Grace Aaron

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?

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[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.]

~

. . . 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

~

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?

~

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?

~

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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Two-stage emergency plan; & signal-swap to release cash. Response to remarks by Mr Burton

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Clifford Burton was kind enough to make a comment yesterday, about the current travails at KPFKD (not the KPD). My response became a lil longer than two paras., so i’ve put it here as a post. I thank Mr Burton (or is it Mx these days?) for helping me coalesce my thoughts. https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/2020/06/05/within-the-hour-facebook-inexplicably-deleted-the-post-about-the-pnb-zombies-and-karen/

In a separate post i’ll comment more narrowly on the KPFKD crisis thru consideration of two Pacifica meetings & a commentary: the Tu9June PNB Finance Cttee, & the W10June KPFKD Finance Cttee, & the W10June report by R Paul Martin to that evening’s WBAI Local Station Board (https://glib.com/treasurers_report_2020-06-10.pdf – 5pp. plus 3pp. appendices).

~~~

Strictly speaking, & this is the practical reality, KPFKD’s fate is Pacifica’s, not the station’s. A station owns nothing, not even the paper-clip being flipped across the station manager’s desk while he stares at the spreadsheet. Yes, the listeners think of the station as their own, they’re attached (Bowlby), & the station activists have not just a cognitive but an emotional involvement in the station, but in the famed last analysis, each station (1) is a custodian of Pacifica assets, administering them, (2) owns no debt, & (3) is an accounting unit.

This means that a revenue collapse at a station is Pacifica’s problem.

And this can cause a problem in a signal area when the self-understanding of what it is to support ‘my’ station, to love ‘my’ station, to be involved in Pacifica, is based on a falsehood, when, in the strictest sense (& so not to be thought unkind), the self-understanding isn’t up to the task, it’s practically inadequate.

As i’ve said elsewhere, all station accounting data, either as an aid for management decision-making or to inform the members & listeners, should allow a fair comparison between station performances, so of like with like. This requires the stripping out of the effects of historical accidents, which started in the Garden of Eden, when Pacifica & KPFA constituted an identity, the one & the same. The most glaring effect is that some stations are privileged, enjoying Pacifica buildings, land, & transmitters on a rent-free basis, thus being subsidised by the other stations, which also have the extra burden of paying non-Pacificans simply to function. A double burden is a double shift (Arlie Hochschild).

And the political effect of this persisting deficiency in how some Pacificans self-conceptualise & live affectively? Station chauvinism; separatism; provincialism. Station chauvinism: breeding poison, fuelling resentment. Separatism: break up Pacifica, destroy the network. Provincialism: springing from an exclusory proprietary attitude, it’s simultaneously inward-looking & antagonistic to others, causing the living of an in-group/out-group perceived reality, friend versus foe (Carl Schmitt). All this, antithetical to the nature that is Pacifica.

In terms of getting out of Pacifica’s endemic crisis, this blog (& in prior comments at Chris Albertson’s http://wbai-nowthen.blogspot.com/) has consistently noted the obvious: the only plausible way to, in the current idiom, let Pacifica breathe, is to negotiate a signal-swap (two isn’t needed), thereby using cash both to settle debts & to pay for the implementation of a network development plan. Only this can give Pacifica a future.

The Gorgon Grace approach has always been intrinsically myopic. Preserving the $3.265m loan principal, thru either extending the loan term or finding a new lender, has never addressed Pacifica’s future. It has only condemned Pacifica to a perpetual present, a Sisyphean existence, perpetual firefighting mode, the living of a diminishing, & so debilitating, present. The Grace approach, accepted by the PNB by default, the typical Pacifica action of inaction, an act of omission, has choked Pacifica, presenting it with the living of a shrinking horizon.

Only by eliminating the constant firefighting is it possible, but not guaranteed, to (1) pay bills timely, (2) give management, staff, the PNB, & the local station boards the time to focus on the future, rather than the present, & (3) improve the appalling interpersonal interactions at four of the stations (WBAI is relatively pacific).

