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One year ago the FJC loan documents were leaked – respect to those responsible

26 June, 20209 November, 2021PacificaWatchLeave a comment

the leak – now mirrored across the net (only some of the 19 files are shown)

Most people, most of the time, don’t give a monkey’s about what goes on at Pacifica. And that includes the members. In the referenda brought by the breakers earlier this year, a massive 77% didn’t vote. (33k didn’t, 10k did.)

Referenda station results: approx. absolute numbers

The anti-breakers shout about their ⅔rds support, but this misses the point. There’s aggregation – and there’s organisation. It’s the contrast between sharing attributes (typology) & being organised in & thru relatively enduring relations (structure). The contrast being statics & dynamics: one, a snapshot in the present; the other, a force projecting into the future. To be effective, atoms need to be organised – then mobilised. And things are so bad in PacificaWorld that even the anti-breaker higher-ups lack organisation: after three months they can’t get the PNB Strategic Planning Cttee to work. (Met twice, three cancelled, since it was ‘re-populated’ in April.)

RealWorld, in the latest form taken by its developed capitalist societies, has found a rhetoric to encourage both acceptance of an institution & participation within a ‘community’: be transparent, be open. Transparency of proceedings; transparency of facts. So, a threefold transparency: of process, of the world as it starts from, & of the world it creates. Well, the obdurate Pacifica secrecy culture is impervious to all this.

Three activities are essential to the species: working, reproducing, communicating. Pacifica’s pseudo-leaders may be able to work & reproduce, but they don’t know how to communicate, which is why transparency is an unwelcome complication. They’re always afraid they’ll be misunderstood – hence the sad performances of the hapless Mansoor ‘Uriah Heep’ Sabbagh & the hypocritical Chris ‘R Paul, my heart bleeds for WBAI’ Cory, continually fretting that the ignorant great unwashed won’t understand provisional financial data, data good enough for them, but not for others. Well, the hermeneutic failure is all theirs.

This contrasts with 26June2019: an exercise in transparency, communication, hermeneutic success.

On 2Apr2018, Executive Director Tom Livingston committed Pacifica to the biggest debt in its history, signing the $3.7m loan from the Foundation for the Jewish Community, known in the wider world as FJC.

Pacifica was proud of the new form it had pushed its debt into. It issued a press statement, still on the websites of KPFK & WBAI: https://www.kpfk.org/blogs/kpfk-and-pacifica-news/post/pacifica-announces-settlement-with-empire-state-building-and-empire-state-realty-trust/ & https://www.wbai.org/articles.php?article=3570.

So proud, the statement to the world included this from the then PNB Chair, Nancy Sorden (who’s still a director & WPFW listener-delegate):

I’d like to first thank the Pacifica National Board, for deciding on this approach and the enormous amount of work they put into it to get us to this point. Second, to FJC for providing this loan at a very difficult time for Pacifica, and third to the team of professionals that helped negotiate the settlement, secure the funding, identify and secure an agreement for our new transmitter location.

But the recognition of FJC didn’t stop there. A whole paragraph followed, detailing this ‘n’ that, as Mansoor would say, &, in referring to its Agency Loan Fund (ALF), Pacifica implied that this was the vehicle used to access money lodged at FJC. I carefully say ‘implied’ because no Pacifica employee or officer has ever disclosed the source of the loan: be it via ALF; one or more FJC donor-advised accounts; or some other FJC arrangement.

So given all these heart-felt thanks it was surprising that pretty soon, & with no explanation, the word ‘FJC’ became taboo, with the great & the good becoming boys in blue whenever someone mentioned the acronym. The policing became so extreme that Chair Nancy summarily ended the 20Dec2018 PNB meeting, cutting the stream, after ~~‘Jehovah’~~ ‘FJC’, that obscenity, had been uttered once too often by a blasphemer. PacificaWorld had collapsed into The Life of Brian.

http://wbai-nowthen.blogspot.com/2018/12/hush-money.html (smiles to Chris Albertson for the felicitous title) & https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/pnb181220/pnb181220a.mp3 (22:45)

(Digression . . . this portion of the meeting is an excellent example of how that breaker Rottweiler, Carole Travis, operates. A masterful performance. Not least for trying to get on the stack before the agenda item had even been reached. Superb. Chomping at the bit before the meat was even on the table. Kinetic. Carole, sadly, is now retired from the PNB & the KPFA Local Station Board, but hangs around, lurking, in the KPFA Community Advisory Board & as a trustee of one of the pension funds – along with former ED Tom Livingston. Yes, the ties that bind. https://kpftx.org/pacalendar/cal_show1.php?eventdate=20200222 (click ‘Committee Members’))

As expected, the appeal to confidentiality – so beloved by Pacifica gatekeepers – was spurious, as fully explained July last year, by referring to the evidence, the leaked FJC contract documents we now have occasion to celebrate: https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/2019/07/21/pacifica-could-have-and-can-publish-the-fjc-loan-contract-the-confidentiality-clause-only-consists-in-fjcs-name-and-street-address/.

