The results came out a day late – obviously without either an apology or explanation from the National Elections Supervisor, Renée ‘you haven’t seen me, right?’ Peñaloza.
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This was during the West Coast morning of Th12Oct – the sixth day of the genocidal onslaught upon Palestinians in Gaza, wrought by the Jewish-Israeli supremacist massacre machine, a state apparatus spawned since 1882 by a European colonisation in Asia, a colonisation by Jewish-Europeans enacting an emigratory nationalist ideology, Zionism, setting up colonies to this very day in a sliver of south-west Asia, Ottomanised Palestine.
For a political culture & leadership that prides itself in entrenching & empowering the state of the Jews (what Herzl termed der Judenstaat – mistranslated as ‘the Jewish state’: that’s der jüdische Staat), for a political culture & leadership that claims to speak on behalf of all Jews, the current unleashing of both genocide & sociéticide is a clear declaration to the world that this is what their idea of Jewish civilisation looks like, what their idea of Jewish ethics smells like.
For the Jewish-Israeli supremacists & their supporters: Jewish civilisation & the Gaza murder-box.
For the Jewish-Israeli supremacists & their supporters: Jewish ethics & the Gaza murder-box.
Let’s be clear: the Jewish-Israeli supremacists & their supporters are showing the world, unequivocally, that for them this is what justice – for them, Jew justice – looks like.
For them, this is Jew justice.
For ever more, they have gouged into the world their stark proclamation: Jew justice = the Gaza murder-box.
As such, the obscenity we are witnessing is the gravest insult to the memory of all those Jewish-Europeans who were murdered in the fascist European judeocide, known in Yiddish as Khurbn (‘destruction’, a destruction principally of the society of Yiddishland). The obscenity, a grave insult to the fighters of the Warsaw ghetto uprising – the Bundists & other Marxists – who battled in the ruins being created all around them, getting driven down into the sewers. Ruins. Ruins, like those being created at this very moment.
“Levy was a Senior Advisor in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and to Justice Minister Yossi Beilin during the Government of Ehud Barak (1999-2001). He was a member of the official Israeli delegation to the Israel/Palestine peace talks at Taba under Barak and at Oslo B under Yitzhak Rabin (1994-95)” – https://www.usmep.us/daniel-levy/
Raz Segal, another wrong kind of Jew, & an Israeli in exile, F13Oct [this, & the next, are highly worthy updated additions]: ‘A textbook case of genocide. Israel has been explicit about what it’s carrying out in Gaza. Why isn’t the world listening?’, Jewish Currents, F13Oct, https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide.
The crime of genocide has quite a broad legal meaning: murdering people is only one of the five ways of genociding (Article 2 of the Genocide Convention; first signed 9Dec1948, effective 12Jan1951); & the Srebrenica convictions in 2004 show that what is readily understood as a massacre, perhaps 8 372 people, was judged in law as a genocide – https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention, & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre.
Akiva Orr, yet another wrong kind of Jew, an Israeli citizen, now sadly dead, c. 2008 explaining brilliantly that he’s not pro-Palestinian because they’re Palestinian but because they’re oppressed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNDc8tzC5YM (3:13).
Orr & Moshe Machover were amongst the founders of Matzpen (Hebrew for ‘compass’), to be joined by Jabra Nicola. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aki_Orr
Khurbn – it being an insult to use a word drawn from other than the native tongue of the great majority of the victims, words such as the Hebrew shoah or the English holocaust, which itself has the highly unfortunate religious meanings of ‘willing sacrifice’, & ‘a whole burning’.
Besides genocide, you can always drive them out, as in 1947-1949. Machover, Tel Aviv born, has warned, for many years, that the Jewish-Israeli state managers – the civil servants & politicians – keep making plans to drive Palestinians out of Palestine, the best opportunity being a regional crisis. And Nur Masalha, a Palestinian-Israeli, has documented how integral expulsion has been to Zionist thinking since 1882 – even being considered when Israel bloodily occupied Gaza, 1Nov1956-7Mar1957, during the Suez Crisis. Integral: no surprise when you’re trying to set up home in someone else’s living room.
This post has to be made coz the NES’ webpage is effectively unreadable; in a few days she might provide a neat table of those elected, but don’t hold your breath. That’ll probably be in her final report – the first one, too (sic). [UPDATE: unknowingly, whilst this post was being written, the NES improved things a lot, putting the 10 final rounds very near the top of the webpage. C’est la vie.]
For those wanting to check the below against the NES’ info, given for your convenience, whilst you scroll, & scroll, & scroll, & scroll, is the ’round’ # of the final transfer of ballots.
If g-d allows, some notes will be added, on who wasn’t elected, &, more importantly, what gains the breakers made – not least in tightening their grip on the KPFK LSB, perhaps slipping into all four director seats sleepwalker pairs of pyjamas: in controlling three LSB’s, if they get to control the PNB (they’ll need a “majority of all Directors” – per by-law Article 17, Section 1(B)(2)(i), https://pacifica.org/indexed_bylaws/art17sec1.html), then the breakers in 2024 will be able to write whatever by-laws they want that don’t require a full-membership vote requiring a split between the two member classes.
If the breakers judge that the PNB is split 11-11, then they may push to create an at-large director, asmentioned before by this blog, securing a 12-11 majority. This strange beast requires PNB approval to start the electoral process, then nominations by 15Feb from a “majority vote of the Delegates” of at least three LSB’s, before going back to the PNB for decision – with the affiliate directors stripped of a vote (a’ha) … per bylaw 5/5, https://pacifica.org/indexed_bylaws/art5sec5.html.
And . . . then there’s the small matter of Good Olde ‘BAI . . . be it outsourcing programming (chopping staff-members, even to the point that the breakers can win both member class referenda on by-law amendments), . . . or the breakers having already lined up a broadcasting licence swap (although it’s already expired, on 1June2022, https://publicfiles.fcc.gov/fm-profile/wbai, with FCC deigning to grant a temporary permission).
And (a) with no kind of planever being cited by Executive Director Wells (sic), or by a manager of the 7 other operating units (sic), & (b) no actionablemonthly management account statements (namely, net income, cashflow forecast, balance sheet), in being materially accurate & timely (within 3-4 calendar days of mth-end, or at worst 7-10 calendar days – not over 3mths late), this necessarily means that each of the 8 operating units, & so Pacifica as a whole, is financially flying blind. Given the facts, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
So what does all the busyness, all the firefighting amount to, when the fiefdoms reign supreme, because the ED isn’t controlled by the directors, & the station managers aren’t controlled by the ED? What do we have? . . . deckchairs . . . Titanic . . .
Those elected:
KPFA listener-delegates (Round 15):
Sharon Adams, Emma Auer, Cheryl Davila, Michael Cheng, Lily Kimura, Elizabeth Milos, Candice Schott, Mark Van Landuyt, Steve Zeltzer
… not elected: Carlos Kohan …
KPFA staff-delegates (R5):
Philip Maldari, Darlene Pagano, Richard Wolinsky
… not elected: Anthony Fest …
KPFK listener-delegates (R27):
Tatanka Bricca, Rachel Bruhnke, Ace Estwick, Aryana Gladney, Jan Goodman, Ralph Hawkins, Evelia Jones, Robert Payne, Harvey Wasserman
… The French Revolution moment: Beth ‘Queen Liz III’ Gunten got the chop in R19 – the people have spoken …
… also not elected: Doug Barnett, Nancy Pearlman, incumbent Ruth Strauss …
KPFK staff-delegates (R5):
Rodrigo Argueta Vargas, Wendell Handy, Oscar Ulloa
KPFT listener-delegates (R7):
Adriana Casenave, Elayne Duncan, Lynden Foley, Rob Lee, Cheryl Lynn, Marianne Martinez, Torry Mercer, Debbie Smith, Richard Uzzell
KPFT staff-delegates (R4):
Mike Lewis, Stuart Nance, Rick Norris
WPFW listener-delegates (R11):
Karen Briggs, Wayne Bruce, Michael Byfield, Vanessa Dixon-Briggs, Victoria Gass, Robert Gordon, Tony Leon, Mariah McClain, Dennis Williams
… not elected: director sleepwalker Donna Grimes …
WPFW staff-delegates (R3):
Verna Avery-Brown, Ambrose Lane (the son), Ronald Pinchback
WBAI listener-delegates (R23):
Gail Bey, Elliot Crown, Joan De Lorenzo, Paul DeRienzo, Eleanor Forman, Gloria Guillo, Mark Miller, Alejandrina Murphy, Cerene Roberts
… not elected: former director sleepwalker Carolyn Birden, incumbent Jack DePalma, busy cttee/working group attendee Bruce Greif, CAB Chair Neale Vos, LSB Secretary Kay ‘somehow I’m just unable to get the last 7 LSB audios posted at kpftx.org’ Williams …
WBAI staff-delegates (R7):
Simon Fitzgerald, Jim Freund, Sally Gellert
… not elected: former director sleepwalker Ralph Poynter …
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[NOTE: the list below will be completed by Day X of the Gaza Genocide/Sociéticide. Meanwhile, this is worth reading, the plan of the criminal organisation, known as the Israeli government, disclosed for the first time on F20Oct by Attack Minister Gallant: “'[t]he third step will be […] the removal of Israel’s responsibility for day-to-day life in the Gaza Strip'”, made in his address to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Cttee – https://www.timesofisrael.com/gallant-says-after-hamas-vanquished-israel-will-seek-new-security-regime-in-gaza/.]
Here’s a list of the departing squatters, due to leave their LSB in Dec & the PNB in Jan, illegally plonked on their seats in virtue of the 20Oct2022 PNB resolution extending their uninterrupted time as a delegate beyond 6yrs (no pagination, but pp. 3-5 of the PDF) – https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/221020/221020_8138_minutes.pdf:
For a few months now, Executive Director Stephanie ‘The Breeze’ Wells has been arguing for Pacifica to change the structure of how it banks. According to WBAI Treasurer R Paul ‘I do admin – don’t expect more’ Martin (staff-delegate),
“[t]he executive director has been talking about having all Pacifica bank accounts in one banking chain. And in my opinion, it looks to me like that bank is going to be the Bank of America […] not everybody is thrilled with the idea of all Pacifica accounts being in Bank of America”
Ok, so what’s wrong with Bank of America? Not all motherhood & apple pie? Well, the latest report of the ongoing The Great Green Investment Investigation was published just a few days after R Paul spoke. Not taking things at face value, it examines how fossil-fuel companies are able to expand their operations largely by selling debt in the form of corporate bonds. Bonds? This is another world, on a scale that’s breathtaking. Never mentioned by politicians, hardly ever by mainstream media, “the bond market is huge: in 2021, the value of bond investments worldwide was 119 trillion dollars. That is more than the gross world product (GWP) for that year” – this illustrating the difference between annual income & cumulative net income (usually called wealth).
A single segment of this market deals with bonds issued on behalf of the fossil-fuel expanders. Since the Dec2015 signing of the Paris Agreement on climate, bonds have raised more than $1tn to finance the owners’ extension of the worldwide fossil-fuel infrastructure. This alone is a huge number: a thousand billion, so 1 000 000 000 000, & each one a $, enough to give $125 to everyone on Earth. This is the scale of this obdurate structure spanning the globe, allowing even more fossil fuels to be burnt, with the pollutant greenhouse gas emissions trapping heat within the atmosphere, raising surface temperature. (Burning is simple: for oil & coal, C + O2 = CO2; & for ‘natural gas’, which is actually 70-90% methane (sic), & ~95% when refined for use, it’s CH4 + 2O2 = CO2 + 2H2O.)
The methodology note of GGII gives specifics of how they analysed fossil-fuel corporate bonds: “[w]e took into account all bonds issued from January 2016 to 8 June 2023 and ended up with 4 550 active bonds. Some of these bonds were issued by fossil fuel companies that are no longer expanding their fossil operations, in line with climate science [more to the point, what’s needed are deep cuts in supply]. To exclude these, we made use of research done by Urgewald. […] As a final step, we excluded green bonds issued by fossil fuel companies. […] We ended up with a final selection of 1 666 bonds, totalling to 1 011 billion euros. For all of these bonds we collected information from Bloomberg about the parties involved in the issuance process such as banks and law firms. This included their respective roles, such as ‘underwriter’, ‘bookrunner’, ‘paying agent’ and ‘legal adviser’.” – ‘Fossil finance: methodology’, https://www.ftm.eu/ggii-2-fossil-finance (site provides no sharing link, so it’s in the GGII folder, https://mega.nz/folder/pQEQnLbR#40i5Vhc3mYgbJFqxrwaQng)
. . . pic courtesy of Leon de Korte/Follow the Money . . .
