Phone number’s disclosed, so Chair Beth von Gunten agrees new one for M27Dec PNB Development Task Force. But why keep the public out? And why no minutes for over 1½yrs? More worryingly, why do the inner circle invitees collude in the anti-Pacifican behaviour? Why don’t they elect a new Chair? Don’t they care?

[UPDATE … question 28 of 31 did wonder, “And will the joining details for the December meeting be changed yet again, to keep the public out?” And sure enough, Queen Liz III couldn’t help herself: “Access via MaestroConference (Never a charge to the calling party) phone (323) 393-4046 access code 504 258 # (Same as last Month.) Access information will remain the same for future meetings until further notice. (Please disregard any other access information from any other source. Beth)” – sent out 40mins before the meeting, “Monday, December 27, 2021, 05:50:09 PM MST”. So that’s a promise, yes?

[Her unthinking authoritarian disposition was also on display again – not horizontal/collegiate but top-down, not an intercourse of equals but others as objects – enclosing what she described as “Agenda”, rather than ‘suggested agenda’. This email was forwarded to PacificaWatch by members of the inner circle & their confidants.

[What do they say about leopard & spots? And what is this problem she has with Joe & Joanna Public? Given that she’s shown yet again that she’s really more at home in the cosy world of appointed boards, secreted away from scrutiny, she should reconsider her position within an ostensibly democratic culture such as Pacifica, & do the decent thing, yes? She really is like a fish out of water here.]

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. . . the new number & access code for the M27Dec meet, plus the inner circle of courtiers . . . remember the PacificaWatch mantra, its masthead: “helping to make the Pacifica radio network more transparent, making it easier to hold decision-makers to account” . . .

At the Su19Dec KPFK Local Station Board, in public comment (43:34), there was disclosure of the secret number to be used for the M27Dec PNB Development Task Force meeting: join the call by dialling (323) 393-4046, access code 504 258 # – https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/2021/12/19/why-is-director-von-gunten-et-al-jeopardising-any-pacifica-application-for-cpb-money-qm-why-is-this-tolerated-qm-public-comment-at-the-su19dec2021-kpfk-lsb/.

The next day the anti-Pacifican forces went to work, sending a new number to the inner circle, those personally invited by Chair Beth von Gunten. The new info going to the anointed ones:

2030 EST, M27Dec PNB Development Task Force: please join the call with 408-520-2444, access code 618 715#.

As per M20Dec2021 email to the email list of the PNB Development Task Force

The inner circle:

Fred Blair, Chris Cory, Heather Gray, Bruce Greif, Rosalie Hoffman, Eric Jacobson, Steve Kaiser, Kim Kaufman, Michael Novick, King Reilly, Lawrence Reyes, Ziri Rideaux, Cerene Roberts, Jeanine Rohn, James Sagurton, Anita Sims, Nancy Sorden, Tom Voorhees.

The current email list of the PNB Development Task Force

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The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has told Pacifica that if it wants any of its money then it has to “demonstrate full compliance with the [Radio Community Service Grants] General Provisions at the time of application”. So why is Chair von Gunten choosing to violate the CPB open meetings requirement, thereby ensuring disqualification?

https://mega.nz/file/cY8XCYLb#4IGXyzfasCgfm-GdaYYm6WPn2XaD4UcMJR8ZPTo-Q8c

Oddly, why has she changed her behaviour, having invited the public to the M27Sep Task Force meeting but then deliberately excluded them from the Oct, Nov, & Dec meetings?

https://kpftx.org/pacalendar/cal_show1.php?eventdate=20210927

Task Force Chair von Gunten has the added responsibility, as a director of Pacifica Foundation, Inc., of being a trustee of its assets, a so-called fiduciary. Her behaviour concerning the possibility of CPB funding endangers the viability of those assets. Doesn’t this warrant her disqualification as a director?

Doesn’t this certainly disqualify her candidature as a 2022 director?

Also, why is she choosing to violate the Pacifica by-law open meetings requirement, an institutionalised attempt to inculcate & maintain a culture of transparency & to prohibit opacity, this being the substantive content of by-laws Article 6, Section 7 & Art. 7, Sec. 6?

https://pacifica.org/indexed_bylaws/art6sec7.html, & https://pacifica.org/indexed_bylaws/art7sec6.html

She says taskforce meetings don’t have to be open to the public – which poses the question, why has she never explained why she prefers meetings to be secret?

Why does someone with a demonstrated secretive & exclusionary disposition not just want to be a Pacifica member but to be a Pacifica decision-maker, even one at the highest level?

More so than merely taking the opportunity to practice secrecy & exclusion, why is she so insistent on keeping Pacifica proceedings secret?

And why have something as basic as minutes not been posted on a Pacifica website – not even one set for a deliberative body that has been meeting since 24June2020?

What does she want to conceal? What information does she want to deny to Pacifica members, listeners, & staff? Why doesn’t she want them to be informed, to be educated, about what is happening in Pacifica? Why does she want to be the info gatekeeper?

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Most worryingly, why do the invitees to these secret meetings, the inner circle, choose to collude in this anti-Pacifican behaviour?

Is it simply because they’re afraid they’ll lose the privilege of being emailed the joining details?

Are they afraid of upsetting Queen Liz III, losing their privileges, being banished from the realm, reduced to relying on the goss?

Don’t they realise they’ve allowed themselves to become dependants, the clients of a patron who’s in a position to disburse privileges?

Don’t they realise they’re helping to reproduce a corrosive political structure of bonding with some rather than others, encouraging loyalty to the leader, creating an in-group/out-group dynamic, setting Pacifican against Pacifican?

Don’t they realise this ferments a toxic atmosphere?

Don’t they realise that a bystander who remains silent is objectively colluding with the perpetrators of a wrong?