Giving credit where credit’s due, Chair Nancy, condemning mention of a press statement mentioning her very own words, richly earnt her PacificaWorld moniker, Chair ‘wooden as a chair’ Nancy. Nancy, we salute you, &, as they say interminably on Fox ~~News~~, thank you for your service.

The self-appointed protectors of PacificaWorld created an aura of secrecy, one with its own lexicon: ‘the big loan’, to distinguish it from ~~the Tom & Jerry loan~~, ~~the Ben & Jerry loan~~ – no, ‘the small loan’, the $0.5m loan collateralised by the Nakapon/National Office building (1921-1925 MLK Jr Way), the one ‘linked’ to director Jan Goodman, ~~the Jan & Jerry loan~~, ~~the Jan & fiends loan~~ – no, the Jan & friends loan. In the leaked docs, ‘the small loan’ is called ‘the friendly loan’ & ‘the Pacifica supporters loan’ (sic). Inventive, & psychically revealing.

And yet the information gatekeepers, in doing their work, just couldn’t help themselves, antagonising fellow directors, by refusing to give everyone a copy of the loan documents. Directors Adriana Casenave & DeWayne Lark (both KPFT listener-delegates), not surprisingly, proved to protesteth the mosteth.

The notices for the PNB closed sessions say, “[o]n March 22, 2018 the PNB met in executive session and approved in principle a number of agreements that will immediately address our financial difficulties.” So, “in principle”: not the draft documents. The contracts were signed from the very next day: those with FJC signed 23Mar & before 3Apr by ED Livingston; the advertising contract with F.Y. Eye, Inc., signed 23Mar by ED Livingston (the euphemistic ‘underwriting’); & ‘the small loan’, the $0.5m, signed by director Grace Aaron perhaps 28Mar, & was due to be signed by director Mansoor Sabbagh. These docs weren’t distributed to all directors, either then or since. https://pacifica.org/documents/pnb_exec_180322.pdf

It should be added that the PNB Finance Cttee repeatedly complained about only some of its members having the FJC loan docs, even asking for them from the PNB. Fat chance. It was sorrowful to witness the repeated requests in Cttee of the forlorn Nick Arena, WPFW treasurer, a man who only happens to administer bank loan contracts in his day job. What could he contribute to Pacifica? Just as well he’s kept out of the loop.

(Elaboration . . . the lender of ‘the small loan’ was Pacifica Supporters Loan, LLC, & signing the contracts were two denoted “managers”, King Reilly & Jerry Manpearl. (Mr Manpearl just so happens to be hubby of a Ms Goodman: Jan, the Pacifica director.) The PNB agreed that Pacifica donors pay Mr Reilly $10k “as a brokers’ fee for arranging this loan”, & pay the lender $28k as “legal fees and expenses” – page 2 of doc #1. In contrast, it takes a worker on $15 an hour all of 4 months to earn $10k. Progressive values in action, the Reilly/Manpearl way. From 1921-1925 MLK Jr Way to the Reilly/Manpearl way. The Pacifica journey. All funded by the members & listeners. #ThisIsWhatWinningLooksLike. https://mega.nz/folder/EdtSkCDZ#oJZi7rkbk2KcI6DtzIudXw

— Also, doc #5 (duplicated as doc #6), a ledger that isn’t Pacifica’s, identifies the nine ‘small loan’ lenders, of between $25k & $125k, at 7.5% a year – one is a KPFK listener-delegate (then, & now), another a current KPFT listener-delegate. (7.5% = prime + 3 percentage points during the period 14Dec2017 thru 21Mar2018; prime then rose to 4.75%. To note, the FJC loan is on the same basis. What’s good enough for a FJC investor is good enough for a Pacifican – Pacifican, & liberal (not socialist), values at work.) https://mega.nz/file/YIlUnQjY#04wtWOTKqlXBaUNaKYD7xvcdt7NOWydG1vQSaud3U5A & https://about.jpmorganchase.com/about/our-business/historical-prime-rate

— The ledger shows that ‘the small loan’, $0.5m, was the residue of a liquidated $2.075m loan, also at 7.5% a year, that had lasted one month. This loan had 13 lenders, of between $25k & $875k (Manpearl $400k, Reilly $875k). Curiously, a $50k lender ‘earnt’ no interest, so perhaps the sum either was only committed or was withdrawn the day it was deposited (if the interest were foregone as a donation to Pacifica then this would have been further recorded). The existence of this $2.075m (or $2.025m) loan has never been publicly acknowledged by Pacifica, neither by employees nor officers.)