Now the mention of that venerable institution, Bank of America:
“[…] The Great Green Investment Investigation found more than 1 600 fossil fuel bonds issued since the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement [signed Dec2015; effective 4Nov2016 – as if that matters]. The combined value is over a trillion (thousand billion) euros [€ 1 = USD 1.055, $1 + 5½¢]. Among them are bonds from fossil fuel giants like Shell, BP and Total, state-owned companies like Saudi Aramco, Gazprom and Rosneft, and companies active in controversial forms of oil and gas extraction, for example, in the Arctic and the US shale gas sector.
The difference between words and deeds
“The issuing of bonds is an increasingly important source of financing for fossil fuel companies. But those companies cannot do it on their own. It is a complex process that requires the help of financial specialists.
“Because of their role as facilitators, The Great Green Investment Investigation also mapped the financial service providers involved in fossil fuel bonds. It clarifies who exactly contributed to the creation of each bond.
“The leading banks in this sector are American: JP Morgan, Citi and Bank of America all helped fossil fuel companies raise over 500 billion euros.”
So what are the directors sleepwalkers to do, the guardians of Pacifica’s ethical & moral integrity? ED Steph ‘The Breeze’ is obviously blasé about these things – after all, she keeps talking about Pacifica as “the company”. Well, we’re not quite there, despite the best efforts of Ian Masters, & his own facilitators, such as KPFA station manager Antonio ‘I used to be a professional dancer, I’ll have you know’ Ortiz.
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Whilst they ponder, let’s consider further.
Like trying to avoid a plan for Pacifica, fossil-fuel burning is a practical matter. Together with methane venting (at extraction sites) & methane leaks (at extraction sites, & during distribution), the fossil-fuel system currently causes ~71% of the warming effect of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, excluding land-use change.
– Calculation of the ~71% figure, one that very rarely appears, even in the scientific & campaign discourses: all per p. 14, re warming from anthropogenic GHG, the split in 2019 was carbon dioxide 73%, methane 19%, nitrous oxide 5%, fluorinated gases 3% (CO2, CH4, N2O, F-gases) … & the responsibility of the fossil-fuel system, its GHG emissions = CO2 + CH4 + N2O + F-gases = (73 x 0.88) + (19 x 0.31) + (5 x 0.18) + (3 x 0) = 64.24 + 5.89 + 0.9 = 71.03% of the total (2020 fossil-fuel data, which dipped during this first COVID-19 pandemic year – deflating this 71%).
– PBL produces excellent reports, & is highly unusual in choosing not to push talk of CO2, but instead focuses on total GHG emissions. Begs the Q, why isn’t this the norm for all state bodies that claim to be scientific?
– PBL: Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving – literal translation, ‘Planning Office for the Environment’, but it chooses ‘PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency’, betraying the stray from a social democratic consensus.
– A slightly different gas split is given for 2022 by EDGAR: CO2 71.6%, CH4 21.0%, N2O 4.8%, F-gases 2.6%. EDGAR: Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research, maintained by the Joint Research Centre, the “science and knowledge service” of the European Commission, the administration of the European Union. To JRC’s great credit, it has made 4 of its last 7 annual reports re GHG, not just CO2 – https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/booklet/GHG_emissions_of_all_world_countries_booklet_2023report.pdf (8Sep2023).
The most outspoken conventional leader of world capitalist society is António Guterres, 74, head of the UN, its secretary-general. The next is Fatih Birol, 65, head of the IEA, the International Energy Agency, its executive director. (It’s an inter-governmental body of the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development, set up immediately after the 1973 oil price shock.) The cited GGII report gives typical quotes from these spokespeople, vividly capturing the urgency:
Guterres: “Investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness“, 2022 . . .
Birol: “If governments are serious about the climate crisis, there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal, [from] now – from this year“, 2021 (sic)
Ties Joosten, Yara van Heugten, & Remy Koens, ‘How banks helped the fossil fuel industry raise more than a trillion euros’, Tu26Sep2023 (emphases added) – links above; the authors don’t give links to the originals, but Guterres, 4Apr2022, is https://press.un.org/en/2022/sgsm21228.doc.htm, & Birol, 18May2021, is https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/18/no-new-investment-in-fossil-fuels-demands-top-energy-economist (this shows the report got its quote wrong: The Guardian says “from now”, whereas they had “starting now”). [UPDATE: Birol was on CNN, Su1Oct2023 – so ‘interviewed’ by Fareed Zakaria. Marshmallowball questions – no surprise. But, sadly, Birol chose not to take the opportunity to seize the agenda – maybe someone’s had a word.]
The urgency: will Pacifica respect this, doing whatever it can, however minuscule? The directors sleepwalkers may not have adopted policy for Pacifica with even the palest shade of ‘green’, but will they instruct ED Wells to pay bank fees to a principal enabler of fossil-fuel burning?
Is this what Pacifica is all about?
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What is to be done? After all, in a world sustained by capitalist production, are there any banks with clean hands? This is one reason why credit unions have been advocated within Pacifica, by peeps such as Darryl McPherson (WBAI listener-member) & Rachel Barr (WBAI listener-delegate). But are they able to satisfy the banking needs of Pacifica, all of them? The matter hasn’t been broached at the highest level, & no director sleepwalker has even asked publicly whether there are possibilities outside the sectors of either big or small banking capital. No surprise there.
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All this leaves the question: what’s Pacifica about, words or deeds?
[This 14Sep2023 temporary post has been updated in parts, recognising that all 10 quora were met by the planned close of polls, Sa30Sep.
[Note, National Elections Supervisor Renée ‘safe pair of hands’ Peñalozaclosed these polls one hour early, at midnight EDT, Sa30Sep. Her timetable, on the NES’ homepage, https://elections.pacifica.org, says “September 30[:] Voting Phase Closes at 11:59 PM EST” (bold added). Renée, unfortunately, has been in winter time for quite a while now (hope she doesn’t file an unsafe workplace suit), having made this mistake x3 before (the 2020 & 2021 by-laws referenda, & the 2021 delegates’ pseudo-elections) – and none of the 120 Pacifica delegates, neither then nor now, has publicly pointed out this recurring error. Minions from PacificaWatch have, but what’s new?]
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Have peeps been deluded into thinking that the NES’ website is giving the total number of votes cast, & the numbers needed for quora?
After 2wks of voting, the NES posted a voting counter, finally disclosing some info on the ballots cast (to date?) & the membership (at 30June2023). And on 14Sep2023, the NES finally disclosed the 10-way station split, re both membership & ballots cast. However, the info, on the NES’ homepage, is ambiguous – and the NES has said nothing to avoid this. There are question marks concerning both the counter & the table. [UPDATE: there ended up being 7 tables – all at https://mega.nz/folder/8AlC1bpb#kYZ1wmvc-nr4FIv1kW5a1w.]Two obvious questions: is it a real-time counter? do the counter & table include the cast paper ballots?
The counter: it’s provided by the “ElectionBuddy online voting system”, so how can the cast paper ballots be included?
ElectionBuddy, Inc. say, not surprisingly given the digitising of RealWorld, “we created an online election system with [sic] that could be accessed affordably, using desktop computer, laptop, smartphone or tablet […] Our cloud based voting platform […] our ElectionBuddy online voting system”. So no murdered trees.
Monitoring the counter shows that it usually increases in dribs & drabs, but come Monday, & even Tuesday, there seem to be batch-entries, of a hundred or so. A real-time counter? Almost certainly not.
The table: does it include the paper ballots cast? Presumably, but the NES doesn’t say so. But then at no time has the NES shown that she’s on top of the paper ballots, even doing basics, such as maintaining public counters on the split between online & paper ballots cast, & on the # of paper ballots requested, approved, & sent out. Doing so would at least give the right impression –
but that’s dangerous: as PacificaWatch has always stressed, disclosure allows accountability, & that exposes decision-makers & officeholders to scrutiny, significantly reducing their control of the situation.
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It’s no surprise that none of the 120 Pacifica delegates has publicly asked these questions.
. . . the plebs finally get thrown some crumbs: after 8wks (sic), the # of Pacifica members; & after 2wks, how many have voted online (ElectionBuddy Inc.’s “online voting system”, by definition, excludes the paper ballots cast – a # never disclosed by the NES, & a deficiency of the NES’ website never acknowledged publicly by any of the automatons of the PNB Elections Cttee or the sleepwalkers of the PNB) –https://elections.pacifica.org (counter installed in the 3rd week of voting, towards the start of week-commencing M28Aug; this screenshot, early F1Sep2023, EDT), & https://electionbuddy.com/about/ . . .
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[UPDATE: the original title, & below calculations, have been changed coz National Elections Supervisor Renée ‘safe pair of hands’ Peñaloza keeps changing the total membership at 30June2023, the record date of the delegates’ pseudo-elections. Presumably coz a few well-motivated peeps, who haven’t received their ballot, have presented evidence of their membership – peeps such as directors sleepwalkers Teresa ‘I’m so vicious I can slice you with my eyes, & as I’m so rich I shall mock you for being so poor’ Allen (KPFT listener-delegate), Adriana ‘point of point, madam Chair’ Casenave (KPFT listener-delegate) & Vanessa ‘the lists aren’t fit for purpose, but what can I do, I’m only a director’ Dixon-Briggs (WPFW listener-delegate), the last two having even just gone thru the process of being certified by the NES as candidates (sic). This month, the size of the electorate (& so the membership) given by the ElectionBuddy counter has changed at least 15 times: moving from 31 146 (F1Sep, if not a few days earlier) thru ‘148 (5Sep, EDT), ‘168 (7Sep), ‘170 (9Sep), ‘195 (14Sep), ‘201 (19Sep), ‘203 (20Sep), ‘215 (22Sep), ‘229 (27Sep), ‘235 (29Sep), ‘249 (30Sep), ‘248 (30Sep), ‘247 (30Sep), ‘250 (30Sep), ‘251 (30Sep), to 31 252 (30Sep), an increase of 106 – a sequence shown transiently on the NES’ homepage, https://elections.pacifica.org.
[Note, it’s one thing the Pacifica higher-ups thinking they have membership lists that can function as elector rolls, that they’re materially accurate – but it’s another thing when they’re tested, in a highly partial way, in the running of a public election. And it’s obvious that testing has to start earlier – much earlier! And as this is Pacifica, with its longstanding history of materially inaccurate record-keeping, the testing also has to be of the membership record-keeping system, & not only of its current, momentary content – this a crucial conceptual distinction never made publicly by any Pacifica decision-maker in the 2018 thru present period covered by PacificaWatch. Oh.
[And what sort of testing has to be done to evidence the credibility, or otherwise, of the content of the 10 membership lists? (The 10: 5 listener-member station lists; & 5 of staff-members, with the Radio Archives peeps in the KPFK list.)
[As a minimum, two exercises in sampling have to be done, & well before any election – work arranged by the station managers, supervised by the executive director. One exercise samples the 10 membership lists, & by trying to contact members this will notably indicate the proportion of false positives in the membership lists (former donors & staff who have never been culled – so getting a ballot for free). The other exercise is of the other pole, sampling the 5 donor lists & 5 staff lists, & seeing if those individuals appear in the membership lists; this notably indicates the proportion of absences, negatives, re the membership lists. As shown, each sampling exercise involves an other, in an attempt at reconciliation – a truly un-Pacifican procedure as it’s a test of authoritative corroboration of what’s claimed.
[Likewise, sampling: so anathema to NES Renée that the word never crosses her lips – except when she’s making her music. Knowing that management had done none, she chose the easy way out & did none herself. And remember, the last time Pacifica had an NES who was an accredited elections supervisor, Graeme Drew, an outsider to boot, he terminated the 2018 elections for reason of material inaccuracy, for the membership lists being so corrupted, & therefore also inadequate to serve as elector rolls:
“I am unable to reliably verify any of the applicants for candidacy due to the poor quality of elector lists […] the elector lists required to proceed with the election process remain incorrect and incomplete.
“Given this, I am unable to verify eligible candidates and proceed with the election.”
[Obviously he was promptly fired by the directors – sleepwalkers even then. And this is the point: since NES Drew’s evaluation in 2018 of the 10 membership lists as materially inaccurate, not one person has even suggested (let alone claimed) that this detritus (no doubt including corpses) has been cleansed – let alone someone providing evidence to the public, not least to the Pacifica members themselves. Rationally, this is sufficient evidence to designate the current process a pseudo-election.
PacificaWorld remains opaque, the rulers countering transparency, be it thru incompetence or intent. Muddling thru. Treating Joe & Joanna Average as cash cows. Unable to think, to come up with a vision for Pacifica – a coherent basis informing plans to arrest a near-20yr continuous decline … plans with integrated content, coordinated implementation, & temporally nested. So, unable to transcend the necro-economics of the Golden Corpses with the bio-economics of the Network Development Plan. And, unable to grasp the nettle, the decisions have been made by others – creditors & state. So, reduced to manoeuvring to cling onto the seats they cherish so dearly – whilst all around they give up to the flames.
