Bottled solution?

Rolled up and perhaps fated for the city dump, the curious-looking bottle had not been in the water long when a short December gust sent it to an edge of the Loch, in Northwest Central Park. A lone dog—or was it a wolf?—retrieved it, but soon let it go at the park's 103rd Street entrance. There, moments later, a curious passerby happened upon it, pulled the cork, unfurled the note, and read this message from a sly indigopirate...

  

A Modest Proposal

Or a Hail Mary Pass, if you prefer. In any event, a modest proposal in the ironic yet non-Swiftian sense.

The iCE and the CFO should file for Ch 11, with or without board approval, and should do so swiftly, without warning.

That will throw the matter before the court.

Once before the court you’re looking at a serious fight, and there will be accompanying serious visibility and publicity given Pacifica’s history and present state.

These are helpful under present circumstances and with the goals here in mind.

The immediate goal is to present the court with a credible survival and transition-to-viability plan along the lines specified in the corporate charter, which was abandoned long ago with the support of a number of previous and existing boards, requiring the court to oversee the replacement of the existing board and structure, the argument being as follows: The existing ‘mission’ as defined by the existing board not only violates the corporation’s charter, but is also demonstrably catastrophically dysfunctional and equally demonstrably catastrophically endangers the ability of Pacifica to fully repay its financial obligations. Any attempt to seek protection or partial repayment within the existing structure and the abandonment of the corporate charter is clearly doomed to fail, leaving debts unpaid. If there is to be full repayment of creditors it requires replacement of the existing board, with a trustee or trustees overseeing that transition, to return to an organization dedicated to its stated, chartered purpose and mission, not the long-failing abandonment and betrayal of that chartered purpose, which has led to the present condition.

Therefore, we seek authority to replace the existing board, in full, with trustees appointed by the court in the interim, relying on expert advice from university media and other departments reflecting the originally defined Pacifica purpose.

This represents the only realistic possibility of repaying existing and presently contractually obligated future financial obligations and will in so doing also represent a return and restoration to the specified organizational goals and purposes.

We will actively seek, under trustee(s) supervision and authority, to fully and frankly communicate and cooperate with those organizations, entities, and/or individuals to whom Pacifica is indebted, our primary goal being full repayment of all debts presently existing and those for which Pacifica is presently contractually obligated for future payment.

We will actively seek any and all available external resources and support in any and all practical and possible forms, under the supervision of the trustee or trustees to return to a contemporary version of the chartered purposes of Pacifica, which were demonstrably successful in the organization’s first years preceding the abandonment of those stated, specified chartered purposes.

We therefore argue that such trustee-supervised board replacement and accompanying return to a contemporary form of the chartered purposes is far and away the best chance for full payment of debts owed and obligated.

It represents a challenge, but it is practical, possible, and with court support has a high probability of satisfying the organization’s financial obligations.

We are fully committed, with court approval, to making this happen, full repayment being our first, and our primary goal.

If this proposal does not meet the creditors’ and the court’s approval, we then seek an orderly dissolution of Pacifica so as to satisfy at least in part to the extent possible Pacifica’s financial obligations.

~ ‘indigopirate’

Breaking the silence?

TRANSMITTER FIX UPDATE

LATEST UPDATE: It's spewing again!

The following was just received from an anonymous source:

Transmitter update 12/21 PM

Someone has been reading the regs at the FCC website. Please see below. A transmitter update from Tony Ryan. In part. . .

"The Circuit Board has been delivered!

Jake Glanz is working on the installation(as we speak), hopefully we will be UP(few hours) soon if all tests go well.

NO ETA yet...

I spoke to Berthold yesterday about filing a STA(Special Temporary Authority) FORM.

We have been down(six days) since Saturday(12-16-17) so we still have several 
more days for concern.