The publication of the FJC loan docs on 26June2019 was a giant step forward in making Pacifica transparent. The fact that no director claimed responsibility speaks volumes. Instead, respect goes to those who work to inform the members & listeners. Respect.

There are 18 unique documents (one is a copy):

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/e1lo0t30pd4wc/ (the original drop)

https://mega.nz/folder/EdtSkCDZ#oJZi7rkbk2KcI6DtzIudXw (convenient one-click download of the folder; also ‘preview’ allows reading online)

The ‘root’ contract, called the “loan agreement”, dated 2Apr2018, signed (with no date) by Pacifica ED Tom Livingston & FJC President Lorin Silverman: https://mega.nz/file/AI0iUYga#QzMtaBd0iRTZJ_YNmh2KZ1xKu7Qh_hQ6IcPMVkGWX94

There’s also an advertising (underwriting) contract as part of the loan, dated 2Apr2018, signed 23Mar2018 by ED Livingston: https://mega.nz/file/ZZ8gFSJD#VnNgdE2R4ap3_e0hMI2ma4RVssZSGek7tLWMle10zRM

~~~

period . . days . . pledge goal ($k) . . daily goal . . pledged .. pledges (#) . . av. pledge . . av. daily pledged . . av. daily pledges (#) . . sustainers ($ total, # pledges, $ av. pledge) . . shortfall ($, %) . . av. daily shortfall . . gross proceeds . . fulfilment (%) . . cost of drive . . net proceeds . . drive-free days …… 11, 12, 13, 14

Sa1(?)Feb-Su8Mar2020

days . pledge goal ($) . daily goal ($)

. 37(?) . . . . . 650 000 . . . . . . . 17 568

pledged ($) . pledges (#) . av. pledge ($) . av. daily pledged ($) . av. daily pledges (#)

. 510 716 . . . . . . 3 038 . . . . . . . 168 . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 803 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 . . . . . . . . .

sustainers: total ($), pledges (#), av. pledge ($)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . ? . . . . . . . . ? . . . . . . . . . . ? . . . . . . . . .

shortfall ($, %) . av. daily shortfall ($) . gross proceeds ($) . fulfilment (%) . cost of drive ($) . net proceeds ($)

139 284, 21.4% . . . . . . . 3 764 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ? . . . . . . . . . . . . ~84%(?) . . . . . . . . . . ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ? . . . . . . . . .

. . . then 23(?) drive-free days . . .

Sa1(?)Feb-Su8Mar2020 . 37(?) . 650 . 17 568 . 510 716 . 3 038 . 168 . 13 803 . 82 . ?,?,? . 139 284, 21.4% . 3 764 . ? . ~84%(?) . ? . ? .

PacificoroniaWorld goes a lil more coronia: but why hasn’t WBAI’s x5 a week ‘Going Viral’ gone network?

23 April, 20206 May, 2020PacificaWatchLeave a comment

. . . invisible virus . . . invisible enablers . . . invisible island . . .

(Nina Bernstein, ‘Unearthing the secrets of New York’s mass graves’, New York Times, 15May2016)

Just over six long weeks ago, on Tu10Mar, New York State had 173 confirmed COVID-19 cases. 108 were in Westchester County, all in New Rochelle. It’s just beyond the Bronx, within sight of Hart Island. Hart Island. As was said of something else way back in 1848, ein Gespenst, a spectre. Home of a million people, corpses, neatly arranged in unmarked trenches, watched over until last year by the NYC Dept of Correction, a nice lil earner, an economic opportunity, Rikers prisoners used, at 50¢ the hour in 2016, to dispose of the city’s unwanted. Public service at its best.

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-accepts-recommendation-state-health-commissioner-new-emergency-measures-contain

(superbly written by Nina Bernstein; a chilling section is on the NYC corpse market;

has three embedded vids)

In the same cold vein, we have the quality of decision-making by Governor Cuomo. He thought he had to do something about the New Rochelle case cluster, so on Tu10Mar he imposed some restrictions on the humans roaming about. But fair being fair, Andrew the Cuomo gave Viro the Virus some leeway, letting the measures come into force two days later, on the Thursday. Fair’s fair. Even Viro has rights in the land of the free. After all, it wasn’t as though anything was at stake, something urgent, some sort of public emergency. As NYS Health Commissioner Dr Howard Zucker said, sitting alongside Cuomo at the daily media briefing, & spreading the sugar, “we believe that the risk generally to New Yorkers is low”. Note that his NYS Dept of Health participated in the major 2019 Crimson Contagion simulation that showed how seriously deficient the US system would be in responding to a virus pandemic. Oh.

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-accepts-recommendation-state-health-commissioner-new-emergency-measures-contain & https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6824-2019-10-key-findings-and-after/05bd797500ea55be0724/optimized/full.pdf#page=6

Thing is, Viro’s a virus. No cognitive capacity. No sense of reasonableness. Unable to recognise give & take. Viro simply lacked the capacity to wait 48 hours before carrying on doing what a virus does. So carry on it did. Whilst Cuomo waited to apply his measures. Viruses, eh. And the folly of humans. (Not least in accepting a positivist conception of scientific knowledge, especially of a new object.)