In terms of the politics (not morality) of practice, Pacificans need to grasp that money isn’t necessarily sinful, but instead can simply make life a lot easier & less stressful. (Ask the hundreds of millions of Chinese no longer in dire poverty.) Most so-called leftists fail to recognise the liberatory potential of money (& of marketing) in our current kind of society, one that’s necessarily mediated by money: there’s no way to avoid this, other than suffering the consequences even more. Regrettable, yes, but true. It means money is needed to allow Pacifica to regain health, & to not just grow (augment existing capacities) but to develop (acquire new qualities).

It’s time to flourish, not suffer.

But how to do that?

Money. And the only feasible source, other than Danny Glover, is a signal-swap. But that can be a two-year process, so in the meantime Pacifica needs to find a way to survive, & the depth of its cashflow crisis may require a two-stage response.

First, the only way to chop enough costs rapidly is to chop the staff at both KPFA & KPFKD, changing their character, making Pacifica as a whole volunteer-based. Second, its cashflow crisis may require the sale of a building, even two. (Note that as they’re collateralised to the Foundation for the Jewish Community, FJC, at a 3:1 asset-to-principal ratio, it means FJC gets a third of the valuation sum constitutive of the contract.)

Pacifica is in its current Laurel & Hardy mess because the PNB has been in denial since 1Apr2018. It had taken out the $3.7m loan from FJC but didn’t take responsibility for the future, grasping the monetary nettle by starting the process of doing a signal-swap.

In any case, a radio signal isn’t what it used to be. Digitisation has caused broadcasting to be transcended by providing. The broadcast schedule, transcended by the download list. The position on the dial, transcended by reputation, sustained by social media, enhanced by branding. The radio, transcended by mobile digital devices. Radio is 20th century, it’s passé. It’s one reason why the BBC since 2018 no longer speaks of radio but of “sounds”: not a device, but an output.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds

Yes, Pacifica’s listeners are, literally, a dying breed. If Pacifica is to avoid extinction it needs to grasp the future, it needs leadership, it needs a group to initiate a transformation. But do they exist? The breakers do. We know that. But can the Pacifica partisans rise to the occasion? As Primo said, thru his alter ego in the Belarusian forest, se non ora, quando?, if not now, when?

“Wake up before our buildings are sold!” – ex-Chair Grace Aaron, W9Oct2019

PacificaWatch1 Comment

. . . and then there was one . . .

This was passed to me by Peter Müller, one of those peeps slaving away in Switzerland, making sacrosanct cheese. He used to live in Gelsenkirchen.

It’s in three sections: Wake Up Before Our Buildings are Sold! … Is there a Solution? … Should We Seek Outside Help, Change the Board Structure, Replace Governance and Follow Experts? https://mega.nz/#!amAygQJK!Ioxsc7_fmq-iHLGpGl2Kqv2M2nmPYeiqPVNAV51kUwI

Cited, & attached, is what’s purported to be ICFO Tamra Swiderski’s cashflow projection for FY2020 (so the year ending 30Sep2020), with FY2018 & 2019 as comparatives. It’s undated, but the original filename includes the phrase “Pacifica Cash Flow Presentation 9.19.19”.

Another worker in Switzerland had passed this to me at the beginning of the month, but that copy lacked explanatory notes, esp. assumptions, so it made no sense publishing it. GA’s copy has the list of assumptions, plus the data for National Office & Pacifica Radio Archives. So here it is: https://mega.nz/#!mmZUkICB!1c74TQ4oTKyQ6dHNB_h5eLYHspltLDujlGFbEcj-X_c.

Note that for WBAI alone, it says “Assumes not funding Central Services FY20” (page 4). Oh. In the absence of a recommendation by the PNB Finance Cttee on the financial dimension of WBAI’s future, & no decision made by the PNB itself, why is this assumption in a fundamental planning document, such as Pacifica’s FY2020 cashflow projection? Who’s doing the planning here for a radically different WBAI?!? If this isn’t evidence of planning between the Interim Chief Financial Officer & the Interim Executive Director, I don’t know what is.

What was that date, again? “Pacifica Cash Flow Presentation 9.19.19”, Th19Sep2019. So perhaps presented at the private PNB session that evening. 2½ weeks later, home invasion station invasion. Will this be raised at the PNB, in a public session, calling these individuals to account? Don’t hold your breath.

I’ll discuss Ms Aaron’s piece in a summary post next week.

~~~

Wake Up Before Our Buildings are Sold!