~
The numbers: in 2yrs, membership crashes 27%
In only 2yrs, membership has crashed 27%, the highest rate by far in such a short period (31252 ÷ 42663 = 0.7325). Taking a wider sweep, back to the year Bush beat Kerry, since 31Aug2004, membership has fallen 67% (31252 ÷ 95581 = 0.3269).
To put the current 31 252 in perspective, here’s the 2004 station split: KPFA 28 539, KPFK 21 503, KPFT 10 472, WPFW 13 942, WBAI 21 125.
(1) The ’42 663′ is an adjustment of the 30June2021 total, the record date for that year’s delegates’ pseudo-elections (NES Renée’s final report, p. 13, being p. 15 of the PDF). It’s adjusted coz there was no WPFW staff-members election (only 3 candidates for 4 seats); but less than 3mths before, at the 7Apr staff referendum on by-laws amendments, they numbered 120, so it’s reasonable to use that at 30June.
(2) The 2004 data are per NES Kenneth Mostern’s final report on the 2004 delegates’ elections (pp. 2, 5, 9, 15, 12) – please see ‘. . . the knell: Pacifica membership, passing over time’, the only article on the whole public internet that has on a single webpage the Pacifica membership data since 2004.
The politics: the Pacifica secrecy culture is alive & well
As said, after 8wks (sic) the plebs were thrown some crumbs: two figures, the membership total, & the # of ballots cast online (so not the # of ballots cast). Have other strata in PacificaWorld received more info? Of course. The online balloting firm has all the online data, & that includes basic info such as the 10-way station split, so of the membership & of the ballots cast online. That means NES Peñaloza has it too, so no doubt she’s provided it all to the 21 directors sleepwalkers, & almost certainly to PNB Elections Cttee Chair Aki Tanaka (& so to the breakers high command – if not to all Cttee members), &, if only out of courtesy, to the person who hired her, ED Stephanie ‘The Breeze’ Wells (& so to the 5 station managers).
All these are privy to this basic info – but for those who fund the whole thing, those slumming it in the plebs rank, they deserve zilch. So get zilch. The Pacifica secrecy culture means that no disclosure of this basic info has been made by NES Peñaloza, PNB Chair Julie Clueless, Cttee Chair Tanaka, or ED ‘The Breeze’. Any of them could have told the other ~31 000 in PacificaWorld – but they all chose not to. They all effectively decided that the online balloting company would know more about what’s going on than almost all of the 120 Pacifica delegates & the ~31k Pacifica members.
Welcome to #PacFam, the Pacifica Family.
Note … a Pacifica member isn’t really a member: almost all are simply donors – plus volunteers, mostly staff
Using the term member is quite misleading. Yes, they have a vote (twice in 3yrs), & can run for governance (being a delegate), but that’s it, really. Unlike a membership organisation, there’s no ongoing structure offered to them – not even a register where they can give details of how they can help, of their experience, expertise, skills, knowledge.
The sad thing is, in functionally being donors, the great majority probably don’t even know they’re members, members of a corporation, members of Pacifica Foundation, Inc.
As it is, the ‘members’ are atomised – not structured. And the only status they really have is being a donor – except for those who volunteer, usually in programme production.
In other words, they’re left to their own devices. And treated as cash cows.
Pacifica Executive Director Stephanie Wells spoke at the F25Aug2023 PLF, the Popular Liberation Front Pacifica Listener Forum (9:23-13:59). This regular get-together was created in late 2020 by Andrew Weiss, a KPFK listener-member, who often attends his local station board meetings but never seems to have run as a candidate – presumably following standard clinical advice. Besides ED Steph ‘The Breeze’, two other speakers were invited, Queen Liz III (KPFK listener-delegate, & director sleepwalker) & Eleanor Forman (WBAI listener-delegate). The meet got its one & only notice with less than 24hrs to go (sic) – moreover, if peeps wanted to ask questions, they were told to send them in beforehand (warrants another sic).
Although caught on their hindmost, the PacificaWatch minions managed to throw together some leading questions for Our Steph, & the carrier pigeon did the rest. It’ll come as no surprise to the zoologists observing the Pacifica ecosystem that the questions were rejected by the PLF high command. Things got even worse at the meeting itself: ED Steph did a Peñaloza – running away within minutes of arriving. Scooting away without even as much as a ‘bye, everyone!’, exuded in her ‘natural’ super-breezy way. (There being no sign of life when she was called upon by General Weiss at 46:20 & 57:52.)
The assembled, those who pay her $100k+ salary (plus benefits), were not best pleased. However, matters were redeemed somewhat by Ms Forman, who graciously, & to her great credit, chose to spend most of her allotted time voicing others: reading out, first, important remarks from Cerene Roberts (WBAI listener-member) on the delegates pseudo-elections (19:39-21:25), & then my own questions (1:06:58-1:11:29; given below). Bravo! As additional thanks, PacificaWatch is presenting to Eleanor an NFT courtesy of Pacifica’s financial mastermind, Lynden Foley, a prominent breaker about to make his return to the KPFT Local Station Board. This specially designed non-fungible token is a true rogues’ gallery, a digital collage of each & every Pacifica director sleepwalker from 2018 to present. ¡Magnífico!
~
[The questions, as submitted in good time, for the F25Aug2023 Pacifica Listener Forum meet; they’re followed by the supporting quotes, calculations, & links – and, inevitably, some commentary.]
These are 11 sets of questions put to ED Wells:
#1, why have you never publicly informed the members, listeners, and staff that Pacifica is defying California law by not having a chief financial officer, per Corporations Code, section 312(a)?
#2, Pacifica is a multi-million dollar public charity, yet it has under contract not even one CPA, a certified public accountant. Why have you never publicly appealed for the directors to instruct you to hire a CPA?
#3, Pacifica has defaulted on a federal $2M loan, EIDL, given on highly favorable terms, namely, 30 years at 2.75%. No monthly payment, of a mere $8,731, has ever been made. Why did you never publicly warn that default was imminent, and exercise leadership by calling for emergency fundraising?
#4, almost all Pacifica’s insurances were terminated on Monday, August 7. The board had met the previous Thursday, yet in your report you gave absolutely no inkling that this was a jeopardy. Why?
#5, the EIDL & insurances fiascos – as well as monthly net income statements being currently 11 weeks out of date – show that Pacifica is out of financial control. Why haven’t you been a leader – rather than being passive – and publicly warned that employing a CPA is the only way of having a chance to allow decision-makers to have timely and materially accurate financial data? [CORRECTION: a day shy of 12wks after period (only approved for distribution on Tu22Aug by the PNB Finance Cttee).]
#6, the California attorney general’s webpage says explicitly that no extension is possible for making public the audited annual financial statements: I quote, “The statute does not provide for an extension of time”, unquote. The deadline for those of FY 2022 was June 30 this year. Why have you repeatedly said in public – and it happened last year as well – that Pacifica has received an extension?
#7, Pacifica has a $2.7M loan from FJC. FJC’s public policy is that it never allows a loan to default because it sells any, and I quote, “potentially impaired loan”, unquote, to the Marty and Dorothy Silverman Foundation. As Pacifica has not paid the interest falling due since December 31 last year, why haven’t you reported publicly that FJC no longer owns the loan?
#8, FJC charged 18% interest when the December 31 quarterly payment wasn’t made, a then penalty of 7.5 percentage points. For how many days was this incurred, and at what cost? And why have you never disclosed these facts?
#9, through lack of payment, FJC has charged 18% interest since April 1. Interest at 18% annualizes as $486K (at $80K, that’s 6 full-time employees). Why haven’t you disclosed these facts?
#10, the California charities registry declares (even today), for any prospective donor to see, that Pacifica is delinquent. At the August 17 board meeting, you said this isn’t true, and that the registrar was simply tardy – although you cited neither a document nor a date of curing. You also agreed to put a statement of non-delinquency on the homepage of Pacifica’s website. You haven’t done this. Is it because Pacifica actually is delinquent, for a reason other than paying last August the wrong annual registration fee?
Lastly, #11, the Los Angeles land and building were removed from escrow two weeks ago. Why have you never disclosed this, not least in your public reports to both the board on August 17 and the board’s Finance Committee on August 8 and 22?
I look forward to your complete answers.
Thank you.
~
The supporting quotes, calculations, commentary, & links:
#1: why have you never publicly informed the members, listeners, and staff that Pacifica is defying California law by not having a chief financial officer, per Corporations Code, section 312(a)?
(a) “312. (a) A corporation shall have (1) a chairperson of the board, who may be given the title of chair of the board, chairperson of the board, chairperson, or a president or both, (2) a secretary, (3) a chief financial officer, and (4) such other officers with such titles and duties as shall be stated in the bylaws or determined by the board and as may be necessary to enable it to sign instruments and share certificates. […]” – CA Corporations Code, § 312(a), emphases added … https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=312.&lawCode=CORP; &
‘if you’re short of cash, but want to keep *spending 54% of your station personnel costs favouring just one station* amongst five (per the Feb2023 net income statements), then there’s no prob, no prob whatsoever, just carry on, carry on regardless, & the law will make a special exception for you, & treat you differently from the rest of the world, the law will grant you the special privilege you’re obviously entitled to – and damned be the donors to Pacifica Foundation, Inc. who think the law should protect them & their donations from decisions made by directors & their senior managers’.
“Mandatory”: such an un-Pacificese word. “So unfair!***!”, screams the director sleepwalker, throwing their rattle out the pram.
#2: Pacifica is a multi-million dollar public charity, yet it has under contract not even one CPA, a certified public accountant. Why have you never publicly appealed for the directors to instruct you to hire a CPA?
(a) Pacifica being an annual multi-million $$$ public charity: per the last audited data, for FY2021 its total revenue was $11.1m ($11 095 555) & its total expenses were $11.5m ($11 538 444) – https://pacifica.org/finance/audit_2021.pdf. However, over the last 24mths, Pacifica has become a much smaller operation, by ~20%: revenue down 19.5%, expenses down 21.7% (8933860 ÷ 11095555 =19.482; 9030724 ÷ 11538444 = 21.733). This is per the latest net income statement seen by PacificaWatch, that thru Feb2023, where total revenue annualises as $8.9m & total expenses as $9.0m (totals thru 5mths, $3 722 442 & $3 762 802, respectively; annualising as $8 933 860 & $9 030 724, respectively – note, the total expenses thru Feb2023 that are annualised omit both depreciation, & the Jan & Feb accrual of the FJC interest (& other expenses?!? – such as un-invoiced services from General Counsel Arthur Schwartz; interest is at line 67 of the Pacifica National Office, PNO, net income statement); & the annualised expenses also exclude the extra FJC interest charged since 1Apr for not making the 31Mar & 30June quarterly payments – and, no doubt, that falling due 30Sep). The monthly net income statements: https://mega.nz/folder/RR8XmaAB#kEhHjAFTec2X_Z6CzAC5dw; &
#3: Pacifica has defaulted on a federal $2M loan, EIDL, given on highly favorable terms, namely, 30 years at 2.75%. No monthly payment, of a mere $8,731, has ever been made. Why did you never publicly warn that default was imminent, and exercise leadership by calling for emergency fundraising?
(a) Terms & conditions of a COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan, https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/covid-19-relief-options/covid-19-economic-injury-disaster-loan/about-covid-19-eidl (on balance, for the borrower, the new form of the EIDL offered during the epidemic was even better than its predecessor – and yet the directors sleepwalkers have allowed such a lack of financial control that ED ‘The Breeze’ couldn’t even prioritise keeping that loan alive, rather than defaulting without ever making a monthly payment – sic); &
(b) the monthly charge of $8 731, three of them, per ED Wells’ “$26 193” (53:21), Tu8Aug2023 PNB Finance Cttee – extracted like blood from a stone, as all info re the EIDL was studiously excluded by ED Wells from her report, it only being revealed coz she was asked a direct Q, a full 20mins after she had started speaking (33:40) – sic (one can understand why in some legal codes there’s the concept of economic sabotage) . . . so her preference was to keep it all from the Cttee, & the public, to conceal the fact that Pacifica had not only defaulted on a federal loan but that the Small Business Administration had washed their hands of Pacifica, & it was now all with the collections department of Uncle Sam (bless us & save us): “[p]ayments have not been made on the EIDL loan [ED Wells means ‘have never been made’]. Um, we have been formerly advised that we are in default of the loan”, a “$2.080M payoff amount” (principal + interest + sundries, & to be augmented by Sam Eagle’s legal expenses & court fees), all administered on behalf of the people by “the US Treasury collections department” (53:32; this being the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service) – https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/finance/230808/finance230808a.mp3, & https://fiscal.treasury.gov/cross-servicing/ . . . the supine Chair James Sagurton (WBAI listener-member) himself studiously chose the cowardly route, not including the EIDL default in his own instituted agenda item, ‘Chair’s announcements’, hoping that no-one would mention what was obviously an open secret amongst the directors sleepwalkers, absurdly leaving an open goal for an arch-breaker like Sharon ‘if you think I’m nasty, you should see the other Berkeley hillbillies’ Adams, KPFA Treasurer, salivating as she readied to pounce with her barbed question. (Member ‘Supine’ Sagurton is LARP’ing as a delegate coz he’s a squatter on both the WBAI Local Station Board & the Pacifica National Board, having exceeded the 6yr mandated limit (in fact, it’s a mandate like no other in the Pacifica by-laws, its wording unique: “in no event more than […]”, emphases added) – https://pacifica.org/indexed_bylaws/art4sec8.html.)