While Cuomo was waiting, the next day, W11Mar, the World Health Organization, those pesky globalists, declared that the disease was so wrapped around our mortal coil that it had to be recognised as a pandemic. Oh. Then two days later, F13Mar, the Very Stable Genius declared a national emergency. “Two very big words”, said he, in the Rose Garden, fresh from having kicked around in his playroom these additions to his lexicon.

New Rochelle was a healthcare disaster – for the town, the state, & beyond. The containment attempt failed miserably. This has not been adequately described & explained by any journalist. There were 108 known infected individuals. But what proportion of their ‘close contacts’ was identified, traced (found), & then tested for infection? What proportion of these was infected, subsequently placed in supported & monitored isolation? (If diagnostic tests were unavailable, were those close contacts all placed in supported & monitored quarantine, to use the CDC’s specific jargon?) In turn, what proportion of their identified ‘close contacts’ was tested, etc.? What did the rapid containment force consist in? Why did it fail? Indeed, for the ~20m of the NY Metro Area, was there a pre-existing, well-drilled, coordinated network of rapid response teams for identify-trace-test-isolate/quarantine, ITTIQ (or IFTIQ), the first line in avoiding containment? If not, why? One could go on. By comparison, with no-one to learn from, Wuhan City alone, from 23Jan, the start of the virus-suppression operation, used at least 9 000 field tracers, organised as 1 800 teams of five or more (28Feb WHO report, page 8). Who’s the ‘Third World’ country?

https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/ & https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf

Cuomo’s star may be rising, contrasted with the darkening shadow of The Don, but his partial responsibility for the New Rochelle failure remains. And don’t forget, this is the man who decided in January to effectively chop future Medicaid funding for the state’s residents, shovelling responsibility, the cost, onto the cities & counties. Refusing to raise taxes, this was the thrust of his response to NYS’ fiscal crisis, announced 21Jan in his fiscal 2021 plan (year-end 31Mar2021 – the day by which Pacifica has to pay the $3.265m principal to the Foundation for the Jewish Community, FJC).

Meanwhile, WBAI carried on being WBAI. That was until M30Mar, 20 days after Cuomo’s New Rochelle announcement, when WBAI started a new programme, Going Viral. It broadcasts live each weekday, so now in its fourth week, at 8.45pm EDT (7.45pm CDT, 5.45pm PDT), for roughly 1½ or 2 hours. Helpfully, it’s linked from the homepage of the Pacifica meetings archive, with a ‘button’ to listen live. It also has an archive (there’s no programme for Tu14Apr).

Going Viral is presented by Jim Dingeman, Local Station Board listener-delegate, & it’s obvious from the PNB Programming Cttee he chairs that he’s a wannabe presenter, so this was his chance. Cometh the moment, cometh the man.

It started off a bit rough, made on the fly. And it’s still a bit rough. Not what Maxie Jackson, former ED, would call best practice. It’s a live conference call, with the usual four or five co-presenters all trying to speak over one another, with Otis Maclay, Pacifica’s technician-who-never-sleeps, also being asked what he thinks about the topic in hand. If Michelle were around, she’d be asked for her opinion too. But it’s more civil than the usual PNB meeting, & it is gratifying not to hear the continual grating of a ‘point of point, Madam Chair’, & suchlike.

Going Viral is admittedly a low tech production, but no other Pacifica station runs a COVID programme. So why not ask your local station manager to consider it?

https://kpftx.org/index.php; https://goingviral.news/ & https://goingviral.news/archive/index.php; also, you can drop Jim a line at the email he uses for Pacifica meetings noticing, jimdingeman@yahoo.com

Breakers get broken: Pacifica partisans get 66.0% listener-members, 65.2% staff-members

23 March, 202029 March, 2020PacificaWatch3 Comments

the certifications of the breaker exercise – which cost Pacifica members & listeners ~$100 001 . . . cool

https://elections.pacifica.org/ (copied at https://mega.nz/#F!hFkD3C4J!ZVuEamjMKKAtMuE6TPiwUg)

P.S. On the certificate, the word ‘abstain’ doesn’t have the ordinary meaning (77% of listener-members abstained in this referendum, & 48% of staff) but means invalid ballots (highly ambiguous paper-ballot, ballot full of vitriol, maybe the opportunity for a manifesto, plain blank, or any of the myriad of inventive ways a Pacif-I-can (nod to C Cuomo) can spoil a ballot).

