More bits and pieces

As WBAI continues to suffer mismanagement, Reimers even sabotages his own fund drive, preferring, it would appear, to serve the dwindling listenership more of Tony Bates fund drivel. The following comment was posted by SDL, with a pertinent link to 2600 Magazine, the hackers quarterly:

No OTH again tonight, it seems. 

https://twitter.com/2600

The saga continues...

Exile news update - Oct. 2, 2016

Berkeley - Election update. As of press time, voting has been extended at KPFT in Houston and WPFW in Washington, DC until October 7th and at KPFK in Los Angeles until October 10th. Elections at WBAI and KPFA are closed. 

Ballots mailed for Pacifica's 2016 board elections from the East Coast on August 15th. Pacifica in Exile's candidate endorsements for all stations can be found here. You will find online voting instructions inside your printed ballot envelope. If you donated, but don’t receive a ballot or for any ballot-related question at any station, you can contact King Reilly, a KPFK member who has graciously agreed to assist folks, at kingreilly@roadrunner.com.

For more on our endorsed slates of candidates, see the Committee to Strengthen KPFK, Move KPFT Forward, United for Community Radio (KPFA), and WBAI Indy Caucus websites.

On Friday September 30, former Pacifica CFO Raul Salvador showed up for work at KPFK in Los Angeles. No notification in advance had been provided to staff at the LA station or to Pacifica's board of directors.  No information has been provided about what job Salvador is doing, what his responsibilities are, who he reports to, or what amount of money he is being paid. An inquiry to Pacifica executive director Lydia Brazon went unanswered. (Update: Brazon is said to have indicated during the unstreamed national board meeting that Salvador is a "consultant"). 

Salvador first worked for Pacifica in May of 2013 as the CFO, was terminated in January of 2014, rehired as the CFO after the 2014 Siegel/Brazon coup, resigned in May of 2015 and then worked for some months following as an amorphous "consultant". The severely past due audits that have cost $2.5 million in CPB public media funding began during Salvador's period as CFO, as well as misappropriation of parts of the Material World Foundation grant  (in 2014), an Indiegogo campaign (in 2014), a bequest to the Pacifica Foundation (in 2015) and a credit card fraud incident where a Pacifica company credit card account Salvador replaced was not closed, and then used for $4,000 in purchases at Ralph Lauren and Walmart in Southern California.

Sam Agarwal resigned as Pacifica's chief financial officer in September after nine months on the job. KPFK's business manager position has been officially vacant since January 2016 and not occupied by a permanent employee for over three years.

The Pacifica National Board met on the evening of October 6th, but what ensued is a mystery. The board chose to violate Corporation for Public Broadcasting open meeting requirements and not stream the meeting to provide public access. The board's scheduled streaming volunteer did not show up and in violation of the CPB's instruction that public media boards *must* make a good faith effort to provide real-time public observation, the board rejected Houston rep Bill Crosier's offer to stream the meeting for them. Before rejoining the board as a director in 2016, Crosier had regularly volunteered streaming services to Pacifica. The 8 board members who voted to flout open meeting requirements were Wesley Bethune and Adriana Casenave from KPFT, Janet Kobren from KPFA, Ron Pinchback, Nancy Sorden and Jim Brown from WPFW, Cerene Roberts from WBAI and Temba Tshibanda (formerly Jevon Gammon) from Uhuru Radio.

Pacfica has lost $2.5 million in public media community service grants (CSG) since 2014 due to three consecutive missed deadlines for the submission of audited financial statements (in June of 2014, 2015 and 2016). In addition to the financial audits, the CPB requires a quarterly open meetings compliance report. Pacifica has been on open meetings probation for several years. A blatant flouting of the open meeting regulations, as happened this last evening, would likely jumpstart another year of probation, further delaying any restoration of funding even if the audit backlog should miraculously get caught up. 