#4: almost all Pacifica’s insurances were terminated on Monday, August 7. The board had met the previous Thursday, yet in your report you gave absolutely no inkling that this was a jeopardy. Why?
(a) Report by ED Steph ‘The Breeze’ to Th3Aug2023 PNB: exactly 90secs, with no questions asked (sic; 2:30:41-2:32:11), just the way everyone likes it – even though this uncritical culture is the Pacifica correlate of Prigozhin’s jet … https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/pnb230803/pnb230803a.mp3;
(b) then just 5days later, ED ‘The Breeze’ detonates the bomb, & they all watch the insurances go up in flames: “[w]e were informed yesterday by our insurance brokers, um, that as of late yesterday afternoon [M7Aug], a majority of the insurance policies for Pacifica have been cancelled due to non-payment. Um, we still have our workmen’s comp insurance, and we still have the health insurance, again thanks to the generous, urgh, support from KPFT, and also the funds of, um – the dollars of WBAI, and also the National Office. So what has been cancelled due to non-payment is the earthquake insurance in Los Angeles; the equipment insurance for all of the stations, including broadcast, studio and towers; the property and casualty insurance; the general liability insurance; the excess liability insurance; and the media liability insurance” (40:24, emphases added), Tu8Aug2023 PNB Finance Cttee – https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/finance/230808/finance230808a.mp3;
(c) no Pacifica decision-maker has mentioned how much money is involved here, namely the size of the annual insurances expense – not one of the 21 directors sleepwalkers nor one of the 101 other delegates. So here they are for the last five complete fiscal years, plus the current one thru Feb2023 (annualised):
Fiscal year
Insurance expense ($)
2018 (unaudited)
232 110
2019 (unaudited)
199 883
2020
185 349
2021
219 313
2022 (unaudited, per consolidated statement – total column)
88 892 (sic)
2022 (unaudited, per consolidated statement – summation of monthly columns)
221 691 (sic)
2022 (unaudited, per unit statements, PNO + KPFA + KPFK – summation of monthly columns)
223 177 (sic)
2023 (unaudited, $43 236 thru Feb2023 per consolidated statement; annualised)
103 766 (sic)
2023 (unaudited, $54 967 thru Feb2023 per unit statements, PNO + KPFA; annualised)
131 921 (sic)
(i) Sources: annual auditor’s reports FY2018-FY2021 (see auditor’s letter, & penultimate page); & Feb2023 set of net income statements (for FY2022 & FY2023; note, re FY2022, as with all the other line items, no annual totalling (sic) by the preparer, National Business Manager/Creditor Hotline Clerk/Junior-Juggler-in-Chief Markisha ‘you haven’t seen me, right?’ Venzant-Sampson: the total column is not the year but only thru Feb2022, as a comparative – & she mislabelled the heading twice: the consolidated & KPFA statements are given as “Total Prior Year” – sic) – https://pacifica.org/finance_reports.php, & https://mega.nz/folder/RR8XmaAB#kEhHjAFTec2X_Z6CzAC5dw
(ii) FY2018 & FY2019 are denoted unaudited coz the auditors tried to do an audit but because of what they found – and couldn’t find – they concluded that they were unable to provide an opinion on the material accuracy of the financial statements (so including the insurance expense datum) presented to them by Pacifica’s management (the auditors’ jargon is issuing ‘a disclaimer of opinion’ – the only other time this happened to Pacifica was FY2017); FY2022 is unaudited coz the audit hasn’t even started (sic); & FY2023 hasn’t ended yet (the procession of the monthly charge, per the consolidated statement, is revealing: $12 223, $16 900, $11 498, $1 308, $1 308 – shoddy bookkeeping or non-renewed/terminated policies, or a combo? No scrutiny of this tell-tale disjuncture was offered by those who have the responsibility to check the statements for obvious errors & surprises: missed by the 10 on the PNB Finance Cttee (sic), so, not spotted by five directors sleepwalkers, eluding five station treasurers … Finally, the annualised total will be reduced by ~8wks’ worth of terminated policies – an amount undisclosed, & passed by in silence, yet another ship in the night)
(iii) since NETA left on 22Sep2022, the monthly net income statements have been a complete mess – in all of timeliness, frequency, content. The insurances expense is an example: the presentation of both the FY2022 & FY2023 total differs depending on where you look! Re FY2022, the consolidated total ($221 691, line 85) doesn’t agree with the aggregated unit total of $223 177 (PNO, $211 237 (charge each month), line 66 + KPFA, $10 254 (charge only Mar-Sep2022), line 69 + KPFK, $1 686 (charge only Oct2021), line 59). Re FY2023, the consolidated total ($43 236, line 85) doesn’t agree with the aggregated unit total of $54 967 (PNO, $48 428, line 66 + KPFA (earthquake insurance – ED Steph ‘The Breeze’ (42:16), Tu8Aug2023 PNB Finance Cttee, https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/finance/230808/finance230808a.mp3), $6 539, line 69). Unbelievable; &
(d) [UPDATE: and the cost of restoring these insurances? No-one volunteered the info. And it took over 4wks before anyone asked (sic). ‘The Breeze’ hadn’t taken the initiative, making it plain to all the scale of the problem – no, ‘The Breeze’ dribbled it out in response to a direct Q – another one: see the behavioural pattern? – at the Th7Sep PNB, & even then it was a Q that had to be asked twice (sic): “a couple o’ hundred thousand dollars“, she said (2:08:29, emphases added) – https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/pnb230907/pnb230907a.mp3.‘The Breeze’, as passive as ever. The young child & the shiny object: cover it up, it disappears. Bless us & save us; blood from a stone – see the behavioural pattern? A pattern condoned – and therefore encouraged – by the directors sleepwalkers.
[With being obliged to speak on it, ‘The Breeze’ did disclose how dire is the re-insurance problem: with some offers, Pacifica would “have to pay for all of it upfront, with an additional 25% [sic; …] So right now I think what we need to do is figure out what it is that we need [so ‘The Breeze’ is envisaging that Pacifica can cope without some of the insurances (sic)], and then see if the broker can find anyone that would be willing to cover us and take the, you kn’ – take that leap of faith that we will pay them” (2:09:58, emphases added).]
#5: the EIDL & insurances fiascos – as well as monthly net income statements being currently 11 weeks out of date – show that Pacifica is out of financial control. Why haven’t you been a leader – rather than being passive – and publicly warned that employing a CPA is the only way of having a chance to allow decision-makers to have timely and materially accurate financial data?[CORRECTION: a day shy of 12wks after period (only approved for distribution on Tu22Aug by the PNB Finance Cttee).]
(a) Distribution of the set of May2023 mthly net income statements was approved, without objection, by the Tu22Aug PNB Finance Cttee (‘c’-file, 16:27), so a day shy of 12wks after period (sic) – https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/finance/230822/finance230822c.mp3; &
(b) NETA left on 22Sep2022, taking their certified public accountants with them. This seemingly left a qualifications void: Pacifica having no-one under contract with either an accountancy or bookkeeping qualification. No Pacifica position-holder, especially a director or employee, has ever claimed publicly that Pacifica has a qualified accountant under contract. Nor even a qualified bookkeeper – although some station people are said to do some bookkeeping. [UPDATE: the Tu12Sep “I don’t really give a shit, Jim” (Sharon Adams – 19:24) PNB Finance Cttee nightmare was the latest evidence of it being “some bookkeeping” (choose your own slice of the debacle) – https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/finance/230912/finance230912a.mp3 (also a ‘b’-file).]
This void – a presence of absence – applies no less to the occupant of the post especially created when the directors sleepwalkers chose a new trajectory for Pacifica: flying blind financially with no frills whatsoever, not even flying by the seat of their pants – flying blind & naked. Sub-economy. Freezing in the wheel-house – approaching death, not refuge. Enter stage left, the inaugural National Business Manager, Markisha ‘I’m so calm I could be basking in the Gulf – and yes, I’m cooler than Cerene’ Deshaun Venzant-Sampson. It’s true that Markisha has been associated for many years with KPFT’s bill-paying & bookkeeping, & the public record does show that her first degree included accountancy, & that she still advertises online as a jobbing contractor – but there’s no promotional spiel saying she has a professional qualification, bookkeeping or otherwise . . . oh . . . and no-one else has ever claimed it publicly on her behalf. https://www.zoominfo.com/p/Markisha-Venzant-sampson/7343475771; & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZoomInfo (nothing to do with the online conferencing company) & https://www.yptc.com/
. . . directors are legally responsible for protecting charitable assets, & are personally liable – that’s why rational directors arrange the affairs of the charity so that money is ALWAYS allocated to hire that un-Pacifican guy, an expert, here a CPA, to establish & maintain the structure/function/practice of efficient fiscal management – always meaning that sometimes cherished expenditures have to be sacrificed, such as the current station personnel cost structure where KPFA takes 54% of the total . . .
Another presence of absence is that not one of the 120 delegates has even asked – let alone presented a motion – as to why this choosing by the directors sleepwalkers of a lack of fiscal management is even happening – let alone persisting – this occurring at a public charity taking in millions & millions of $$$ every year from Joe & Joanna Average. Fiscal management is not reducible to bookkeeping & accountancy, & the California Attorney General recognises this by placing it at the core of what it is to be a proper charity, devoting a whole chapter of the Attorney General’s Guide to Charities to ‘Exercising Fiscal Management’ (pp. 32-7). It includes concepts, rules, systems, protocols, procedures, practices (routine & episodic) never broached in Pacifica open meetings. https://www.oag.ca.gov/system/files/media/Guide%20for%20Charities.pdf (June2021)
So we get: “Exercising fiscal management […] responsible fiscal management […] Good internal controls […] mechanisms in place to keep it fiscally sound [… the directors’] approval of policies and procedures determines the fiscal management system. An effective internal control system includes budgets, segregation of duties, policy and procedures manuals, clear definition of and adherence to set procedures for management authority and control, and periodic review of the control system […] A realistic budget should be developed early enough so that the entire board can be involved in its review and approval before the beginning of the fiscal year. Management should produce accurate income and expense statements, balance sheets, and budget status reports in a timely manner ahead of board meetings [surprisingly, no mention of cashflow forecasts]. Directors should monitor the budget and anticipated revenue […] protect against internal fraud and fiscal mismanagement […] seek expert advice from a professional accountant to assist in designing and implementing the fiscal management system […] preventing internal fraud and theft of charitable assets […] Payment requests or requests for cash disbursement should be accompanied with invoices, receipts, or other documents showing the payments are justified and appropriate” – and that’s just from the first two pages of the chapter (sic).
. . . living as in a dream . . .
. . . sleepwalking into the chainsaw . . .
#6: the California attorney general’s webpage says explicitly that no extension is possible for making public the audited annual financial statements: I quote, “The statute does not provide for an extension of time”, unquote. The deadline for those of FY 2022 was June 30 this year. Why have you repeatedly said in public – and it happened last year as well – that Pacifica has received an extension?
(a) The California Attorney General is emphatic in their view: “[t]he statute does not provide for an extension of time” (emphases have to be added, i think you’ll agree), https://www.oag.ca.gov/charities/laws (in the section “Nonprofit Integrity Act of 2004 FAQ”, the CA AG’s answer to their question #8, “[d]oes the extension for filing IRS Form 990 also apply to the completion date for the audit?”). This unambiguous, unconditional statement warrants a screenshot coz the very opposite view has been asserted by none other than Pacifica’s Executive Director, Stephanie Wells: in Pacifica public meetings, July & Aug this year, she has claimed that Pacifica has been granted an extension – and she said the same thing last year, about the FY2021 financial statements.
Screenshot:
. . . California Attorney General speaking the plain truth: they don’t have the power to give an extension. The law isn’t designed to let the trustees of a charity off the hook: to allow the directors sleepwalkers to refuse to allocate money to hire a chief financial officer, hire a certified public accountant, to ensure good fiscal management, a refusal that ensures that the charity fails both the test of law & the test of courtesy, failing to demonstrate to donors (current & prospective) & the state that it can generate financial statements that are deemed materially accurate by a team of outside auditors – https://oag.ca.gov/charities/laws . . .