~~~

[When this post was made, I added the below three points. Rather than add to this post, the remarks will appear as separate posts.

(1) A few remarks will soon appear below; note that paper-voting, mainly East Coast, was way down.
(2) The remarks will also cover the need for the PNB to address two strategic matters:
(a) the $3.265m principal of the FJC loan, payable 1Apr2021; &
(b) the coming collapse in revenue, as the economic depression underway slashes listeners’ discretionary spend; the only obvious, yet highly regrettable, mitigation is that bequests will increase thru to, at least, Dec2021.
(3) A separate post will be made when the NES publishes her report, with station data, later this week (inshallah).]

Can Pacifica cope with young peeps? The Red Wave slate for the WBAI Local Station Board

25 August, 201927 August, 2019PacificaWatchLeave a comment

Red Wave gets the Gezi penguin of approval from PacificaWatch

Can Pacifica cope with the youfff, here we’re talking about people under 35?

We’ll soon find out, because something’s happening in New York. The organisation that benefited most from #feeltheBern was the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, a middle-of-the-road social democratic group. They grew perhaps tenfold, & much more in terms of active members. It’s become the principal home in the US of anti-capitalists who aren’t anarchists.

The DSA’s largest chapter is NYC. And they’re in WBAI. A weekly one-hour, drive-time programme, 5pm Tuesdays, Revolutions Per Minute (RPM), is usually hosted by two members, Jack Devine & Lee Ziesche. In fact, it seems to be de facto proprietary – and I’m not talking Pacifica:

NYC-DSA now has a weekly radio program, Revolutions Per Minute on 99.5 WBAI. If you are interested in getting involved come join! There’s room for everyone, no experience necessary!
https://www.socialists.nyc/events/2019/3/21/revolutions-per-minute-monthly-meeting

Seems becomes definitive, the statement heading RPM’s Twitter page:

*The official* radio show and podcast of NYC Democratic Socialists of America @nycDSA. [my emphases]
https://twitter.com/nycRPM

There is no mention of this on their WBAI webpage: https://www.wbai.org/program.php?program=306

That page was augmented today, three links, & a pretty logo.

One link is to the RPM website, which archives the weekly programmes. The inaugural broadcast was M7Jan this year, & it carried an interview with State Senator Julia Salazar, a DSA member, impressively 27-years-old, & more impressively said to be the first socialist in the Senate for well on 100 years (35:31): https://revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com/episodes/january-7th-noamazonnyc. RPM do outreach, having had their first monthly public meeting in March; they also publish a weekly newsletter. The three links: RPM website, http://revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com; their nest, https://twitter.com/nycRPM; & http://bit.ly/rpm-newsletter. [UPDATE: as of Tu27Aug, the logo & three links have been deleted, without explanation, from the programme’s WBAI page. Quite odd.]

Not surprisingly they’ve got a slate of candidates, the Red Wave, in the current WBAI Local Station Board elections.

They have seven listener-candidates & two staff-candidates, here in ranked order: Safia Albaiti, Michael Mordowanec, Charlotte Albrecht, Rosa Palmieri, Simone Norman, Jez Zerbe, & David Torcivia; Jack Devine, & Amy Wilson. (As for the competition, there are 26 verified candidates for the nine listener-seats, & four for the three staff-seats, so Red Wave will win at least one of the latter.) “We’ll have a website up soon with a detailed platform and vision”, in the meantime, https://www.facebook.com/RedWaveWBAI/ & https://twitter.com/RedWaveWBAI (luv the Pisa transmitter, non-Stalinesque socialist realism, in the honest sense). https://airtable.com/shrnu59exwc0rRKad (gives the rankings, & also has a form for email updates from the Red Wave Collective)

A to-&-fro between WBAI listener-candidates featured four of their number, Cdes. Albaiti, Albrecht, Palmieri, & Zerbe. They acquitted themselves well, especially Cde. Albaiti (she is indeed, astutely, ranked #1 on their listener-slate). The video was published this Thursday, 22Aug, on the YouTube channel of National Elections Supervisor Renee Penaloza, & on her website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpYa0DhFGB4 & https://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/wbai-forum-stephen-finkelstein-david-andersson-dee-dee-halleck-jack-de-palma-jez-zerbe-william-heerwagon-safia-albaiti-rosa-palmieri-charlotte-albrecht/ (snappy URL – it’s ‘Heerwagen’ too). All nine candidates, bar Cde. Palmieri (perversely so, as she’s an actress), have a vid of their one-minute statement at the two sites.