The low odds of the audit backlog getting caught up were on display at the October 3 meeting of the national audit committee. In this remarkable clip, audit chair William Heerwagon reports that the FY 2014 audit is not finished or even "close to finished" and there are still several open items, more than 2 years after the end of the fiscal year. Auditor Armanino is still owed money that would need to be paid prior to any audit release. Heerwagon adds that he did not ask the auditor about the one-page recovery plan submitted by ED Brazon on behalf of the board of directors, did not request what items were still open, and would not pass on any questions regarding Pacifica's financial condition from members of the committee. Pacifica's FY 2014 audit, which ED Brazon has claimed repeatedly for months was "finished", was due to the State of California Registry of Charitable Trusts and to the CPB on June 30, 2015 - 16 months ago. It is the latest audit in Pacifica's history. Heerwagon added that he did not "want to know" which items were still open at this last date. 

The previous Pacifica National Board meeting was on September 29. The meeting was scheduled for the purpose of voting on three rather trivial bylaws amendments rushed through earlier this year. The board supported two of them: one whichtweaks the job description for the network's local boards from holding two town hall meetings a year to holding one town hall meeting and one fundraising event a year - and the other changing the delegate election schedule beginning in 2019 from every two out of three years to every other year and lengthening LSB member terms from three years to four years. A third proposed bylaws amendment tweaking the schedule for proposing bylaws amendments failed. The local boards now have two months to consider the two remaining proposed amendments. 

The real fireworks during the meeting happened during the agenda-setting effort when attempts by board members to introduce more substantive items were pushed aside. Houston rep Bill Crosier asked for a report from ED Brazon answering several questions (see below) and of less immediate import, NY rep Cerene Roberts wanted the board to take up the issue of not allowing applications for 2017 affiliate director positions on the board to be vetted for participation in the affiliate program by affiliates director Ursula Rudenberg. Robert's issue was the subject of debate in the long and contentious affiliates committee meeting on September 8th posted earlier as an example of bullying and obstructive maneuvering by board majority members like Roberts and Houston's Adriana Casenave.

A highlight reel of the September 29 national board meeting can be heard here. In it, Crosier asks to have ED Brazon answer the following questions:

1. What's being done about the selling of Archives material on eBay due to non-payment of rent for storage units?
2. How will salaries be paid for national office and PRA employees, plus how will payments be made for medical insurance, election expenses, required legal settlements and other NO expenses?
3. What happens if True Ballot and the election supervisors are not paid and True Ballot refuses to tabulate the ballots? Will we be in court in the near future about that?
4. Will the PNB get the final arbitration report and payment schedule for KPFK employees? Why is this being kept secret from the PNB?
5. What are recent staff changes and upcoming ones?

Crosier's information request was ruled out of order and no information was provided to the board of directors on any of the above inquiries by Brazon. (Update: It has since been reported that True Ballot has not been paid their $15,000 fee for ballot tabulation and other services and that WPFW's election supervisor has not been paid and is owed $2,500 by the DC station) National supervisor Lynne Serpe provided tentative membership numbers that indicated Pacifica's nationwide membership had slid dramatically from 55,000 members nationwide in 2015 to 48,000 in 2016, a one-year decline of 15%. 

Since Lydia Brazon has been interim Executive Director (iED) of Pacifica, the financial, legal, and organizational problems have continued to multiply, and member numbers continue to dwindle. Plans for reversing the acute downward slide are nowhere to be found. Sign the petition to tell the PNB it's time to let Lydia Brazon go as iED.

After the fragile state of Pacifica's endangered archives became a national story in the last month, 19 Pacifica reel-to-reel archival master tapes appeared for sale on Ebay.com in the last two weeks. An anonymous source told the NY-based blogWBAI Now and Then the materials came from a 20-year-old storage locker in Rosemead, CA that had been maintained by the national office and was auctioned off in the last year due to non-payment of the storage fee. Pacifica's income statements indicate the national office stopped paying any off-site storage fees as of 2015.

Los Angeles station KPFK recently lost a large multi-grievance union arbitration with the station's SAG-AFTRA bargaining unit after new manager Leslie Radford imposed unilateral work hour reductions, fired two employees and denied severance benefits. The settlement amount is at least $200,000 and will include back pay to approximately 20 employees whose hours were cut, the re-hire of two fired employees and the payment of at least four previously denied severance packages. ED Brazon has still not shown the final settlement agreement to the board of directors.