Here’s ‘The Breeze’ with her breezy delivery to the 17Aug PNB: “I was submitting another request this current year to – letting the Secretary of State know that we were going to be late in filing for our audit […] and they said no problem, you can, you know, we’re granting you an extension” (2:52:52, emphases added) – https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/pnb230817/pnb230817a.mp3. The assertion by ‘The Breeze’ is actually twofold: (i) effectively saying that California statute law doesn’t apply to Pacifica, & (ii) literally saying that Pacifica has got explicit permission from the CA AG not to comply with the law. As quoted below, the effect of the law is making public by 30June2023 the FY2022 audited financial statements (plus, as an obvious courtesy, the auditor’s annual report). And her declarations are assertions because neither this year nor last, has she ever given details of these communications, be it by letter, email, or word of mouth, or even the dates – and no director sleepwalker has ever publicly asked her for this supporting evidence of her bland assertion;
(c) the crucial difference in CA law between shall & may – please see #1(b) above.
#7: Pacifica has a $2.7M loan from FJC. FJC’s public policy is that it never allows a loan to default because it sells any, and I quote, “potentially impaired loan”, unquote, to the Marty and Dorothy Silverman Foundation. As Pacifica has not paid the interest falling due since December 31 last year, why haven’t you reported publicly that FJC no longer owns the loan?
(b) at the core of FJC’s public policy on loans is acting pre-emptively when a loan is judged “potentially impaired”: FJC doesn’t wait for a borrower to default; instead it sells the loan, without discount – see any of its annual auditor’s reports, such as the latest one, dated 11Oct2022, that for FY2022, thru Mar2022 (Note 2: pp. 9, 10-12; add one for the PDF numbering): “[i]n the event that FJC determines a loan to be potentially impaired, FJC will notify the private foundation that pledged securities to satisfy the loan that FJC intends to exercise its rights under the hypothecation agreement” (p. 11) – https://fjc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/FJC-Audited-Financial-Statements-FY-2022.pdf … the policy allows FJC to (i) protect the investment made by its donor-advised funds accountholders, & (ii) avoid bad publicity, being seen to chase charities, etc. for its money, if need be thru the courts; &
(c) FJC sells these “potentially impaired” loans to the Marty and Dorothy Silverman Foundation, the main force setting up FJC in 1995. The latest disclosure by FJC of this policy is in its 2020 IRS Form 990, Schedule L: “Lorin Silverman is a director, president and treasurer of the Marty and Dorothy Silverman Foundation which has pledged to FJC a security interest in securities to be used as collateral for the repayment of principal amounts in the event of default of any FJC’s Agency Loan Fund receivables. This agreement remains in effect until October 1, 2022 and is renewable by mutual consent. As of March 31, 2021, the fair value of the collateral held as security under the pledge agreement was $20,003,840.” (p. 2, actually in all-caps; p. 103 of the PDF at https://www.charitiesnys.com/RegistrySearch/search_charities.jsp (pump in ‘FJC’, then click on ‘Annual Filing for Charitable Organizations 03/31/2021’); this info re MDSF being FJC’s lil helper doesn’t appear in its latest filing, that of the 2021 IRS Form 990, coz it lacked a Schedule L). (Lorin, the son, is, not surprisingly, also a director & the prez of FJC; his email for Pacifica queries is Lorin@ny830.com.) The nature of the Agency Loan Fund is discussed at https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/what-fjc-has-made-pacifica-do/ (posted July2019).
#8: FJC charged 18% interest when the December 31 quarterly payment wasn’t made, a then penalty of 7.5 percentage points. For how many days was this incurred, and at what cost? And why have you never disclosed these facts?
(a) Not paying the quarterly interest “within five (5) days after the date when due” counts as “an Event of Default” (Section 8.1 of the ‘root’ loan agreement, p. 13; add one for the PDF numbering). (Another ‘event of default’ is, not surprisingly, “Borrower’s failure to maintain insurance” – Sec. 8.2, same page.) Re the penalty, “‘Default Rate’ means the lesser of (a) the maximum rate of interest allowed by applicable law, or (b) 18% per annum” (Sec. 1.1(10), p. 2) – https://mega.nz/file/AI0iUYga#QzMtaBd0iRTZJ_YNmh2KZ1xKu7Qh_hQ6IcPMVkGWX94; &
(b) these facts prove that General Counsel Arthur Schwartz was mistaken when he denied at the 5Jan2023 PNB – so 5days after date due, at 2210 EST – that Pacifica had defaulted on the FJC loan by missing the 31Dec2022 quarterly interest payment. Referring to the odious Christina ‘Nurse Ratched’ Huggins, Chair of the KPFA LSB, he asserted, offering no evidence: “she said that we defaulted: that’s not true, we didn’t default, and the payment will get made and that has been worked out with FJC, and I will report on that more at – in the closed session” (1:31:00, emphases added; the meet started at “8.39pm on the East Coast” (Chair Julie Clueless, 0:03)) – https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/pnb230105/pnb230105a.mp3
#9: through lack of payment, FJC has charged 18% interest since April 1. Interest at 18% annualizes as $486K (at $80K, that’s 6 full-time employees). Why haven’t you disclosed these facts?
(a) The missed 2023 FJC quarterly interest payments fell due on 31Mar & 30June – with that of 30Sep set to join them (the loan was signed 2Apr2018, & the Pacifica meets always talk about the payments falling due at the end of each Pacifica fiscal quarter, corroborated by the postings in the PNO monthly net income statements) … a quarterly payment @ 18% = $ 2.7m x 0.18 x (3 ÷ 12) = $121 500. This contrasts with Pacifica, since the beginning of the year, being unable to find even $8 731 a month to pay the EIDL (sic). (One needs to use the elliptical ‘since the beginning of the year’ coz the period has never been disclosed by the high guardians of Pacifica’s secrecy culture, ED Wells & the 21 directors sleepwalkers.);
(b) note, there is one statement on the record, by no less than PNB Finance Cttee Chair James Sagurton, that the quarterly interest payment due 31Dec2022 (as well as that of 31Mar2023) was still unpaid at 10May2023 when he spoke at the WBAI LSB (remark made at c. 2040 EDT; still no audio recording in the meetings archive (sic) – https://kpftx.org/archive.php . . . [UPDATE: still missing as of Su10Sep (sic). … UPDATE OF THE UPDATE: the audio was eventually posted in early-mid Dec. The Sagurton quote, stating it no less than three times: “we’re two, we’re two payments behind – we’re two quarterly payments behind on the FJC loan” (from 1:26:50, at 1:28:09) – https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/TH_Xn-oT6pneGV2F41zUxiGjKmOB8_80Ql6gfX0LLK4SLE-eMd05ReXEkvB9KoAp.QjYv9jXEN21oPsok?startTime=1683760465000, passcode: ntuT+as4. Why this link, rather than one starting ‘kpftx.org’? Privatisation – Pacifica going all ‘neo-liberal’, as the geo-historically ignorant put it. It seems the WBAI LSB Secretary, Kay Williams, is doing something quite improper, using her own Zoom account for the meetings – so she’s in control: she decides whether the record button is pressed; she possesses the recording. (Although, of course, any attendee can make a recording on their own device.) Ultimate responsibility for this sloppiness lies with the LSB Chair, DeeDee Halleck – no doubt she’ll never be held to account, but that’s largely down to whether a delegate cares. (In an early Dec national meet, some directors mused out loud about this privatisation, even calling for an inventory of the practice – but don’t hold yer breath.) Although the richer part of the world has had efficacious COVID-19 vaccines since Dec2020, allowing a safe return to in-person meetings, that hasn’t happened to PacificaWorld – even after three long years.]; &
(c) @ 18%, the FJC annual interest charge = $2.7m x 0.18 = $486k (sic).
#10: the California charities registry declares (even today), for any prospective donor to see, that Pacifica is delinquent. At the August 17 board meeting, you said this isn’t true, and that the registrar was simply tardy – although you cited neither a document nor a date of curing. You also agreed to put a statement of non-delinquency on the homepage of Pacifica’s website. You haven’t done this. Is it because Pacifica actually is delinquent, for a reason other than paying last August the wrong annual registration fee?
(a) Pacifica Foundation, Inc. is delinquent with the CA Charitable Trusts Section, Attorney General’s Office: see the Registry of Charitable Trusts, https://rct.doj.ca.gov/Verification/Web/Search.aspx?facility=Y (pump in ‘Pacifica Foundation’). [UPDATE: still delinquent as of Su10Sep (sic) … UPDATE OF THE UPDATE: ditto as of Sa16Dec (double sic).]
Besides the declaration “Delinquent” appearing on two separate webpages of the CA Attorney General’s site, the delinquency notice itself is a letter dated 3July, a ‘451’, “RCT-451-S Delinquency Notice – 1st”, bearing the subject line, “DELINQUENCY NOTICE AND WARNING OF ASSESSMENT OF PENALTIES AND LATE FEES, AND SUSPENSION OR REVOCATION OF REGISTERED STATUS” (original bold & caps) – it’s in the Registry depository just linked, & on the generated webpage it’s at the bottom of Filings & Correspondence;
(b) the matter came up towards the end of the 17Aug PNB, with Chair Julie Clueless asking ED Steph – and her agreeing – to post a statement of non-delinquency on Pacifica’s homepage (2:51:35 & 2:53:50) – https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/pnb230817/pnb230817a.mp3, & https://pacifica.org[UPDATE: still not posted as of Su10Sep – 3½wks later (sic) … the joys of an organisation without accountability & scrutiny from within. … UPDATE OF THE UPDATE: ditto as of Sa16Dec (double sic).]; &
(c) ‘The Breeze’ has repeatedly got her fee figures mixed up when trying to explain why the wrong amount was paid for Pacifica’s annual registration renewal as a charity incorporated in California. She keeps talking about having paid $400 when she didn’t realise that the fee had been raised to $575; she said this, for example, at the 17Aug PNB just mentioned (2:51:46). [UPDATE: she’s done this four times in public to the knowledge of the minions; the latest being the 7Sep PNB – audio recording not yet at the meetings archive as of Su10Sep.]PacificaWatch reported the matter correctly on 4May2023, quoting the statement in the CA Registry of Charitable Trusts: the amount paid was $225 when the fee was actually $400, leaving $175 owed. The CA Charitable Trusts Section had upped its fees, & the webpage said, “[u]pdated forms are available for download and are required with any filings received by the Registry on or after January 1, 2022 […] please always download the latest forms available” (all original emphases). So ‘The Breeze’ was mistaken in asserting “that [the form used] just happened to be the form that was on the website that they had” (2:52:33) – https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/2023/05/04/recommending-ed-wells-to-pnb-as-the-so-called-interim-nes-w3may2023-pnb-elections-cttee-plus-missing-audio/ (2nd section); https://oag.ca.gov/charities/forms
[UPDATE: sure enough, Pacifica was sent a second delinquency notice, a ‘451A’, dated 15Sep – that’s what happens when a delinquency isn’t cured. In the depository, it’s next to the first notice, & denoted “RCT-451A-S Delinquency Notice – 2nd”.]
#11: the Los Angeles land and building were removed from escrow two weeks ago. Why have you never disclosed this, not least in your public reports to both the board on August 17 and the board’s Finance Committee on August 8 and 22?
Re the Los Angeles land and building being removed from escrow in early Aug, the mice have been gnawing at the PacificaWatch archive, making a mess of invaluable records, but this was stated perhaps by KPFK Treasurer Kim Kaufman at the Su20Aug KPFK LSB (no audio recording posted) [UPDATE: not posted as of Su10Sep.].
~
And remember people, as the conspiracy nutz at WBAI know full well, we’re doing all this for the children.
. . . none of the attendees – five directors sleepwalkers & five station treasurers – asked ED Steph ‘The Breeze’ a crucial Q: how is it the insurances were terminated when you’ve just said that at the time Pacifica had “roughly $290,000” in the bank (sic)? – https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/finance/230808/finance230808a.mp3(38:17) . . .
. . . why has PacificaWatch been banging on about the directors sleepwalkers sleepwalking, sleepwalking into the chainsaw? This is why. This is where refusing to be in financial control necessarily leads – and Pacifica hasn’t stopped descending: in fact, the critical money pressures, presented as the demands of creditors, have only just begun . . .
~
So what did ED Steph ‘The Breeze’ tell the world at the Tu8Aug2023 PNB Finance Cttee? Pacifica has lost most of its insurances.
Oh.
Details:
“[w]e were informed yesterday by our insurance brokers, um, that as of late yesterday afternoon [M7Aug], a majority of the insurance policies for Pacifica have been cancelled due to non-payment. Um, we still have our workmen’s comp insurance, and we still have the health insurance, again thanks to the generous, urgh, support from KPFT, and also the funds of, um – the dollars of WBAI, and also the National Office. So what has been cancelled due to non-payment is the earthquake insurance in Los Angeles; the equipment insurance for all of the stations, including broadcast, studio and towers; the property and casualty insurance; the general liability insurance; the excess liability insurance; and the media liability insurance.”
