10 posts:

• The sleepwalkers order a financial news blackout: trying to hide their tracks, conceal their acts of omission – Th20Oct2022 PNB

• Contra Counsel Arthur’s advice, the directors illegally extend all delegates’ terms – even their own. The sense of entitlement, privilege, indispensability, superiority – even contra the heavy-duty “in no event” imperative of by-law 4/8. Shredding the by-laws – Pacifica, governed by decisions, not rules. Now in double jeopardy: out of control ‘governance’, plus flying blind post-NETA with no fiscal management – Th20Oct2022 PNB

• Why don’t we decide to sell the building used by KPFK/PRA, then come up with a reason for doing it? Maybe even publish a plan? But maybe we won’t – Th27Oct2022 PNB closed meeting

• After deciding to sell the building used by KPFK/PRA, they then decide to try to come up with a plan. Yup, always rational, always on top of things: “I know that some of us are beginning to take a shot at putting together a draft strategic plan” – Director Jim, Th3Nov2022 PNB

• Questions on the sale of the building used by KPFK/PRA – public comment, Su6Nov2022 KPFK LSB

• PNB Audit Cttee Chair Eileen Rosin, also WPFW Vice-Chair, ‘termed out’ 22June2022, but LSB Chair Williams says she’s staying! Letters to PNB, PNB Audit Cttee, WPFW LSB, auditors Rogers & Company, & their licensors, the Virginia Board of Accountancy & the California Board of Accountancy

[audio starts with ex-PNB Chair Alex reading his motion (the first few secs are missing) – https://mega.nz/file/ABM3CRLC#Ux_z59yfJVg7QeXSf5dDqKc53EbzznWY4EI01LSDMMs (1h15, 105MB)]

• Preparing to default on the payroll – be it F25Nov, F9Dec, F23Dec, F6Jan . . . A cut by a uniform x%, so a regressive policy, favouring the higher paid – Th17Nov2022 PNB closed meeting

[the audio was published in the Pacifica meetings archive, as two audiofiles, but then withdrawn; it seems this was done for a few possible reasons. #1: there’s mention of whether the breaker directors from the KPFK LSB voted in the Th27Oct2022 closed meeting to sell the building used by the station (56:37). These are Ali Lexa Al-Hilali & PacificaWorld’s retort to Austin Powers, ‘Mrs Evil’, Evelia Jones. The good lady had absented herself, but Ali Lexa vehemently denied the accusation against him, disclosing that he abstained (sic – well, that’s ok then). #2: [? – check] disclosed that the PNB has lost its secretary, Marianne ‘¡bueno!’ Edain, who was supposed to get paid – which is exactly how the PNB let it remain until, surprise, surprise, she found better things to do than staying up to see in Friday with friends like that (TimeStamp) – don’t you just luv that talk of ‘the Pacifica family’? The recording linked here misses out the prelims (the first few days, with all-nighters, when the agenda was decided), & starts with GM Novick’s report & questions – https://mega.nz/file/cdsyTbzK#XziI3eyEb8Vlv1dTwcQZQ7BtKbNF-sRTbj-3ExZpBvY (2h31, 210MB)]

[note, all this ‘von’ talk in people’s names is inegalitarian nonsense. A nobiliary particle, as they say in linguistics. In German it denotes ‘from’, the land owned by the family; it ranks somewhat lower than von und zu, Freiherr, Graf, Herzog, Fürst. These are markers of distinction – nod to Bourdieu, who examined “strategies of pretension” (Distinction, p. 253). We can do better than this, yes, especially in PacificaWorld? Indeed, in some countries, as part of their attempt to continue a capitalist cultural transition after World War One, such markers were even banned by law]

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[The Pacifica info gatekeepers were tardy posting the Th10Nov PNB audio recording, likewise now with the 17Nov – https://kpftx.org/archive.php. So here’s a revealing portion of that meet. When g-d gives a minion strength, PacificaWatch will replace this placeholder with a proper post. UPDATE, Sa26Nov: even after eight days there’s nothing.

