral judgement.

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  3. The real problem is that the FCC controls the licenses so that eliminates the possibility of a coup. You could form a group and contest the license renewal but that doesn't come up until 2020 (I think?)
    The only realistic way to gain control is if the current board decides to relinquish control...that probably isn't going to happen.
    35 minutes of dead air in market #1...incredible! A silence sensor costs $100...if they have a staff engineer he could build one out of spare parts in a hour or two. You would think they would have a backup audio source at the transmitter site in case the STL is lost.
    Do they not have a real studio in the new studios? I would guess they could do better than a Mackie mixer with a couple of mics...

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  4. i wonder when null is gonna step in a save the day, with the health retreat again?
    Will reimers being calling him in the middle of the night again ? stay tuned
    same black channel , same black time .

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    1. The end of the world has been coming since Null first tried to sell his survival pack, a few years back. The doom and gloom will hang over us until enough listeners are scared into spending money on this old scam.

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  5. You will be ok , as long as you leave at 3 in the morning on your bike ,that's when all the
    roving gangs,that want to beat you to a pulp and take everything that you have , will be sleeping.
    haha

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  6. Interesting comparison. KPFA is broadcasting Uprising with Sonali. KPFK is pushing a James Baldwin premium and Gary Null and Tony Ryan are blabbing about something on WBAI. Guess which one I'm listening to right now? Guess which one is raising more money?

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  7. Somebody must have sent a memo because most of the stations are pushing $200 premiums on a regular basis.

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  8. The one interesting thing about the recent beg-a-thons is how the number of offered premiums has shrunk to three main ones - Davis' eye stuff, Bates' Zeitgeist mixed bag and Null's four horsemen of the apocalypse. This means the beg-a-thons are ever more repetitious.

    Speaking of Zeitgeist, you can see the three films in the series for free:

    http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

    If you click on DVDS AND DOWNLOADS you can buy twenty copies at $3.00 each and $15.00 for shipping. And WBAI still can't send these out?

    SDL

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    1. Yes, three main premiums, all of which are of questionable probity, none of which bears any relationship to the original Pacifica objective that Davis, Null and Bates aver WBAI maintains.

      Hype, deliberate promulgation of misinformation, and regularly scheduled scams add up to disrespect for and underestimation of the remaining listeners—as we all know, the overwhelming majority of WBAI's audience ha exited.

      Of course, the scam continues beyond the purchase of these "premiums" when WBAI grabs the money and fails to deliver the goods.

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  9. You know that, what we used to call, "cart" with Chloe Glickman (spelling?) rambling about being a WBAI intern? They've been playing it for a few years now, which made me wonder if she's still an intern there.

    SDL

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  10. And now for another episode of As the PNB turns. Will Cerene obstruct the meeting? Will Adriana break her record for points of order? Stay tuned.

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    1. Cerene's JUC task is to destroy and she is doing a good job of that tonight. The meeting currently in progress displays her at her worst. Adriana lends her support, but Cerene takes center stage... the farce goes on and accomplishes nothing.... 45 minutes, so far.

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  11. These a- holes talk about black struggle ,they should be thinking about listener struggle .
    Struggling to stay tuned to this tired horseshit.

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  12. They really should be forced to air this live on the Pacifica stations, just so supporters can see their money at work.

    Btw, I vote for Mickey Mouse....

    SDL

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    1. I am recording it and will post about 5 minutes after it closes—if it ever does. Reason: What you stated above, SDL.

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    2. I dream of the day Casanave gets laryngitis.

      I picture Cerene on the stack... of pancakes.

      SDL

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    3. She's neither butter nor syrup. I see her as the fly on the oinkment.

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    4. I'm glad the Thai restaurant near me delivers at this time of night.

      SDL

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    5. Good, then you won't miss the exciting conclusion of this PNB free-for-all.

      How would you like the job of doing the minutes of the meeting?

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    6. This is absolutely hysterical, with a script the length of War & Peace. No, I would never do the minutes of this battle royal. Point of this, point of that, point of something else. Amazing that adults behave like this.

      SDL

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    7. Unbelievable. Everyone at the meeting had a week to prepare for what was obviously going to be a contentious meeting and they just sound completely clueless.

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    8. This is the current Pacifica in a nut shell, as it were.

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    9. Just don't pass out any coffee to these doofs or blood will be shed...

      SDL

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    10. I guess free-form radio has become free-form meeting.

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    11. Thank goodness they aren't trying to decide what to have for midnight snacks, or they'd be arguing about it until the next lunch time.

      SDL

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    12. They have spent over four hours without any results. Now, we will soon go into a second hour deciding whether to adjourn.

      I think this one may top the Mozart spectacular.

      Did you Thai food arrive, or id the restaurant debating whether to send it?

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    13. It arrived just before I posted about it. Obviously the family that runs the restaurant should be running Pacifica. To be honest, I would normally go to get it, but this crap was so entertaining that I decided to spend for the delivery guy's tip and have it delivered.

      Yes, this may be their best PacificaMania ever. I can't believe how absurd these people are. I've never heard so much arguing with so little getting done in my life.

      SDL

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