“[s]o what has been cancelled due to non-payment is the earthquake insurance in Los Angeles; the equipment insurance for all of the stations, including broadcast, studio and towers; the property and casualty insurance; the general liability insurance; the excess liability insurance; and the media liability insurance.”
It’s official: Pacifica is now not just flying blind financially, out of control in a tailspin, but doing so without insurance.
No doubt the breakers have informed the Federal Communications Commission, & the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
No doubt the breakers have informed Pacifica’s two lenders with liens on all its property, the Foundation for the Jewish Community (operating as FJC), & the Small Business Administration (a federal agency). The loans? Totalling ~$4.7m, & both in default, with the SBA having now washed its hands of Pacifica, passing on the $2.080m debt to “the US Treasury collections department” (53:32) – although she didn’t say it, this is its Bureau of the Fiscal Service … https://fiscal.treasury.gov/cross-servicing/.
~
So seven kinds of insurance cancelled. Leaving how many? Just the two itemised by ED ‘The Breeze’? Probably not quite. Perhaps not to antagonise those now stripped of protection, ‘The Breeze’ was silent on the insurance covering her own work, & that of the directors sleepwalkers: the famed D & O insurance, directors & officers.
D & O.
Of this . . .
. . . she made no mention . . .
. . . & no-one asked.
Best stay mum.
So let’s just say, given the motivating power of self-interest, it’s hard to believe that this policy had already lapsed or been terminated. And as no-one mentioned it, it’s rational to conclude that the blobs at the top are still looking after #1 – yet another compounding of their illegal extension of delegates’ terms, made at the 20Oct2022 Pacifica National Board, done by discarding, overriding, the by-laws’ “and in no event” stricture. Animal Farm.
And something else is puzzling: why did last nite’s news come out of the blue? Only five days before, Th3Aug, the PNB had met, with not a hint of what was hurtling towards them. Why hadn’t Steph ‘The Breeze’ warned the directors sleepwalkers? If she was on top of things, she would’ve.
. . . but she isn’t.
. . . so she didn’t.
~
Another obvious Q, people: why hadn’t Steph ‘The Breeze’ asked the PNB to order emergency fundraising?
Is she so lacking in financial & organisational judgement that she’s unable to rationally prioritise where spending should be made?
Ask the Q, get the A.
~
But most puzzling of all is that the cash was already there, just waiting to be spent:
before dropping the insurance bomb, Steph had this to say: “[w]e have, um, as of last week, the amount of cash on hand in the bank, was, urgh, through all the divisions – is roughly $290,000”
Steph ‘The Breeze’ just didn’t prioritise preserving the insurances – or at least most of them.
Oh.
One may claim that the ~$290k was already spoken for – payroll being the obvious item. But that cash balance (reconciled? unreconciled? – Steph, as usual, was silent on this crucial matter) was after paying payroll by the previous Friday, the transfer of $210k or so having been made to Paylocity (inferred from what ‘The Breeze’ said at 38:50).
We know the score. Pacifica decision-makers don’t make key decisions based on having evaluated time-scaled costed scenarios – witness the 27Oct2022 PNB decision to sell the Los Angeles land & building, without doing a comparative analysis of selling either the Berkeley or Houston property – or some other time-scaled costed scenarios. And Steph ‘The Breeze’ orders the paying of creditors according to a mere, bare list – rather than basing decisions on a cashflow forecast (let alone a set of temporally-nested ones) used in combination with the reconciled purchases ledger control account . . . if she did, she would have mentioned it, rather than showing she’s being blown from pillar to post, desperately clutching onto her list – making her breezier than in her previous jobs.
But she doesn’t bear ultimate responsibility. That lies higher up, with the 21 directors sleepwalkers having chosen to refuse to provide fiscal management of Pacifica’s assets – not least by choosing to maintain a station personnel costs structure where 54% goes to one station, KPFA, therefore preventing the current optimising of total marginal gain thru the implementation of a network development plan.
Station personnel costs (the 5mths thru Feb2023), per the Feb2023 set of net income statements: KPFA $1 063 553, KPFK $374 392, KPFT $11 018 (sic), WPFW $283 031, WBAI $248 220 … totalling $1 980 214 … so KPFA = 1063553 ÷ 1980214 = 53.708% … https://mega.nz/folder/RR8XmaAB#kEhHjAFTec2X_Z6CzAC5dw
. . . “DELINQUENCY NOTICE AND WARNING OF ASSESSMENT OF PENALTIES AND LATE FEES, AND SUSPENSION OR REVOCATION OF REGISTERED STATUS” – at the Registry depository, https://rct.doj.ca.gov/Verification/Web/Search.aspx?facility=Y, pump in ‘Pacifica Foundation’, then on the generated webpage, at the bottom of Filings & Correspondence, click on “RCT-451-S Delinquency Notice – 1st”, a ‘451’ . . .
Nothing to worry about: PacificaWorld has nothing to do with RealWorld – especially as the directors sleepwalkers are too busy sleepwalking.
Rob’s just being difficult, awkward. Rob’s just being pedantic, letter of the law & all that. Rob’s just going thru the motions, mechanically pumping out letters, justifying the size of the department – nothing’s going to happen. RealWorld law is for other people, not the directors sleepwalkers.
When CA AG Rob Bonta effectively tells the directors sleepwalkers that they must instruct Executive Director Steph ‘The Breeze’ to instruct all Pacifica employees to stop working, & to freeze all Pacifica’s bank accounts, & to stop asking for money, & to stop paying creditors – when Rob says Pacifica “is prohibited from engaging in conduct for which registration is required, including soliciting or disbursing charitable funds”, Rob’s just joshing.
The directors sleepwalkers can just carry on like Trump.
[UPDATE: same status one week later, Th10Aug . . . UPDATE OF THE UPDATE: ditto, two weeks later, Th17Aug (despite the verbal assurance of ED ‘The Breeze’ to that evening’s PNB – well, at c. 0042 EDT, F18Aug (sic; 2h51 into the meet), with still having to go back into a closed meeting (sic) – ‘The Breeze’ simply making an assertion (the weakest kind of declaration there is), citing neither documentary evidence, public or otherwise, nor anything as precise as a date, such as when Rob gave Pacifica the 👍 or when she thinks she ‘cured’ the delinquency) . . .]
~
This is nothing new: the reality arose in Aug2022, & even now it hasn’t been acknowledged in any Pacifica public meeting or documentby an employee, or a director, or any other delegate – deliberate concealment by some, lamentable ignorance by the rest, all persisting for more than 11 long months . . . with only the occasional ray of transparency delivered in a rare remark from the attending plebs. And the silence lies heavy on this 3July letter – it being studiously kept out of the slops served to the public, floating in neither the so-called ‘ED report’ to the PNB nor the ‘Chair’s announcements’ to the PNB Finance Cttee. Despite these obstructions, these practices in opacity, readers of this blog are well aware of the reality: it was last noted in the 21May2023 post, & it was fully explained on 4May2023, in passages replete with all those irritating links to those irritating rules & documents (please see the 2nd section).
[UPDATE: despite the denial by ‘The Breeze’ in Aug, sure enough, Pacifica was sent a second delinquency notice, a ‘451A’, dated 15Sep. That’s what happens when a delinquency isn’t cured.
[It’s an escalatory notice: “NOTIFICATION TO THE FRANCHISE TAX BOARD[original caps & bold]”. Oh. What does that mean? “The California Franchise Tax Board will be notified to disallow the tax exemption of the above-named entity and may revoke the organization’s tax exempt status at which point the organization will be treated as a taxable corporation (Rev. & Tax. Code, § 23703) and may be subject to the minimum tax penalty.”
[It repeated the key part of the first notice: “An organization that is listed as delinquent is not in good standing and is prohibited from engaging in conduct for which registration is required, including soliciting or disbursing charitable funds. (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 11, § 999.9.4.)” – emphases & bold added.
[This second notice is in the linked depository, next to the first, & is denoted “RCT-451A-S Delinquency Notice – 2nd”.]
. . . Vasily Vereshchagin, The Apotheosis of War, 1871 . . .
Another scandal is that no-one these days knows of VV. And it’s remarkable that this painting isn’t as pervasive in everyday imagery as the blue & yellow flag – it hasn’t even been recycled by political cartoonists, especially surprising in the case of Steve Bell, a prized victim of his employer, the UK’s Guardian. (The Guardian: the rag that gleefully led the smear that Corbyn et al. were racist towards Jews, rather than opposed to Jewish-Israeli supremacism, the reality of subjugating Palestinians.)
VV made this when he was 29, in the year of the Paris commune. Bigger than a coffin, on its frame he inscribed his dedication: “to all great conquerors, past, present and to come”. Found so shocking, it was banned in Russia, &, when it toured, German & Austrian troops were forbidden from seeing it.
WBAI ran an emergency fundraiser last Friday, 28July. 9am thru midnight. 15hrs. It was, frankly, astonishing. And we’re not referring to the refrain of a Nina Simone song heard that evening at the start of director Shawn’s own brought-forward programme, Midnight Ravers:
The website simply said this was an emergency fundraiser. It gave no financial information – you know, numbers, those handy things for indicating the scale of it all. Oh no. Just certain bills happen to be unpaid. Best not alarm the natives; appear as in full control; business as usual. Ok, throw in the ‘emergency’ word, stir up some enthusiasm, but play it deadpan, don’t be alarmist, keep the contrived ambivalence well & truly under wraps. WBAI, a bit hard up – what’s new. Simply something to get over. Mustn’t appear as Peter who cried wolf.
So station manager Berthold played mum. Not a word on the website. Not a word. No statement from ‘the leader’, an appeal, trying to rally the listeners, members, & staff. And not a word on-air – not even Berthold speaking to the listeners, making a pitch every hour, on the hour. Zilch. Ostrich on Atlantic Avenue.
No fundraising goal was either stated or mentioned – by anyone.
And no info on how things went. As of Monday evening, nothing on the website. How much was pledged? How much cash has cleared?
What does this all mean? Who hasn’t been paid? Who’s not going to get paid? Whose hours have been cut? Whose hours are going to get cut? Who’s been fired? Who’s going to get fired? What arrangement has been made with the studio/office landlord? The tower landlord? The call-centre?
Let’s be real: it’s beyond all this. There’s only one Q: is there any way to not become a repeater station, fed by KPFA & Moe Thomas?
(And removing the WBAI staff allows the breakers to win a new referendum, giving them the Pacifica constitution they themselves write.)
~
Why has it come to this? It’s obvious from the public record that the so-called anti-breakers never effectively challenged the breakers’ mantra of station self-sufficiency, their misrepresentation of what’s in the articles of incorporation (as fully explained, numerous times, on this blog – the latest, https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/2023/05/21/10-topics/). And the anti-breakers have proven themselves unable to even think about a vision for Pacifica – let alone present a formulation, or even a sketch. No. They’ve been devoid of ideas. All they’ve managed to come up with this year is being nice to the breakers: Julie Clueless, chair of the Pacifica board, the blob at the top, helping them take over KPFK governance, & she now sits back as they go offense, driving on to oust Michael Novick, the unpaid, temporary station manager. (Enter Ali Lexa, stage left.)
So no surprise the anti-breakers have shown themselves incapable of devising a network development plan, a plan applying the principle of optimising total marginal gain, turning an aggregation of stations into a unitary network – this principle requiring a spatialrevolution in the treatment of money, in the relationship between where funds are raised & where they are spent: making some of the allocation rules those of positive discrimination, mitigating the histories of each station, not least their initial endowment, & focusing on the future by allocating funds where it’s decided they’re most needed. But then they’re so incompetent they can’t even get to meetings, can’t even reach quorum at the PNB Strategic Planning Cttee.
In practice, collusion with the breakers.
Reducing Pacifica to what?
A pile of desiccated skulls.
~
[AI was not used in the making of this post. And neither were any animals harmed or killed. (Has to be said coz WordPress now gives an AI option, including choosing a tone for the composition.)]
~
[Kagarlitsky: “On July 26, the FSB detained Boris Kagarlitsky, a well-known left-wing theorist, activist and commentator. Following his arrest, he was transferred [1 000km, over 600 miles] from his home city of Moscow to a pre-trial detention center in Syktyvkar, the Komi Republic, where he will be held until late September (at least). Kagarlitsky has been charged with ‘justifying terrorism’ and could face up to seven years in prison. His colleagues from the YouTube channel Rabkor [111k subscribers – eat yer heart out, Pacifica!] have also been interrogated in Moscow, Yekaterinburg and Penza, and their apartments searched.” Jailed under Brezhnev, arrested under Yeltsin, now repressed under Putin. https://mailchi.mp/6fdb35231804/poslemedia-weekly-newsletter-13558212?e=d5f3a4dbae]
[UPDATE … regrettable delay: will be posted before . . . the Earth falls into the Sun. With the pseudo-election underway, the die is cast – although it isn’t a die but a death, that of Pacifica. It’s obvious that there is, as last time, only one organised force in this charade: the breakers. They’re on course to win the KPFK contest, meaning that having three of the five stations – both their LSB’s & so the directors they elect – they can push thru almost anything . . . all that’s excluded are two areas: by-law amendments requiring a majority of the voting staff members (Art. 17, Sec. 1(B)(4)) – but turned their way if the directors make WBAI a repeater station, eliminating the staff, whilst the vote takes place (sic); & amending the articles of incorporation, per the two-thirds rule, so 15 of 22 directors, & 16 of 24 station delegates (Art. 17, Sec. 2(B)(2)(i)). Like Obama in his first term, the anti-breakers have wasted their chance – and structural change will be ushered in during 2024, & 2025. Thoughts & prayers. Thoughts & prayers.