"When a broadcast station(WBAI) cannot operate in accordance with its license due to equipment failure, damage to licensed transmission systems, or other causes, the station may request an STA. Section 73.1635 of the rules governs STA operation; other related rule parts are 73.1680 (emergency antennas); 73.1560 (reduced power); 73.62 (AM directional antennas) 73.1740 (reduced hours). "

Included in this email are the FCC GUIDELINES regarding the "SILENT STATION"(downtime) requirements. 

https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/special-temporary-authority

Berthold will request the Pacifica attorney to prepare a letter of intent to
the FCC in case this goes past the required filing time..." 

Will the FCC give them slack? Time will tell.

Meanwhile, at KPFA....

These are excerpted from the archived audio of the KPFA LSB Meeting of December 16, 2017.

The report from the KPFA members of the Pacifica National Board to the KPFA Local Station Board is, unsurprisingly, dire. They note that seizures and/or liens are now imminent across the network. They further note that any hoped for bridge loan is now at least forty-five days away, and that the only option for a WBAI signal swap would reduce its signal coverage to only one-third of Manhattan. The clear consensus is that it’s necessary to prepare to file for Chapter 11. It’s further noted that thus far the Pacifica National Board has refused to authorize such preparation and/or filing.

I’m providing two audio clips. The first, the shorter of the two, contains the presentation to the KPFA LSB, and the longer of the two contains that presentation, plus the following Q&A. The clips are complete as indicated and contain only a very few very slight cosmetic edits which have no effect on content or context.

~ ‘indigopirate’

The shorter clip            The full meeting

Message from the iED

I sent this to PNB and LSB members, but we all need to understand these issues. I'm sorry I get long winded, but this is important and the details are important.

Bill

Subject:	What the PNB and LSBs really need to do
Date:	Thu, 21 Dec 2017 04:05:34 -0600

PNB Directors and other LSB members, (Directors and LSB chairs, please forward to your LSBs),

We really need your help - and we need you to understand your responsibilities - especially ones having to do with finances.

While it seems popular in Pacifica to blame others, to make excuses, and to spend time fighting with each other, you need to understand that as Board members, we/you have an obligation to help with station fundraising, and to make sure your station pays ALL (not just some) of its financial obligations. 

In fund drives, we talk about what would happen if you didn't pay your personal bills. Creditors would be more than unhappy - they'd take action to collect the money or have more adverse consequences.

But all of our stations need to pay all their bills, all the time, including ones to fund the National Office, which we all depend on.  We need ALL of you to help your station to get the revenues needed, and to control expenses, so we can keep the N.O. going so it can do its critically-needed work, just as your station needs funds to keep it going and keep its valuable programming on the air. And because we've been running deficits for many years, we have to do more than just break even - we have to figure out how to pay off the huge debt that we have, that is smothering us, that's driving away major donors, and scaring away those who may give us grants.

I realize there's great concern about the ESRT judgment, how to pay it, how to pay for our pensions, what ESRT will do if we continue to not pay anything on the tower lease (remember we've been paying nothing since June), and of course about the millions of dollars of other debt that we have. The judgment is both urgent and important.

But there's more to worry about - other very big and important matters.

I'm very concerned, as I hope you are, about the slow progress on our audits. Remember the warning letter that Pacifica got last winter, about losing our tax exemption if we did not get the audits done very soon? By having a special one-day fundraiser (that netted about $200K) and putting a lot of effort into it, we got the FY2015 audit done before the AG's extended deadline in August.  But it took a lot of work because there was so much catching up to do from neglect from prior years, and since that the NO has devoted a lot of time preparing materials for our 403(b) and retirement plan audits, because those had not been audited in several years and Pacifica also has not put any money into the retirement plan for several years - it's seriously delinquent. But after the NY judge told everyone he was awarding ESRT $1.8 million plus interest & attorneys fees, even that audit work had to be put aside when the PNB authorized preparations for bankruptcy. Then that was put aside when the PNB rescinded its motion on bankruptcy preparations, and the NO staff shifted its focus back to other matters.