Oddly, not one of their statements mentions that they constitute a slate, nor do they mention each other. Demonstrates they’re new to electioneering. https://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/wbai-candidate-statements/wbai-listener-statements/ & https://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/wbai-candidate-statements/wbai-staff-statements/

It’s also surprising that no statement stresses that the candidate isn’t a grandparent or great-grandparent, making the slate a fresh broom for WBAI. This isn’t to be ageist, simply drawing attention to perhaps the biggest persuasive plus they have: voters, one suspects, don’t plumb so much for candidate politics as they do for personal characteristics, & with everyone knowing that Pacifica is getting even older, lots of voters will be pleased that under-40s, even those in their 20s, are running. Letting voters know this will certainly not harm their chances.

If word of their slate spreads, with the positive message that they are part of Pacifica’s & WBAI’s future, they have every chance of getting at least five elected. They really need to hammer home their comparative advantage. The recent past shows that a listener can get elected at WBAI with what seems to be little campaigning. Eve Moser did so with nine votes in the first round of the 4Jan2016 election, out of 920 voting (election report, pages 2 & 56), winning out only in the penultimate round of redistributing the votes (p. 56). https://mega.nz/#!3rxxjAAa!WX4Jz65LkNJC3NYFQyArJwptK1dGX8USofVIq4qRCxM (this substitutes for the public link, broken without notice, presumably by NES Penaloza, c. Mar-June this year, http://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/wpcontent/uploads/2016/01/UPDATED-13Jan-16-WBAI-Listener-Results-Certification-LetterSimply-Voting.pdf)

Then on 5Mar this year (results certified 18Mar), Hazel Pinder did the same with three such votes, out of 830 voting (other low achievers, likewise getting elected, were Dacio Quintana with five; Michael White, nine; Jim Dingeman, 12; Carolyn McIntyre, 13; & King Downing, 14). You see how even being a parent comes in useful? Remarkably, our Hazel was then elected in the second round, the only candidate to do so, having picked up 88% of Errol Maitland’s 198 redistributed votes! So, sadly, all down to the slate, not Hazel’s magnetism. The first & last rounds of the nominal 2018 pseudo-election: https://mega.nz/#!yz4lEChK!AzaYP0_nv9b30hYQGb3xr3O71DnY7msBracGaajIkhg & https://mega.nz/#!6zxxHajY!J2dOgxN6paySjOENYqugm8A2hMBAdwkXKjY0lnxaCaM

Redistributed votes. The Pacifica voting system meant that March this year, for the WBAI listener pseudo-election, once one got 60 votes one got elected, be it the first round, the 25th round. (For the staff, it was 17 votes.) And how many in the NYC chapter of DSA? . . . “5 500+”. (At the 19Nov2018 ‘record date’, there were 6 806 WBAI listener-members & 177 staff.) https://www.socialists.nyc/ & https://mega.nz/#!fyAwGICZ!-4uWYMHZW3CHxt6yCOITu006SVZ4AyNPjT9bWw6csb0 (Election Final Report 2018, pp. 7-9, 9, 1, 19; in Stalinist style, no longer publicly available on a Pacifica site – with Pacifica, its pervasive & entrenched anti-transparency culture, integral to its unthinking common sense, download written records whilst you can!)

On Monday, 19Aug, Red Wave had an intro to Pacifican morality, having to issue a denial statement because the dastardly Steve Brown had put their candidates as endorsers on one of his mailers. A leopard never changes its spots; a slug never loses its slime. Did he ever know Jeff, one may wonder? https://www.facebook.com/notes/red-wave-wbai/red-wave-statement-on-the-stephen-brown-endosement-mailer/113899156636566/

Red Wave have set things up nicely, giving the WBAI members a test. How will they respond to the shock of the new, the shock of the youfff?

Will the Red Wave sweep all before it? Or will it be dammed, reduced to a ripple?

Can WBAI cope with this injection of youfff?

Or will WBAI carry on, undisturbed, confirmed & contented in its alienation, as if #feeltheBern never happened?

WBAI is fortunate to be presented with this opportunity, for Red Wave to bring a two-generation shift to the LSB. But will it be a step too far for the WBAI members?

This is a test of Pacifica’s capacity to change with the times, to embrace a harbinger of the future.

What transpires will be a portent, evidence of Pacifica’s capacity to re-new.