[A separate post will explain – again – why Tanaka & the other Berkeley hillbillies are spinning a dangerous yarn when endlessly repeating that the Articles of Incorporation require station self-sufficiency. This was put to rest at this blog back in Nov2021: self-sufficiency pertains to Pacifica as a whole – which is why the Article says “the facilities”, the Pacifica facilities, not anything to do with an individual station. But the evidence & the argument will have to be repeated because it’s obvious that this mantra is already being made a core message of the breakers’ delegates election campaign, be it held in 2023 or 2024.
[In Nov2021, in a post under the sub-heading ‘But don’t the Articles of Incorporation require station self-sufficiency?’, it was made plain that the statement of the existential basis of Pacifica’s incorporation used a carefully chosen formulation, effectively rejecting others that are considered below:
But don’t the Articles of Incorporation require station self-sufficiency?
A common belief, yes, but no, a mistaken belief. Article II identifies purposes, & sub-article (b) says, “the purposes of this corporation shall be: (a) […] (b) To establish and operate for educational purposes, in such manner that the facilities involved shall be as nearly self-sustaining as possible, one or more radio broadcasting stations licensed by the Federal Communications Commission […]” (emphases added; article as amended 19Aug1948 – https://pacifica.org/articles.htm). Making explicit what’s here, by separating the subordinate clause, we have “the purposes of this corporation shall be […] To establish and operate for educational purposes […] one or more radio broadcasting stations licensed by the Federal Communications Commission”, & “in such manner that the facilities involved shall be as nearly self-sustaining as possible”. The corporation’s facilities, the Pacifica facilities. The organisational unit stamped with ‘self-sustaining’ is Pacifica, not each station. So ‘self-sustaining’ is the attribute of facilities, not stations – and it seems obvious that it was said in this deliberate way to be consistent with the originary funding conception: Pacifica is an endeavour paid for collectively by the members & listeners – not outsiders, such as grantors & underwriters.
So not saying ‘in such manner that the stations involved shall be as nearly self-sustaining as possible’. So not saying‘To establish and operate for educational purposes one or more as nearly self-sustaining as possible radio broadcasting stations’. So not saying ‘To establish and operate for educational purposes one or more radio broadcasting stations, each of which shall be as nearly self-sustaining as possible’. No: the “self-sustaining” pertains to “the facilities”, undifferentiated facilities, the facilities collectively, the Pacifica facilities – not the facilities of each individual station. That’s why the linguistic construction is what it is: the particular concerning “the facilities” is slotted in, splitting the sentence – so much so, it warrants being enclosed by a pair of dashes, not commas.
. . . not the same, but close: the point is manipulating the domain of meaning to suit one’s political aim – and you won’t believe how eager they all were (bar Eleanor Forman & Vanessa Dixon-Briggs) to get this all done, & as quickly as possible. A veritable motion-lust, a hysteria, a frenzy – they’d be great at perpetrating a pogrom . . .
[UPDATE: as of 1200 ET, Sa6May2023, the audio recording has still not been posted at https://kpftx.org/archive.php – even though the audiofile of a later meeting is there, the next evening’s PNB. But do not despair: a PacificaWatch minion has made sure that the good work of the good people of ‘The Interim’ won’t disappear from the historical record: https://mega.nz/file/kFMmHTqD#7RdFHXr9UlaUJGZGNjjWwIiP5a0oR6YjpMHJAnUYAzs (1h15, 105MB).] [It was posted later that day – https://kpftx.org/archive.php. (Beware: that webpage’s ‘Filter Committees’ has two entries denoted ‘Elections’, with one empty; this error is not repeated.)]
~
Sections:
• PNB Chair Julie Hewitt: “one of the things I wan’ed to um, urgh, suggest that we do is, um, have Stephanie, urgh – ‘hurrgh – appoint herself the interim National Elections Supervisor […] so that we’re, you know, looking, urgh, for all intents and purposes to the world like we really are having elections this year […] to do something that looked like taking an action” (7:03)
• The danger! The danger! (as Kurtz didn’t say)
• The moral collapse, the moral capitulation of ED Stephanie Wells
• Same olde, same olde from the directors sleepwalkers – and the lesson of the terminated 2018 delegates election
• Update
~
PNB Chair Julie Hewitt: “one of the things I wan’ed to um, urgh, suggest that we do is, um, have Stephanie, urgh – ‘hurrgh – appoint herself the interim National Elections Supervisor […] so that we’re, you know, looking, urgh, for all intents and purposes to the world like we really are having elections this year […] to do something that looked like taking an action” (7:03)
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, Pacifica’s brightest & best first & second tier decision-makers sprung on us their latest take on picking words to depict the world as the world they want, on using words to sculpt the image of the world that suits them. In this, they apply a simple operational principle: if words are in the way, & they can’t be moved, then just add some, so the meaning changes, giving the green light to whatever they want to do.
Rules don’t count: rules are for losers. Decisions trump rules – always. It’s all about decisions. Decisions made by fearless, brave decision-makers, upstanding Pacificans, those prepared to step up to the plate, to take the hard decisions. What the likes of Susan Young (KPFT listener-delegate & breaker) call ‘rolling y’r sleeves up, y’all, & getting done the business of the Committee!’ – embellished with as much vacuous bluster as can be mustered.
Living in the world of words – and so not living in the world regulated by rule-bounded behaviour, where rules aren’t reducible to words, if only because there’s the inconvenience of the extra-linguistic force that is the state: structured as courts, where aggrieved peeps seek remedies, & judges issue decisions that are not just rule-bounded but backed up by bailiffs, marshals, & police.
Oh.
What happened at the W3May2023 PNB Elections Cttee was an exercise in full-spectrum domination: a motion-incoming from a Cttee member, obviously not forewarned by being circulated in something as transparent, standard, & courteous as a draft agenda; the PNB Chair just happening to be passing down the corridor & dropping in; the ED just opening the wrong door & wandering into the meeting; the set-up completed by the presence of enough mechanical hands in on the plot in order to get it all passed. Pacifica democracy in action. Pacifica stitch-up in all its splendour. Some of their ancestors were surely in the Place de la Concorde, working on their embroidery, whilst the heads fell into the baskets.
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So if the relevant by-law says the National Elections Supervisor has to be appointed by the Executive Director – a seemingly obdurate stricture – then just create a new post, one not covered by the by-law – in fact, preferably not covered by any by-law – then call it something like ‘the Interim National Elections Supervisor’, before letting the ED not just appoint the iNES but let them appoint themselves as the shiny new functionary. PacificaWorld’s very own self-coronation. What could be simpler? Who could possibly object? What could possibly go wrong?
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Plain sailing, one would think. But there’s always one, isn’t there. Some la-di-da, who thinks they’re better than the rest. Someone spouting specialist knowledge, even confident enough to quote something or other, plus using language & concepts no-one else uses, things like ‘rules’ & ‘can’t’ – someone all too ready to spoil the party.
And sure enough, up pops Eleanor Forman (WBAI listener-delegate), coming up with some quote or other from something called a by-law, moreover a Pacifica by-law, a set of words, apparently arranged in some set order, that can’t be changed, with some set meaning, all seeming to put a halt to proceedings (14:43):
“[t]o be eligible for appointment to the position of the national elections supervisor, said person shall not be an employee of the Foundation […]”
A halt? No. That would be taking things literally, letting the ordinary meaning of words do their work, ‘unaided’ by outside help. An approach giving in to the absurd idea that somehow evidence could be the ultimate arbiter, that evidence in a context of reasoned argument could possibly be compelling & the end of the matter. No. No, no. That simply wouldn’t do. That would simply be the height of naivety. That’s not how PacificaWorld works.
So, as quick as a flash, Susan Young rose to the challenge, putting bang to rights, telling it like it is:
“She would not be the NES: she would be the interim.”
. . . after all, who could ever think that content could trump form – in discussion, in jurisprudence? who cares about rationality, evidence, substance? even about what’s right? . . . No, it’s all about winning, the triumph of the will . . .
By now the coterie were egging each other on with alacrity, & with hardly time to take a breath, Chair Aki somehow managed to get out a ‘with no objection, that’s agreed then’, causing Eleanor’s arms to furiously flap about, struggling to lever her head above the sea of bodies, crying out, “I object!”, & before Director Allen, a Pacifica operator for nigh on 225yrs, could retort ‘it’s OK, Eleanor, your objection will be noted in the minutes’, Aki restored a semblance of order with a swift ‘OK, we’ll have a vote: Susan, take the roll’, before flopping back into his chair, composing himself, & reaching for another tablet.
The assembled calmed down somewhat; the democratic process yielded the right result; & a collective sigh settled upon the great-grandparents.
The resolution passed with one objection & one abstention:
“Motion to recommend that ED initiate preliminary tasks that would be undertaken by the National Election [sic] Supervisor until the National Election [sic] Supervisor can be engaged so the rest of the steps may proceed.”
No minutes yet, obviously, but the text of the adopted motion was read out (23:00 & 28:38); the vote, 12-1-1 (30:57): against, Eleanor Forman (WBAI listener-delegate), to her great credit; abstainer Vanessa Dixon-Briggs (director & WPFW listener-delegate), which is at least something; one not present during the vote, Evelia Jones (director & KPFK listener-delegate); & the 12 constituting the frenzied throng: Lily Kimura (KPFA listener-delegate), Aki Tanaka (director & KPFA listener-delegate), Carol Wolfley (KPFA listener-delegate), Eric Jacobson (KPFK listener-delegate), Myla Reson (KPFK staff-delegate), Teresa Allen (director & KPFT listener-delegate), Sean McPherson (KPFT listener-delegate), Susan Young (KPFT listener-delegate), Violetta Diamond (WPFW staff-delegate), Minerva Sanders (WPFW listener-delegate), Jack DePalma (WBAI listener-delegate), Shawn Rhodes (director & WBAI staff-delegate). So three directors sleepwalkers couldn’t give a monkey’s about a basic of the Pacifica constitution, the Gang of Three, RAT, Rhodes, Allen, Tanaka – with Ms Dixon-Briggs not being sure, keeping Humpty Dumpty company, & with Ms Jones off the call – https://mega.nz/file/kFMmHTqD#7RdFHXr9UlaUJGZGNjjWwIiP5a0oR6YjpMHJAnUYAzs.
Necessary commentary: “recommend” to whom? – presumably the PNB . . . “that ED initiate”, much vaguer than ‘that ED perform’ (chosen deliberately? reminds one of formulations such as ‘terminate with extreme prejudice’) . . . “tasks that would be undertaken by the National Election Supervisor”, so it does consist in NES work (not least in the light of the fundamental practical conceptual distinction between a station membership list & a station elector roll: only the NES can certify any of the 10 membership lists as elector rolls – the same content, but radically different in their usage) . . .
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. . . the lesson: so long as there’s a will, there’s a way . . .
. . . with the exercise of imagination, of focused creativity, any problem can be solved . . .
. . . well, at least solved in the upside-down world of PacificaWorld – where PNB Chair Julie ‘Clueless’ Hewitt insists on her “upside-down PNB meetings”, a phrase met with general hilarity from her fellow directors sleepwalkers, choosing to notice not just two meetings as one but compounding her violation by refusing to give the public meet a start time, instead choosing to assign it a time-span when our highers & betters will be assembled in all their finery, to avail themselves of the greetings of their fawning subjects, contra by-law Art. 6, Sec. 4, & 1934 Comms Act, as amended, § 396(k)(4) that requires CPB to have a rule such as Radio CSG General Provision § 2(A): “Open Meetings […] notice of meetings, including the time and place” – such is what Julie Clueless deems the donors deserve . . .
But PacificaWorld isn’t a world unto itself: it’s a bubble – punctured all too often by RealWorld: by the social law of money, by the organs of the state.