At the LA station, Radford's latest problem is described as "bathroom sabotage" with the GM accusing KPFK staff of deliberately jamming the toilets with paper towels. She gave employees a "snow day" while the bathrooms were repaired and then locked. Her memo can be seen here. 

At Houston's KPFT, which has been under significant financial stress, the local board's attention is riveted on majority/minority politics as the year draws to a close. After months of threatened censures and expulsions, the latest focus of the local Siegel/Brazon majority is George Reiter, a tenured physics professor and the 2010 chair of the Pacifica National Board. Reiter faces being forced off the local board for the last six weeks of his term. The charge against Reiter is that he overstayed his term on the board, which of course he did as did much of the board when the Pacifica National board extended terms in May of 2015. Reiter's extension put him over the six year limit if you don't count a 5 month break in 2011. An obscure bylaws amendment passed in 2015 did exactly that, changing the bylaws so breaks don't count. Reiter being forced off for the six weeks between October 12 and December 5 is connected to the majority attempt to fire Duane Bradley, KPFT's manager of more than a decade. The local board majority wishes to bring the matter to a vote before the year runs up and do not perceive Reiter to be a supporter of that action. 

The KPFT local board's expel-Reiter motion, which will come up at an October 12 meeting, proposes replacing Reiter with Robert Gartner, a runner-up from last year's election, even though KPFT completes its 2016 election tomorrow. The proposal continues the schizophrenia of the Siegel/Brazonites, who replaced a departing NY rep with a runner-up from a 2012 election and then within days replaced a departing KPFA rep with a runner-up from the 2015 election then in progress, holding the KPFA seat open to wait for the election results to come in. In this clip, you can hear members of the local Siegel/Brazon faction (Save KPFA) tangling themselves up in knots to justify the different actions in each signal area. They go so far as to say that "there *are* election results in Berkeley: we just don't know what they are yet". Former ED Wilkinson proclaims that "clearly" the seat should not be filled per the older election, but by the recent one in progress. None of the Siegel/Brazonites have spoken up regarding the Reiter situation and of course the board majority is in court in NY spending listener monies to defend filling the NY seat with a runner-up from the old election while a new election was in progress. 

At KPFA in Berkeley, lengthy negotiations with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) to reduce personnel costs for the financially struggling station have been proceeding at a snail's pace since the summer.  GM McCoy has said the goal is $200,000 in annual reductions with a focus on the station's generous health insurance plan which provides full coverage for all employees and dependents who work 18 hours a week -- with no employee contributions and the lowest co-payment rates offered by Kaiser. In a recent wrinkle, it was found that a temporary concession by the union in 2015 to allow KPFA to switch to a health plan with a slightly higher co-payment rate in order to ease financial stress and avoid layoffs, may not be so temporary. The bargaining contract addendum pinned to a wall unsigned at KPFA, which commits the station to return to the highest-priced Kaiser plan, was not signed by then-ED John Proffitt, who indicated that not only had he not signed it, he had not seen it. If not later signed by successor ED Brazon, this may introduce a bit more flexibility into the ongoing negotiations.

Berthold begs...

Many moons ago, when I was appointed Manager of WBAI by Pacifica President Hallock Hoffman, he told me that I would be the face of the station to the outside world. "Don't worry about it, Chris," he said, "just remember that you represent the city's most significant and revered radio station."

I thought of that last night as I heard my current counterpart make two rare appearances on the air. This, I said to myself, is a man into whose hands WBAI has been placed for close to a decade—the personification of the radio station I once spoke of with pride. What happened? 

Here are the two pitches by Berthold Reimers I heard. First, we hear him with his friend, master scammer Tony Bates, a live tag that followed the KPFK originated Jimmy Dore Show. Next, he shows up on Green Street, sounding desperate and incoherent. Bear in mind that this is the man who supposedly meets with the outside world to generate interest and support for the station. 

Lies and secrets...