Pacifica iED, John Vernile, has laid off all staff at WBAI, taken control of their transmitter and is broadcasting shows from other stations.  This was done without Pacifica National Board approval.  John Vernile never gave prior notice or a plan to every member of the PNB.

This action coupled with inaction to remedy financial shortfalls at all of our stations may very well result in the forced sale of our buildings.

Recent weak fund drives at all of our stations indicate that our financial crisis cannot be attributed solely to shortfalls at WBAI.  Bequests in 2019 at KPFA, KPFK, WBAI and the National Office have kept the Foundation afloat.  However, bequests are rare, so income projections cannot include them.  See the attached cash flow report from our iCFO.  Scroll down to see the actual income and expenditures for 2018 and 2019 as well as projections for 2020.  Significantly increased spending on the Pacifica National level in 2019 of about $600,000 above 2018 must be factored in to any financial analysis.  This increase in expenses dwarfs any WBAI shortfalls.  Therefore, even if WBAI disappeared (ie- no income/no expenses) predicted fund drive underperformance at the other stations coupled with out of control spending at the national level will rapidly create a cash crisis that may very well result in the forced sale of our buildings. 

Here’s why:

1) To my knowledge as a PNB Director, Mr. Vernile has neither calculated nor communicated the financial ramifications of the shutting down of operations at WBAI.  Initially, it will mean the loss of at least $200,000 to $300,000 in income from the WBAI fall fund drive.  The laying off of staff without proper notification of the WBAI Union will most likely result in legal expenses, arbitration costs, etc.  Severance payments will have to be made to employees who are laid off.  Where will the money for that come from?  Legal challenges have already ensued.  Travel, hotel and other expenses are being incurred without PNB approval.  Instead of ameliorating Pacifica’s cash flow crisis the shuttering of WBAI has exacerbated it.

2) No income generating mechanism has been put in place to replace the income currently brought in by WBAI.  In order to maintain the WBAI license it will have to be kept on the air.  That means that the overhead of the transmitter rent owed to 4 Times Square of almost $18,000 per month will have to be paid by the National Office or the other stations.  At least one WBAI staff member will have to be paid.  This will most likely mean an additional $10,000 per month in expenses.   Thus, overhead of about $28,000 per month will have to be paid without any income coming in from WBAI unless there is some plan that has not yet been communicated to the PNB for income generation. 

3) The sale or swap of a signal is a lengthy process.  A reasonable estimate is that it would take at least 1 ½ years and is, therefore, not an option that would prevent the forced sale of our buildings if we are not able to meet payroll at one or more of our stations or if a vendor or creditor takes legal action against us, which appears more likely than not in the next few months.  Three National Board Directors, Nancy Sorden from WPFW, Lawrence Reyes from KPFK and myself, Grace Aaron from KPFK spoke with Marc Hand, who is an expert on signal sales and swaps.  He verified that the sale or swap of a radio license is, indeed, a lengthy process.  To explain, first a buyer or swap opportunity for a signal has to be found.  Terms have to be negotiated.  Next, the National Board has to agree to the swap or sale.  Then the exact terms of the swap or sale have to be communicated to all members of the Pacifica Foundation and they must vote to approve the sale or swap.  A 10% quorum has to be reached.  If the membership approves, Pacifica would submit an application for approval of the specific swap or sale to the Federal Communications Commission.  The FCC process takes a minimum of 90 days.  In that 90 days is a 30 day public comment period.  If there are any objections the FCC investigates them which adds at least 2 or 3 months to the process.  Also, it is not legal to borrow money against a potential signal sale or swap.  Bankruptcy would add another layer of approval to any signal sale or swap process, thus lengthening the process not expediting it.

4) Initially, if there is a lack of cash, vendor payments will be delayed.  This is already happening at the National Level.  The next step if income cannot meet expenses will be the inability of more stations or units to meet payroll.  It can be predicted that the first step will be for the National Office to use the $200,000 set aside to make payments on the $3.2 million loan to meet payroll or emergency vendor payments.  After that there will be no buffer whatsoever.  There is no other reserve.  Pacifica will not be able to make scheduled payments on the loan.  Bankruptcy will be the only option.  This will trigger the calling in of the loan by the lender to protect the lender’s interests from a Pacifica bankruptcy filing.  Then our buildings will be foreclosured on and the forced the sale of our buildings will take place to cover the $3.2 million principal owed as well as pay employees and other pressing obligations.