Whither Pacifica?

And the Gezi Park penguin graffito? There are very few green spaces, let alone parks, in much of Istanbul, population c. 20m, especially in the built-up retail areas. Gezi was to be destroyed, turned into shops & a barracks (where’s the surprise). People protested. When the rioting police moved in at 1am, Su2June2013, CNN International covered the attacks live; CNN Türk carried on showing their documentary, Penguins: Spy in the Huddle, starring 50 spycams. (Would have brought a smile to the face of Gil Scott-Heron.) Penguin graffiti ensued, along with a popular chant, responding to a police supply problem: ‘the people demand the old tear gas’.

Pacifica Financial Recovery Plan – 28Feb2012, not today

9 August, 201919 August, 2019PacificaWatchLeave a comment

This is the first of a series of documents, drawing attention to the sort of work that Pacifica’s national decision-makers not only used to produce but were also happy to share with all members, staff, & the listening public more generally. As these documents show, the current decision-makers fail both tests.

Some Pacifica officials have ideas, as shown by the public sessions of PNB sub-cttees, but there are hardly any arguments, certainly not evidence-based, & certainly nothing that shows that either individual or collective research has taken place – not even the first necessary step, a perfunctory literature review, showing some awareness of the sciences of both programme production & delivery, & how to relate to, ‘to serve’, one’s audience, the famed ‘community’. Saying that the PNB keeps trying to re-invent the wheel is overstating even their intent: they’re idling, not even re-creating. The desperate question persists, one never asked by any Pacifica decision-maker: why?

This first document is the Pacifica Financial Recovery Plan of 28Feb2012. It was written by the Financial Recovery & Audit Taskforce. Headings used: the problem; increasing revenue; maintaining subscribers; increasing audience; digital distribution/mobile device access; e-commerce; controlling expenses; conclusion. The range of relevant areas, this alone, displays an adequacy of conceptualisation missing from any PNB public discussion occurring since the 2Apr2018 signing for the $3.7m loan, now reduced to $3.265m, from the Foundation for the Jewish Community, FJC. The document is 10 pages long.

https://mega.nz/#!emgXjaYA!JrZeD6CTN26XyDWSc-ZoNoTWAiD__dGef6buW5uYTpM (click the magnifying glass to read online, without having to download)

Two excerpts: the causes, the expectation.

The causes, second line of the summary:

The deficits were a product of many factors, among them declining listener support, failure to make programming changes to retain and grow listenership, and poor management of our budgets and financial reserves, both on the national and local station levels.

Yea, the sun riseth each morn.

The expectation, first line of the conclusion:

With the above strategies in place to increase revenue and control expenses Pacifica expects to pay off debts and become financially stable within 5 years, 2012 – 2016.

Pious wish.

This plan is dated Feb2012. Seven-and-a-half years ago. At the time, a run of five years of successive losses. Instead of ‘the expectation’ there was this realisation: five more years of successive audited losses, thru FY2016; then the 2017 audit that demonstrated that those year’s financial statements, in not being supported by adequate documentation, are in effect worthless (& so can’t be relied upon by potential donors); & there’s every chance that the FY2018 auditors will come to the same conclusion whenever it is this year, now that NETA, in the person of the iCFO, announced to the latest PNB, Th1Aug, that they’ve ditched the pretence of a timeline. The FY2019 audit, the first of financial statements for which NETA have also done the bookkeeping, will presumably be a ‘clean’ audit, that is, the auditors issue an unmodified opinion. Which is progress.

(The latest, vaguest of vague, public iCFO report on the FY2018 accounts, by Tamra Swiderski, in effect recognises the hopelessness of the state of the financial records & supporting evidence, as NETA try to develop the trial balance into the two principal financial statements for evaluation by the auditors – please see the quote, & the Audit Cttee Chair’s unjustified silence, at https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/2019/07/18/pacifica-annual-auditor-s-reports/.)

With all five Spring Fund-drives failing this year, & with no PNB-approved budgets guiding station financial decision-making, despite any sizeable bequests it’s only prudent, & so rational, to expect another loss this year. So, given the evidence, no-one doubts that thru FY2019, on top of the situation detailed in the Feb2012 report, this will be eight more years of successive losses, making the run 13 years, from 1Oct2006 to 30Sep2019.

And the response at the top, the directors supposedly directing? The PNB has proved unwilling to ‘bite the bullet’, to be rational about Pacifica’s financial crisis – so much so that it proved unable to accept that technique, as personified by ED Maxie Jackson, has any place in the work that has to be done. The PNB majority demands a supplicant, not a radio professional.