The deplorable Haskins hash was thrown in the dumpster of delusional doo-doo this morning, but he found time to introduce himself as "the station's chief announcer and your host and radio guide." Then, as I had predicted, we heard yet another airing of Tony Bates' blatantly distorted reiteration of lies told by con artists John Henrik Clark and "Dr. Ben". Blake calls this "thank you gift" Ancient African History Pack, but it is as bogus as the "helix water" he and Kathy Davis once pushed—would it have been so readily dismissed if it really was a "cure"? These people insult and under-estimate intelligence as they aim their scams at an uninformed black audience.

At ten, the also predictable Ron Daniels offered as a premium,"registration" to his forthcoming conference in Newark. His long conmercials for this event are aired with conspicuous frequency on WBAI, but—like his weekly presence—do not benefit the station. Apropos predictions, the failure of this fund drive is almost assured.    

The "lost" KPFA tapes and Folios are still generating discussion and the e-bay seller appears to have made him/herself scarce. There has also been sporadic curiosity as to what became of WBAI's equipment, etc. when Sandy brought about a location change. Yesterday, when R. Paul Martin rumbled a bit in his snake pit forum about Pacifica's avoidable loss of archive recordings, the WBAI situation surfaced in the following exchange:

Frank Lefever: When I was packing and hauling stuff in the big move out of 120 Wall Street, I tried to divert various tapes and old copies of the Folio from "trash" into cartons for "Storage."    

I think we had two off-site storage rooms then, and still have at least one.

What's in them ? Equipment? archival stuff? Nobody knows except Berthold Reimers and Tony Ryan.

The Pacifica person officially designated to make an inventory of our equipment has not been allowed access.

After being elected as a Director on the PNB (last January), I planned to use Director's Right of Inspection to give him access (as my agent). However, we all know what happened back then. None of the WBAI directors have been allowed into PNB meetings nor recognized as directors by the "gang of thieves".

Indigopirate: The pattern of more-than-petty theft is very old indeed.

In late 1976-early 1977, at the time of what was then referred to as ‘the crisis’ the board had come to be dominated and controlled by Percy Sutton’s people, in part by the whole Mao-Maoing the flak catchers bit, witness the gatherings at Margot’s on Central Park West during the installation of Anna Kosof and Pablo Yoruba Guzman as manager and program director respectively.

The initial move was to attempt to cash in by changing WBAI’s format to quasi-commercial, intended to be folded in to Sutton’s Inner City Broadcasting. When the occupation of 359 E 62nd and the attendant media attention made that problematic the church was sold off, the profit from the sale of the church mysteriously disappears (read the records if you know how to read such things) and WBAI moves to 505 8th.

Duh.

Since then it’s simply been a very long irregular and bumpy downhill of internal nonsense, tedious politics, ever-declining audience, and petty thievery of the sort discussed here, plus the presumed factional dream attempt to derive some tidy profit from sale of a frequency or two.

It’s all been such a happy-little-leftist/progressive clusterfuck, though, that it probably all spirals down to nothing much but some distant final whimper.

Whimpering is one of the few things WBAI/Pacifica and its scant remaining audience are any good at.

More power to them then as they dream, snarl, bicker, discuss, debate, temporize, snap, snarl, and drift to that oblivion which lies even beyond their present irrelevance.

Everyone dies, granted, but fools manage to make quite a sad little mess of it all, don’t they?

Frank Lefever: I luuuuv history, especially "insider" history. I was far, far outside at that time (and most of the subsequent years until the "new Pacifica" upheaval coincided neatly with my retirement, allowing me to waste a lot of time on this very special stuff). I was astonished to discover that everybody else already knew each other and had feuds going back decades.

Indigopirate: The truly critical inflection point lies, as I've said, late-1976–early-1977. When Chris Albertson left WBAI/Pacifica for the BBC there were some capable managers who followed, eg, Ed Goodman, and some who, like Larry Josephson were truly and intelligently dedicated to Pacifica's foundational ideals but far-from-ideal in the management talent category, but on the whole WBAI continued to represent a very rich mix of arts and politics, and was widely known and well-regarded. Listenership declined from its maximum of the late-1960s, but was still substantial, loyal, and robust.