Is there a Solution?

In times of great stress, it is tempting to reach for quick, magical solutions.  Although these can sometimes pan out in rare instances, this would be a very risky course of action.  Staff, Board members, volunteers and others should be encouraged to seek help from major donors, etc., but the most likely way to stave off the forced sale of our buildings is to do the usual, not the unusual.  In that light I propose the following:

1) That the actions taken against WBAI be reversed immediately and that WBAI resume its fall fund drive.

2) That all efforts be made to improve the performance of fall fund drives across the network.

3) Our unions should be consulted and immediate union negotiations be started to help us reduce our salary and benefits expenses in a humane manner. 

4) Plan and execute a network-wide national fund drive to bring in extra resources.

5) When finances permit, consider hiring a National Development Director to pursue grants and major donor fund raising.

Should We Seek Outside Help, Change the Board Structure, Replace Governance and Follow Experts?

Commercial and public radio, newspapers, public TV and internet media are in terrible shape.  Experts galore have not found a solution to the changing media landscape which is causing the rapid decline in income of most traditional media sources with resources moving to social media.

Look at the facts:

The iHeartRadio bankruptcy: https://www.rbr.com/bk-end-for-iheart/

Cumulus Radio bankruptcy: http://www.insideradio.com/free/cumulus-post-bankruptcy-cleanup-may-continue-into/article_2be5180e-d5c7-11e8-9329-db4323e4e460.html

Pew Research on the state of the media: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/21/5-facts-about-the-state-of-the-news-media-in-2017/

There is also the demise of Air America, Current TV and Al Jazeera English. 

I doubt that ‘experts’ are the answer.  But, hey, someone at the LA Times reached out to a billionaire who bought that newspaper and is spending a lot to revive it.  So if anyone knows a billionaire, please reach out!

That’s all for now.

In peace,

Grace Aaron, Pacifica National Board Director from KPFK

First Maxie, now Grace: Grace Aaron deposed as Chair of the Pacifica Board, Th5Sep

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Grace Aaron is no more – according to the Foundation’s website: “Chair election”, listed as one of the purposes of the Pacifica National Board meeting this Thursday, at 7.30pm EDT (note, it’s an hour earlier than usual).

https://kpftx.org/pacalendar/cal_show1.php?eventdate=20190919

It seems she met her demise not on the way to the Forum but at the PNB’s Th5Sep private meeting. In the tradition of the secrecy culture secreting from every pore of the beast known as Pacifica, this non-confidentiality matter wasn’t done in public, allowing members, staff, listeners, to hear the reasons & arguments made, & how directors voted. Oh, no. That would be transparency in action – anathema to the Pacifica way. Instead, her former allies turned against her, knives drawn, stabbing her. In the front, the sides, &, of course, the back. Cowards. All of them.

Greek tragedy this was not. Pacifican tragedy neither. It was simply what passes for daily life amongst The Chosen of Pacifica. Just a lil bit more raw.

A number of hitherto reliable sources tell me the proximate reason for Ms Aaron’s end was her defence of WBAI’s station manager, He-of-the-Augsburger, Berthold Reimers. In this she was supported by Director Alex Steinberg, a WBAI listener-delegate. But a raging gale of retribution is blasting through Pacifica HQ 2.0, the virtual version, powered by CSC, Californian station chauvinism, & all those frightened forces who think that if WBAI is hacked off then their own station’s begging bowl has fewer competitors. So let’s all gang-up on WBAI, 4-on-1.

