Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Cart before horse department


The following comment on this Monday's PNB Audit Committee Meeting was posted by Jara Handala.

The PNB's attitude to the need to hire a new Chief Finance Officer shows how sclerotic Pacifica is. The PNB seems to have switched off, preferring to bask in the glory of getting out of its ESRT contract & securing a loan to pay them. Since the start of April it has chosen not to go into emergency mode, not to focus on these four immediate aims:
  • (1) start the CFO hiring process;
  • (2) hire all the accounting staff needed at both the National Office & the stations (not least for the fiscal 2016 & 2017 audits), & ensure they have all the means needed so that all accounts & financial statements are always available in real time;
  • (3) devise a fundraising plan to pay off the loan; & 
  • (4) supervise a plan to ensure each station has a full complement of managers (General, Business, whatever). That's the minimum work needed from April thru to June. Naturally, something as obvious & urgent doesn't interest the PNB. 
So consider Uncle Sam's resignation on 28 March. What's been done? Nothing. Pacifica doesn't practise transparency, such as that old-fashioned thing, the public statement, so those out of a loop of maybe three or four people try to interpret whatever snippets of info or rumour they come across.


I'll leave rumour to those able to guess their veracity, so I'll draw attention to two Pacifica comments made in passing, not even as part of a discussion required by an agenda. At some meeting in mid April, Wild Bill said that Sam may be agreeable to stay on a while, beyond his Friday 4 May leaving date. Then at the PNB Audit Committee this Monday, the chair, Eileen Rosin, said (at 9:19)), "there's a [written?] proposal from Sam to stay on a little longer." Don't get excited, because no discussion ensued: this was during the reading of the proposed agenda, & 'Point-of-Order-Madame-Chair' Adriana swiftly brought the chair to order by pointing out that personnel matters are closed session only – so that put a stop to that door opening.

So come Monday, will Sam be there, or will he have left the auditors to deal with the newly-appointed PALO, the Pacifica Accounting Liaison Officer, aka the National Office cleaner, although they're only there Tuesdays & Fridays?    —Jara Handala

11 comments:

  1. mimi kicking off the beg a thon with the tried and true failing strategy of replaying the dead ,
    black nationalist , racist black guys .
    Even the most died in the wool racist are saying to themselves "Geez this shit again?" lol

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    1. And they followed up with Gary Null hawking a book that has already been hawked on WBAI about a zillion times before. WBAI is no longer worth listening to for even comic relief. Now, it is boring, in addition to being stupid.

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    2. II heard it and groaned. He also had Bates there. Has anybody noticed that one of Bates' scam lines is that he constantly is stopped in the street by someone who loves WBAI?

      Amazing how many people recognise a guy who doesn't like to have his picture taken. :)

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    3. Chris: You are overlooking the fact that this is pitch that has been repeated over and over. It's just ONE guy.

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  2. Jara says, "At some meeting in mid April, Wild Bill said that Sam may be agreeable to stay on a while, beyond his Friday 4 May leaving date."

    I recall that right after Bill spoke, Grace responded that she wasn't sure the board would approve Sam staying on. In other words, over Grace's dead body will Grace let Sam stay on. Personal enemies must be dealt with! And to hell with the finances of the organization.

    Jara says, "Then at the PNB Audit Committee this Monday, the chair, Eileen Rosin, said, "there's a [written?] proposal from Sam to stay on a little longer." Don't get excited, because no discussion ensued: this was during the reading of the proposed agenda, & 'Point-of-Order-Madame-Chair' Adriana swiftly brought the chair to order by pointing out that personnel matters are closed session only – so that put a stop to that door opening."

    My observation is that since the Audit Committee started meeting again at the end of 2017, after an unexplained hiatus of six months or so, it was clear that what they were really doing is looking for ways to marginalize Sam. The closed sessions were noticed as dealing with an "individual employee" and it was obvious from the public discussions that individual was Sam. This is so not the purview of the audit committee. No way should the audit committee take on whether Sam stays on or not. But enemies must be dealt with and since this PNB doesn't believe rules apply to them, the audit committee is being used for this purpose. Poor Livingston doesn't give a crap as long as he doesn't have to make a decision. He knows who's running the show and who can shut off his paycheck. While the loan signing seemed to be the last straw for Sam, the further harassment from board members I'm sure contributed to his decision to leave.

    - Kim Kaufman

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  3. And they went to Joy Degrue with her tired horse shit early on this one .
    This could get ugly.

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  4. This just in per Berthold email. Programming Manager Tony Bates resigned 2 May. Berthold will be handling programming for the drive, none to happy with producers lack of Permian.

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    1. Sounds interesting. Hope it is so.

      What is "Permian"?

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    2. Premiums fat thumbs ÷ auto fill in.

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    3. Berthold should be none too happy with the station's producers—PERIOD.

      As soon as I hear more on this, I will post it up front.

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