If you look at the archived folios from this period you see on the whole a very rich mix of programming, much of it produced by truly talented and dedicated people.

After 'the crisis' of late-1976–early-1977, however, there was a swift exodus of major talent from the station as it became dedicated to its small world of increasingly slanted and strident political advocacy – Samori, for example, censored reporters routinely, and dismissed them if they didn't follow the 'proper' line in their coverage.

It's useful to bear in mind that this transition came about not because of listener input of any sort, but because of WBAI and Pacifica board decisions which imposed their revisionist narrowly-political stridently leftist-rebranded-as-'progressive' definitions of Pacifica's ideals and purpose upon the station(s). Indeed, you have no idea how frequently I heard the increasingly frustrated, angry, and often bitter complaints of listeners at this time as the number of listener-supporters rapidly declined – yet, of course, the bush-league wannabe-revolutionary political types now in charge either ignored or sneered in contempt at such 'bourgeois' sensibilities – 'bourgeois' being applied by the likes of a Samori Marksman to anyone not supportive of repressive left-wing-Marxist authoritarian/tyrannical/totalitarian regimes.

The result was the long, long slide and decline to self-marginalization and absolute irrelevance to anyone other than the small circle of stakeholders immediately and directly involved.

Bits and Pieces

Sometimes I come across things that relate to Pacifica/WBAI and thus may be of interest, perhaps even significance, but not sufficiently earthshaking to warrant a featured piece. Here are some current items:

Chair Pro Tem Pauline Park posts that John Brinkley, a JUC member of the WBAI LSB, submitted his resignation yesterday. He appears to have been somewhat rushed, which is sure to generate speculation as to his reason for stepping down.

Dear Pauline,

This is a follow-up to the telephone conversation earlier this week. Unfortunately at this time, I must immediately resign my seat on the WBAI LSB.

Regretfully,

John Brinkley 

You may have noticed that Bob Fass isn't doing his show live these days. The person who introduces the substituted reruns only gives a vague explanation, telling us that Bob will be back but not why he is absent. To allay rumors, I can tell you that Bob has had a pacemaker installed and is now in rehabilitation. All apparently went well and we wish him a speedy recovery.

The Pacifica Archive tapes currently spotted on e-bay are still the subject of contention. Some are suggesting that the seller—who purchased them from a storage company—hasn't the right to put them up for sale, but Pacifica lost ownership when it failed to meet its contractual rental obligations. Thus the fault lies with the Pacifica National office. Of real concern is the possibility of valuable as yet digitized aural documents becoming lost forever. There is no excuse for such neglect, but it reflects the lack of responsibility that continues to prevail within Pacifica.

With the departure of CFO Sam Agarwal, Pacifica finds itself in a deep financial crisis without a CFO—or does it? It has been reported that his predecessor, the controversial Raul Salvador, who abruptly departed last year and rode into the sunset trailing a cloud of questionable activity, is back in some capacity—perhaps his old position? This has not been officially announced, so suspicion is high.

Yesterday, José Feliciano hosted the first of what is scheduled to be his regular show, the Friday morning 6 to 8 slot. As one reasonably expected, it was a a bit of a self-love fest with Feliciano more or less revisiting the kind of blather he so glibly spews. Still, he offers relief from the unimaginative nonsense Haskins has been delivering for a couple of years, including the embarrassing slave girl series of ill-produced, inept readings and the tired, irrelevant "this day in history" data he digs up.

It looks as if Haskins is being eased off that morning slot. He is still heard with Pamela Brown, another amateur who seems destined to remain clueless, and he continues to run the audio panel, though not too well. To compensate for the diminished role, he uses station breaks to repeat his name and tag himself as "chief engineer" and "program guide". 

Finally, don't be surprised if Tony Bates moves back in and becomes involved in programming again. Reimers is featuring him prominently in the upcoming (but already started) fund drive, so expect to hear more greatly distorted black history and a bogus "cure" or two for the next four or five weeks.