And this election situation is saturated with danger:
the fact that the inner circle has decided to use the language of ‘Steph the interim NES’ means they feel themselves trapped in a gully & fleeing a rolling boulder, that they expect an escalation: Steph won’t just be ‘perfecting’ the lists but start to do NES work. Why the desperate move? Simple: the KPFK/PRA sale fell thru in the first week of April; stopping the cash coming thru for a NES & the other election expenses (plus the upfront ~$40k demanded by the FY2022 auditors); & if that wasn’t enough, the judge in the Ziri Rideaux et al. case has required that the delegates election is showered with lotus blossoms & jasmin by the end of the year, 31Dec. So it’s expected that Steph’s work won’t stop at the lists.
And it gets worse. The judge also “enjoined” the defendant directors to adhere to the by-laws. So no assigning of NES work – even “preliminary tasks” – to anyone else, especially to a Pacifica employee.
They’ve allowed themselves to be put into a bind. And feeling the squeeze, they’ve now decided to defy the judge.
In any case, ED-as-NES aside, catastrophe looms: the prospect – and so the fear – is that if a professional elections supervisor is hired, then if they find an irredeemable mess, corrupted to the gills, they will have no option, as per Oct2018 (see below), but to terminate the 2023 election: meaning, an objective outsider will be making a public report that Pacifica is so maladministered that it has proven incapable of carrying out the demand of the court. Is there a greater demonstration of delinquency?
Oh.
By choosing a structure that ties up ~$2.5m a year keeping KPFA personnel costs as ~25% of Pacifica’s total expenses (FY2022: 24.1%), & so choosing not to use a network development plan to help overcome individual station resource barriers & to maximise total station marginal gain . . . by choosing not to have a Chief Financial Officer, by choosing to not even have a CPA under contract, by choosing not to have an internal audit team, & so choosing an absence of financial control, & choosing not to know what’s happening in real-time . . . by choosing not to make the ED their instrument, by choosing to let the station managers (& their underlings) boss the ED, & so choosing to let the station fiefdoms run riot – by choosing all this, the directors sleepwalkers have also put themselves into a bind re the election.
And having started to dig, they can’t stop digging.
Is there a greater demonstration of delinquency? Well, ask the California Attorney General: their Registry of Charitable Trusts is currently making the public declaration that Pacifica Foundation, Inc. is delinquent, & has been since c. Aug2022 – when ED Wells tried to file Pacifica’s 2021 annual registration (dated 13Aug2022, stamped received 19Aug) using the old form (Rev. 09/2017, not Rev. 02/2021) so paying the old fee ($225, not $400) – see “Form RRF-1 2021 Rejected”, https://rct.doj.ca.gov/Verification/Web/Search.aspx?facility=Y; & https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/media/rrf1_form.pdf. (And other delicts?)
Oh. Meaning?
Since c. Aug2022, Pacifica has been stopped by law from operating – stopped from disbursing funds, stopped from soliciting funds.
And it’s not as if it hasn’t been warned:
webpage of Rob Bonta, Attorney General: “[a] charitable organization that is not in good standing with the Registry of Charitable Trusts may not operate or solicit donations in California. (Cal. Code of Regs., tit. 11, § 999.9.4.)” …
webinar by Tania Ibanez, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Charitable Trusts Section (who looks like she graduated straight from Central Casting onto the set of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation): “[a] charitable organization cannot legally operate if it is not in good standing with the Registry. The organization’s registration must be current to operate; delinquent or suspended organizations may not solicit or disburse charitable funds. (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 11, § 999.9.4.)” …
the law, § 999.9.4: “A person or entity subject to the registration requirements of Government Code section 12580 et seq. [as is Pacifica], must be registered and in good standing with the Registry of Charitable Trusts to operate or solicit for charitable purposes. A registration that is delinquent, suspended or revoked is not in good standing and is prohibited from engaging in conduct for which registration is required including, but not limited to[,] solicitation for charitable purposes.”
webinar titled Attorney General’s Guide for Charities: Review and Discussion, slide #7 titled “The Consequences for Failing to Register or Becoming Delinquent in the Annual Filing and Reporting Requirements May Result in Punitive Actions” (emphases added), unpaginated but page 7 of the PDF, no date but elaboration of parts of the June2021 AG guide, emphases added – https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/charities/publications/guide-webinar.pdf;
By law, Pacifica is currently forbidden to operate. So, by law, Pacifica is currently forbidden to disburse funds. So, by law, Pacifica is currently forbidden to solicit for funds. And all for the sake of not paying $175?
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The moral collapse, the moral capitulation of ED Stephanie Wells
Drawn into the directors’ sticky web is ED Steph ‘The Breeze’ . . . and her willingness to not just go along with this ruse but to spearhead it. This marks her moral collapse. This marks her moral capitulation. She has finally caved in to the depravity stalking PacificaWorld.
Want me to pose as the Chief Financial Officer, violating by-law Art. 9, Sec. 1, when I don’t even have a bookkeeping qualification, let alone being a certified public accountant, no prob – just keep paying me.
Want me to be the National Elections Supervisor, violating by-law Art. 4, Sec. 4(A), no prob – just keep paying me.
Want me to keep saying “y-eee-ssssssss”, firmly & confidently (thru gritted teeth, when I know differently), no prob – just keep paying me.
. . . even so, she’s probably already been sending off job applications for weeks . . .
Re CFO work, real work, the work of a qualified professional, a CPA: what ‘The Breeze’ has been doing since NETA left, on Th22Sep2022, is effectively helping the directors sleepwalkers violate California Corporations Code § 312(a): “[a] corporation shall have […] a chief financial officer” – https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CORP§ionNum=312.
Oh.
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Same olde, same olde from the directors sleepwalkers – and the lesson of the terminated 2018 delegates election
Less surprising is this episode mundanely marking a new low for the director sleepwalker stratum, including the blob at the top, the so-called leader, the Chair of the Board. Myopia incarnate: the gift of self-injurious behaviour that just keeps on giving.
This, when the by-law passages re the delegates election process are unambiguous: the NES, & crucially their work, is insulated from both management & governance.
The NES is the sole elections decision-maker: the NES alone decides when the process starts, & under which conditions; the NES alone decides whether the process continues, & under which conditions; the NES alone decides whether the process has to be terminated.
The 2018 process was indeed terminated, by NES Graeme Drew. The subject line he gave to his 30Oct2018 letter to the directors (copied to ED Maxie Jackson) was “RE: Decision to Terminate 2018 Election”. He declared:
On Monday, October 29, 2018 I informed your Executive Director of my decision to terminate the 2018 election process. […]
[A] significant concern arose earlier during my review of previous Pacifica election reports provided to me, where it was clear that one of the major challenges would be the timely receipt of current elector lists (i.e. members eligible to vote) required to administer a proper election. The NES for the 2015 election described the lists as ‘atrocious’ in her final report. The accuracy and integrity of these lists are vital to ensuring a fair and proper election, and in the event of having to defend against future appeals and legal actions by appellants as can be the case with elections in general and has been the case on numerous occasions in the past with Pacifica elections. [page 1]
[…] the absence of an approved election budget (another concern)
[…] I am unable to reliably verify any of the applicants for candidacy due to the poor quality of elector lists. […]
In summary, despite best efforts on the part of all involved and an extension of the nomination period, the elector lists required to proceed with the election process remain incorrect and incomplete.
Given this, I am unable to verify eligible candidates and proceed with the election. [page 2]
CONCLUSION
I plan to announce the end of the 2018 election on Wednesday, October 31, 2018. [page 3]
NES Drew couldn’t certify the eligibility of even one prospective candidate: that’s how bad the membership lists were, how materially inaccurate they were – in a word, how corrupted they were.
A principal means for the 2018 election, namely the capacity of the 10 membership lists to function as the 10 elector rolls, were so materially inaccurate, so corrupted, that it meant the election process had shown itself to be so corrupt that it had to be terminated. That’s what was required by the evidence of the object, the objective evidence.
Of course, Chair Alex Steinberg (WBAI listener-delegate) et al. ignored such nonsense. They immediately got Maxie, obviously under pain of keeping his job, to appoint a NES that would do the directors’ bidding. Fuck professional standards. Fuck the rules. Fuck ethics. This is politics. This is how The Family operates. This is Pacifica. This is The Pacifica Family. With our totem, The Great Lew. With our relic, The Mission Statement. If you don’t like it, go fuck yourself, just fuck off – and take your morality with you. PacificaWorld is obviously not for the likes of you . . .
. . . That’s how contemptuous they are of the members & listeners, who, in the absence of effective delegates that will stand up for them & defend them, can only look to their sentinel, the Pacifica constitution (the Articles of Incorporation & the by-laws), the reified objectification in language of the collective will of the members, Pacifica personified. And when betrayed within, that’s why members, usually with the utmost reluctance, go to an authority of TeamUSA, be it CA AG Rob Bonta, FCC, CPB, or the capitalist court – this being preferable to the alternatives: resignation, exit, or violence (cf. Hirschman’s ‘voice, loyalty, exit’).
[UPDATE: the swearing paragraph has to be dedicated, albeit retrospectively, to Fred Dodsworth (not only a KPFA staff-delegate but a Pacifica director, no less – besides being a breaker enforcer, drawing effortlessly upon his bullying, angry, & authoritarian disposition) – dedicated to Fred, given his performance at the M8May2023 PNB Strategic Planning Cttee (37:31 & 58:02) – https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/pnbstratcomm/230508/pnbstratcomm230508a.mp3. (Is he on meds? Or is he just vulgar? … And on-air, does he think he outswears Otis Maclay?) . . . That evening, his expletive-laden rants made Queen Liz III go all aquiver, before she took a turn, & fell into a faint; the latest report from Ojai Palace is that she is recovering in her chambers, in the suitable care of her attendants.]
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UPDATE
The presence of absence at the Th4May2023 PNB: surprisingly, none of this came up at the next day’s meeting. Why? Maybe the Pacifica General Legal Counsel, Arthur Schwartz, advised the controlling group of directors sleepwalkers that it would be for the best if the resolution of recommendation from the PNB Elections Cttee never made its way to the PNB – well at least not the next day. That it would be for the best if no-one even mentioned the episode when the Cttee Chair gave his report, & certainly that no-one asked about it in the ‘Q&A’. Mom. Word. (And there’s also the enjoining stipulation from the judge.)
One should bear in mind that this iNES palaver is perhaps redundant. That’s because those at Wednesday’s meeting spoke as if there wasn’t a clear distinction between the membership list & the elector roll: management prepares the membership lists, whereas the NES uses sampling & other methods to test their adequacy to function as elector rolls. Only the NES can certify a membership list as an elector roll, & allow it to be used in the election, in the first instance to certify who merits being a candidate. It may turn out that Steph is so busy getting the lists in order that she won’t get onto NES work.
I say ‘perhaps redundant’ coz the alliance between the Hewitt faction & New Day/other breakers, already on display in all its geniality at the KPFK LSB meets (antagonising Queen Liz III), may indeed push Steph into doing work that is that of the NES, work unfolding in a necessary sequence: (as ED, drafting an elections budget for approval by the directors sleepwalkers); appointing 5 Local Elections Supervisors, then managing them; declaring that the 10 lists can function as 10 rolls; administering the 10 nominations processes; certifying the 10 sets of candidates; administering the 10 election campaigns; (as ED, hiring a balloting company); then as NES, working with the balloting company . . . one could descend further. And of course, there’s also the work of administering the Fair Campaign Provisions (sic) – adjudicating on disputes & complaints, & enforcing her decisions (. . . she can’t even get her underlings to use an integral, centralised bookkeeping & accounting software system, so that’s going to go swimmingly). Mundane matters aside, how depraved is Steph willing to be? How low will she go? How desperate is she? (For the directors sleepwalkers, these questions obviously don’t arise.)
Also remember that the ED, as Maxie never failed to remind us, ‘serves at the pleasure of the Board’. By-law Art. 9, Sec. 7 happens to use different language, making plain how a servant is to treated: supervised & controlled: “[t]he Executive Director […] shall be selected, supervised and discharged by the Board”; “[s]ubject to the control of the Board, the Executive Director shall […]” – https://pacifica.org/indexed_bylaws/art9sec7.html.
So ED-as-NES can never be an independent NES: to the contrary, with ED-as-NES the NES becomes supervised & controlled by the director majority, doing as she’s told, doing their bidding, performing as their tool, & out of self-interest making sure she does nothing that would harm her annual job performance evaluation, not to speak of her pay cheque. ED-as-NES is intrinsically incapable of acting as an independent NES – even in doing ‘preliminary tasks’. And after all, to take this to its tongue/cheek limit, once the ED is the NES, interim or otherwise, the judge expects the directors to adhere to the by-laws – to ‘supervise & control the ED’.
The prospect – & so the fear of ED Wells & the directors sleepwalkers – is that a duly hired professional elections supervisor will find if not the membership lists then the election process as a whole so corrupted that they will have no option but to terminate the 2023 election.
And what a statement: an objective outsider will be making a public report that Pacifica is so maladministered, that it is so corrupted, that it is incapable of carrying out the demand of the court.
PacificaWatch 