Don’t they realise that by their acts of commission & omission they themselves are perpetrating harm?

Why don’t they take advantage of the public comment portion of a local station board meeting to express any opposition they have to this practice?

Why won’t they bring a motion to their board, be it their local station board or the Pacifica National Board, to stop this harmful & destructive behaviour?

Why won’t people in a position to act try to stop this public charity being a private club?

So why don’t the invitees vote in a new Chair, someone who isn’t afraid of being both transparent & legal, someone even eager to post a notice allowing the public to witness proceedings, so peeps can find out what’s going on in their name?

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How has Pacifica become reduced to this – and so quickly by a neophyte, the epitome of the voguish PMC, someone who proudly told the listeners of KPFK, in a ‘meet the LSB’ session in the summer with GM Moe Thomas, that “I was recruited onto the LSB by Grace Aaron”? . . . cult-like . . . creepy . . . bestowing heirs . . . a dynasty, a caste . . . a world of privilege . . . the sense of entitlement . . . – all so alien to Pacifica, yes?

And will the joining details for the December meeting be changed yet again, to keep the public out?

Why is Pacifica descending in this way?

How low can it go?

Why are people who do know better, colluding in this destructive, degenerative behaviour?

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No need to worry about the light, & The Lazarus Project – the M16Nov PNB Development Task Force

… not The Raising of Lazarus by Caravaggio, c. 1609; in his penultimate year, at 38; an altarpiece in Messina …

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This task force is quite important, you may think. Especially as four of the five members are Pacifica directors: Nancy ‘don’t say “FJC” again!’ Sorden (2018-9 PNB Chair, & WPFW listener-delegate), Tom ‘I get so harassed at KPFA LSB’s I wonder why I keep turning up’ Voorhees (KPFA listener-delegate), Sandra ‘I’m sorry for making a fool of myself at that recent PNB meeting’ Rawline (KPFT listener-delegate), & Heather ‘I used to work for Coretta King’ Gray (WRFG-Atlanta affiliate-director). The other member is given as Rosalie Hoffman (WBAI, not on the station board, according to the Calendar & Meeting Archive).

https://kpftx.org/pnbmem/public_cm_list.php?id=38&yr=2020&eventdate=20201116

There have been eight meetings of this important Development group, starting on 24June. Quite a lot, you may think. An urgency commensurate with pressing circumstances.

Thing is, there isn’t one audiofile in the Archive. Oh. But then it’s only met three times – yes, five have been cancelled. Quite the achievement, you may think.

But this is all explained, yes, that basic courtesy to members & listeners? Well, only twice: 19Oct, “[q]uorum not achieved”, & then today’s more detailed disclosure, made when ex-Chair Nancy ‘wooden as a chair’ Sorden updated the Archive:

Cancelled

No one present

https://kpftx.org/archive.php

Oh.

And the purpose of the meeting that no-one came to, not even the convenor?

Plan fundraising and member raising actions

https://kpftx.org/pacalendar/cal_show1.php?eventdate=20201116

OMG, Pacifica has embarked on The Lazarus Project!

Ah well, guess that’s one way to try to reverse the necroeconomics of The Golden Corpses, the reliance on bequests.

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Obvious I know, but wouldn’t it be a good idea for a director to ask at the next PNB, why the hell isn’t the Development Task Force meeting?!?

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And Rosalie Hoffman? A blast from the past. Not as far back as our Milanese talent, but at least from the turn of the century. She appears in a notorious list, the HCUA blacklist the National Board Un-Pacifican Activities list of “FIRED, BANNED, REMOVED, SUSPENDED or DRIVEN FROM WBAI SINCE DECEMBER 22, 2000” . . . appearing as “Rosalie Hoffman – producer (fired and banned)”. Exactly a year later the list was “37 and counting”. But Rosalie was in good company: Cerene Roberts, Mimimi Rosenberg, Bernard White, Kathy Davis, Bob Fass, Bob Lederer, Grandpa Al Lewis, Juan González, Amy Goodman . . . (letter from Pacifica Secretary Carol Spooner to Judge Ronald Sabraw, Alameda County Superior Court, Exhibit A, 2Jan2002 – https://glib.com/ipnb_meeting_0.html).

Not included was Ursula Ruedenberg, who popped up, with Rosalie & the next three, in this banned list, 19Mar2001: http://freepacifica.savegrassrootsradio.org/freepacifica/xmas/index.html. Thoroughly rehabilitated, Ursula’s the longstanding director of the Pacifica affiliates programme, https://pacificanetwork.org/contact/.

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WBAI Radio Cttee goes all Brechtian, evaluating the call-in listeners. And “don’t tempt fate, ladies”

Bertolt, not Berthold

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What are we going to do: say ‘we want a better grade of callers, don’t call back’? […] What are we going to do: ‘track them down, & say don’t call back’?

Cerene ‘Serene’ Roberts, 15:51 & 19:59

WBAI Radio Cttee, Tu20Oct, from 4:16:

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And what was interpreted as non-verbal heckling, a disturbing repeated choking cough, provoked a retort from Cerene ‘Serene, so serene she was named it twice’ . . . a “don’t tempt fate, ladies” (38:18). Ever the compassionate.

Cerene ‘Serene’ Roberts may no longer be on the PNB, but she still gets to show she hasn’t lost it.

Indeed, rumour has it that Ms Roberts now gives Manhattan executive/masterclass seminars & webinars on, mimicking a famous book-title, The Art of the Putdown, The Art of the Trigger, & The Art of the Filibuster. Obviously, discounts for all multiple & group bookings, & special rates for aspiring non-profit dragons.

As she herself says, “knock yourself out” (30:55).

Not all Ice Maidens are Scandinavians.