[UPDATE: on another topic, KPFA. Three regressive developments:

• the Chair of the KPFA Local Station Board has violated a Pacifica by-law by not calling a public meeting of that paragon of civility & cordiality, decency & bliss. It last met on Sa17Sep, & it’s now too late to have a November properly noticed public meeting. This violates the requirement that “[e]ach LSB shall meet as often as required to accomplish it [sic] duties, but not less than every other month” – https://pacifica.org/indexed_bylaws/art7sec6.html (stated in full);

• the LSB had met Sa29Oct, in a closed session, probably in the Ritual Chamber of the Berkeley Masonic lodge, but that was to go thru the motions so the breaker majority could garrote Ms Elizabeth Milos, a listener-delegate who just happens to be an anti-breaker – https://kpftx.org/pacalendar/cal_show1.php?eventdate=20221029. Her passing has not been acknowledged in the list of delegates, except by the presence of absence: https://kpftx.org/pnbmem/public_cm_list.php?id=25&yr=2022&eventdate=20220917 & https://kpfa.org/about/kpfa-local-station-board/, different lists, but Ms Milos & another listener-delegate, Ms Adisa Armand, were replaced by Ms Donna Carter & Mr Carlos Kohan. No doubt, pillars of the community, righteous too; &

• KPFA also doesn’t have a functioning CAB, the Community Advisory Board. According to the station website, the last time it met was over 3yrs ago, 23Nov2019 (sic) – https://kpfa.org/station-announcements/community-advisory-board/. The only notice of it meeting this year was for Sa16Apr, but this provided no joining details, & there’s no evidence that Berkeley had a happening – https://kpftx.org/archive.php. As the world knows, not having a CAB disqualifies a station’s application to join the CPB Radio Community Service Grant programme – and joining is the stage each Pacifica station is at, having last received money from that source more than 10yrs ago (sic), in Oct2012; grant totals are at https://pacifica.org/finance/audit_2013.pdf (pages 4 & 20; pages 6 & 23 of the PDF). As ED Steph would no doubt say, ‘moi? Nothing to do with me, that’s a station matter. I’m just the executive director, the ED of the company’.]

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The ED ‘report’, with a few directors sleepwalkers asking perfunctory questions (17mins; 23MB): https://mega.nz/file/FEUy1DxL#qpy-w1IK0HX_i0je6Ufx5sbAwM-_JYUccbUH-Gd7rQ0.

Obviously no-one asked why, having been 10mths in the job, she hasn’t presented to the Board a costed operational plan for Pacifica – with the director then asking, reflexively, why none of them has presented a motion requiring the ED to devise & present a range of costed operational plans, plans derived from costed scenarios of Pacifica’s future scaled over one, three & five years, scenarios that would have to be devised by the ED coz there hasn’t been even one director during the last half decade who’s shown either the interest or aptitude.

Unsaid questions immediately followed by a motion requiring all that conceptual & imaginative work to be done by the ED. An attempt to give the ED’s work direction, future-oriented direction, breaking with the running-to-stay-still, the perpetual firefighting, the immersion in the groundhog present. An attempt at being proactive, rather than reactive. An attempt at engineering change, rather than being transfixed in stasis. The effort of leading, rather than the effort of just being busy.

But that would require Pacifica having, at a minimum, a director who knows what’s required of a director. A director who can then convince their colleagues to change the culture of the organisation, namely, its habitual way of working. A director who especially has some idea of how to best use the talents & expertise of an ED, a director determined to ensure that the polity of fiefdoms is replaced by a chain of command: PNB policy ⭢ ED programmes of work ⭢ GM implementation. A director able to motivate a national board to pursue what needs to be done to turn around a failing $11m annual turnover public charity that has been declining for at least 15yrs & has now hit the buffers with not enough cash coming in to pay current creditors, let alone past-due balances.

Instead, an assemblage of sleepwalkers. Inferior even to the zombies of Night of the Living Dead – who at least acted with common purpose.

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