While all this has been happening, our very small NO staff also has to handle all its regular, ongoing business, that cannot be stopped: payroll, HR issues, other personnel issues, pension fund issues and questions (lots of them after people found out about the years of non-funding), insurance (of various kinds), regular accounting for budgets/revenues/expenses, generation of various reports, many wire transfers between bank accounts within Pacifica each month (for payroll, health insurance, moving funds to cover shortfalls in some stations, etc.), keeping track of contracts, paying expenses not handled by the stations (including payment plans to some creditors, legal/FCC/compliance needs), and new things that seem to come up every week.

So we may lose our tax exemption for real within just a few months, if we can't get the resources needed to do all the above including what it takes to get our audits going full speed. And that will have disastrous consequences for our stations - even assuming we get past the ESRT judgment crisis.

People from all over Pacifica naturally expect prompt responses from the National Office. Now we need to again get back to preparations for bankruptcy (including updating everything that was done in October but then put on hold), even though the PNB has not authorized actual filing of bankruptcy, while we try to see if we can pay ESRT's judgment via a loan. 

Our CFO has said he CANNOT do all that's needed, with the inadequate resources that the N.O. is getting from the stations. We, as PNB and LSB members, have an obligation to make sure that not just our stations, but also the National Office, gets what it needs. It needs enough support so it can perform the many essential functions that our whole Foundation must have to survive.  We/you need to help our stations so they can pay their obligations, including to the N.O.

In fact, the National Office has been under-funded and under-staffed for years. It takes full-time, experienced and dedicated people to do the work. Your station needs such people - so does the N.O. And that takes money. Our dedicated NO staff have been putting in a lot of work this year to try to catch up, but they can't do it all with the resources they have while also doing all the regular/current work, much less take on additional tasks.

If we want to keep our tax exemption, so we can continue to get donations, we need to get the audits done. Very soon. We also need them done to have a chance at getting CPB funding again, which used to provide almost a million dollars a year. But we need all that other work done, too. We can't keep diverting our few people from one urgent project to another, leaving one thing undone so we can work on the emergency of the week all the time.

Several of our stations are making regular Central Services payments - these are very critical to fund N.O. operations. But one station rarely pays its CS obligations and sometimes even needs loans from the NO to cover its own shortfalls, and another station is doing better than previously but still can't be depended on to pay CS every month.

We also have debt - a lot of debt (close to $8 million including what we owe ESRT), plus another two and a half years of those awful tower lease payments (about $2 million dollars worth- for the Empire State Building). We have to develop a way of paying all that. We can't keep kicking the can down the road - that's how we got into the terrible mess we're in now.

I hope you all get to enjoy the holidays. But while we're in the giving season, I hope you'll remember that your station, and Pacifica, needs you, your dollars, and your time and energy, focused in a positive direction to help us rescue this precious Foundation that Lew Hill and his friends established so many years ago.  Will we be the ones people will remember, who fiddled (and fought with each other) while Rome burned? Or will we do what we need to do, what our obligations as board members require us to do, and make sure our station and the National Office and all of our operations get the resources they need? If those of us on our boards can't figure out how to work together and save this Foundation, what's the point of being on the board?

This is about the survival of Pacifica. I hope you will take it seriously. I sure do.

Bill

William G. (Bill) Crosier

Bates eliminates

Toodle-oo to Mikie's Morning Doo

Haskins just ended his embarrassing Thursday morning show with a welcomed, not-so-graceful announcement—in essence: the gradual removal of his nonsense is continuing and he will no longer have that morning slot. This leaves him on the air for two of his original five days, Monday and Tuesday. Let's hope Bates—who called today's shot—keeps peeling away at such incompetence and that he soon realizes that he himself is way overdue for banishment.

As you probably know, the station has been off the air for a few days as it allegedly awaits delivery of a new circuit board. Well, within five minutes of Haskins' dismissal, WBAI went totally silent—as I write this, there is not even a hum on the stream. Could be a fortuitous coincidence, but we know that the Board moves in mysterious ways.

Enjoy the sound of silence... keep tuned.