Hence the Alex Steinberg/James Sagurton report to the W11Sep WBAI LSB, warning that “the goal of these behind the scene machinations is not the revival of WBAI but its dismantling“. It’s just that in Stalinist style, Alex left out the lil detail of Gorgon Grace having her snakes slashed off a few days before. Old habits never die. Stalinists, nuns, indeed, Stalinist nuns, same-same-same. https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/2019/09/13/the-goal-of-these-behind-the-scene-machinations-is-not-the-revival-of-wbai-but-its-dismantling-pacifica-directors-sound-the-alarm/

This Thursday there are three PNB meetings, with these stated purposes, etc.:

  • 7.30pm public session: “Set Bylaws Notice Date, ED report, Chair election, NES report[;] Special meeting called by Directors Crosier [KPFT listener-delegate], Sabbagh [KPFK staff-delegate], Goldmacher [KPFA listener]” (my italics & bold), posted by Bill Crosier, 10.54pm EDT (updated 11.41pm), Th12Sep;
  • 8.30pm private session: “Personnel Issues, Legal Issues, Governance Issues[;] Meeting called by Tom Voorhees [KPFA staff], Alex Steinberg [WBAI listener], Grace Aaron [KPFK listener]”, posted by Grace Aaron, 3.13pm, M9Sep; &
  • 10.30pm public session: “Governance, Committee Business[;] Meeting called by Tom Voorhees, Alex Steinberg, Grace Aaron”, posted by Grace Aaron, 3.17pm, M9Sep

https://kpftx.org/pacalendar/cal_show1.php?eventdate=20190919

So not just electing a new PNB Chair, but setting in motion the revision of the by-laws. The new majority are intent on fundamental change. Hence the Steinberg/Sagurton focus on the Pacifica break-up plans of Peter Franck & others (please see the posts of recent days).

So it needs to be emphasised that Grace’s passing is only part of a much more expansive move from within the PNB: (1) to instigate direct central control over WBAI, removing local management (principally GM Berthold Reimers & perhaps PD Linda Perry), & (2) to revise the by-laws, making it easier to dissolve the Pacifica network. Call it ABS, the Acid Bath Strategy.

Simultaneously, the monthly LSB meetings are being cancelled without explanation: KPFT’s W11Sep (announced at Meeting Archive, 11.38pm EDT, M9Sep), & also not just KPFA’s Sa21Sep (ditto, 1.32pm EDT, Sa14Sep) but the 19Oct too (ditto, 9.18pm EDT, W21Aug). KPFK’s was due to meet yesterday, Su15Sep (audio likely to be posted tomorrow, perhaps Wednesday, at https://kpftx.org/archive.php). Shutting down discussion isn’t part of the progressive playbook – but Pacifica is run by reactionaries, passionate about controlling access to information. Is a coordinated attempt being made to stymie opportunities to ask basic questions, to discuss, to express dissent?

Consistent with it all is the lack of mandatory posting of audiofiles for two recent public sessions of PNB cttees.: the Tu3Sep Strategic Planning Cttee, & the W4Sep Programming Cttee. As expected, no explanation for these violations is given at https://kpftx.org/archive.php. Manners maketh man, but obviously not P-man.

This makes the current Local Station Board elections more important than ever, as the cliché has it. Voting started Th15Aug, ends Tu15Oct, with results certified F1Nov. Will the commencement of ructions drive the 46k electors towards the polls or make them rip up their membership cards in despair? Latest from National Elections Supervisor Renee Penaloza, Th5Sep, with listener quorum 10%: KPFA 3.4%, KPFK 2.5%, KPFT 3.6%, WPFW 3.0%, WBAI 3.3%. Every chance we’ll see stuffing by blank ballots again. (The NES’ link for a later report, apparently dated Su15Sep, is as dead as a Pacifican parrot.) https://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/ (strapline, “Grassroots Democracy at Pacifica Radio”) & http://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Pacifica-Election-Report-09-05-19.pdf

Not to be outdone by the PNB, the same evening, the execution process proceeds apace at WBAI. Here the Management Evaluation Cttee sits (or is it smothers?): “[t]his meeting will complete preparations for the Management Evaluation Process”. The joy, the schadenfreude, of the rule of the offices. This, the station-level correlate of the PNB Personnel Cttee, the one chaired by Grace’s fellow Gorgon, Jan Goodman, that delivered Maxie to the slab. https://kpftx.org/pacalendar/cal_show1.php?eventdate=20190919

The bodies are beginning to pile up in PacificaWorld.

On a happier note, contradicting the meetings archive, of course, a more prominent Foundation webpage still lists Ms Aaron as the occupant: https://pacifica.org/pnb_members.php. Touching. As the lady puts it at the end of her own personal correspondence, peace . . .

. . . Pacifica peace . . . doing it all for The Mission . . . Pacifica, where peace is war . . .