When a decision-making body has consistently proven both unwilling & unable to respond adequately to an obdurate chronic financial crisis, acute except when meliorated by a golden corpse, its members don’t deserve to be there.

Pacifica = the necro-economics of the golden corpses

But will the current LSB pseudo-elections, voting starting next Thursday, results due F1Nov (sic), usher in the necessary change? Hold your breath, then expire – but only after writing in that bequest. Forget those joke write-in votes, this is a serious matter, deadly serious: Pacifica’s life depends on you, Pacifica’s life depends on your death.

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(Nagasaki Remembrance Day . . . 11.02am local time, mass murder from 5½ miles up)

Remembering that Pacifica has lost its sense of humour: Twit Wit Radio

1 August, 20191 August, 2019PacificaWatchLeave a comment

From the weeks leading up to the Trumpanzee taking the crown, probably the first of two:

. . . tweet . . . tweet . . . tweet . . . tweet . . . tweet . . . tweet . . . tweet . . . tweet . . . tweet . . .

No explanation has ever been given for the unforgivable axing of this programme, the funniest on Pacifica.

The complete absence of a sense of humour also meant that the KPFA admin excised this multi-year programme from the archive. Satire never loses its bite. So a back-handed compliment – one we could do without.

(Apologies to TR: please consider it a re-twit.)

Leak of $3.7m loan contract with the Foundation for the Jewish Community, FJC

19 July, 201923 December, 2020PacificaWatchLeave a comment

The Pacifica advocates of the loan from the Foundation for the Jewish Community, FJC, have presented it as a good Samaritan, doing it out of the kindness of its heart. In fact, FJC is in a competitive market as a manager of donor-advised funds, a sector of the charity industry. One of its money-making operations is running a fund that lends at prime-plus, the Agency Loan Fund, ALF. Donors to FJC can lodge money with ALF, as can outsiders, all hungry for those extra percentage points of interest earnt.

FJC had been having problems finding borrowers for these prime-plus loans: only 46% of ALF had been converted into loans at 31Mar2018, the very time of the 2Apr Pacifica loan (its latest auditor’s report, year-end 31Mar2018, page 20; page 22 of the PDF). So, of course, Pacifica was welcomed with open arms. Sentiment this was not. http://fjc.org/uploads/user-uploads/image/FJC%203-31-18%20FINAL.pdf

The greatest aid to Pacifica transparency, on this or any matter, has not come from the National Board, the PNB. No, this came with the documents leaked W26June2019 on a Facebook group, then co-moderated & -administered by Grace Aaron. She was then, as now, Chair of the Pacifica Foundation. Most of the documents concern the loan from FJC. https://www.facebook.com/groups/PacificaRadiowaves/permalink/1264765520345396/

There are 18 unique documents (one is a copy):

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/e1lo0t30pd4wc/ (the original drop)

https://mega.nz/folder/EdtSkCDZ#oJZi7rkbk2KcI6DtzIudXw (convenient one-click download of the folder; also ‘preview’ allows reading online)

The ‘root’ contract, called the “loan agreement”, 2Apr2018, signed by Pacifica Interim Executive Director Tom Livingston & FJC President Lorin Silverman:

https://mega.nz/file/AI0iUYga#QzMtaBd0iRTZJ_YNmh2KZ1xKu7Qh_hQ6IcPMVkGWX94

There’s also an advertising (underwriting) contract as part of the loan, signed 23Mar2018 by iED Livingston; please see below.

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The $3.7m loan was reduced to $3.265m loan when Pacifica was unable to collateralise the KPFK transmitter site lease, at Mount Wilson. This was because it’s federal land administered by the Dept. of Agriculture Forest Service, & they wouldn’t give the necessary permissions. (The documentary evidence is contrary to the story being told in 2018 by Grace Aaron et al. that the attempt was to collateralise the transmitter, not the site lease – please see the loan agreement, Sec. 2.1(d); p. 5.)

What did the Pacifica National Board (PNB) commit the members to when it accepted FJC’s offer of the money?

the signed loan agreement is dated 2Apr2018, & it has a three-year term;
significantly, Pacifica directors agreed to a contract that details only two ways to pay the principal by 2Apr2021: selling as many broadcasting licences & station buildings as it takes: “a swap or sale of one or more radio licenses or a sale of other Pacifica owned assets” (Recital B; page 1);
annual interest at three percentage points above US prime rate (Section 2.2; p. 5). (So, an annual 7.75% when the loan started; 8%, effective 14June; 8.25%, 27Sep; 8.5%, 20Dec2018. [UPDATE: 8.25%, effective Th1Aug2019; 8%, Th19Sep; 7.75%, Th31Oct; 7.25%, W4Mar2020; 6.25%, M16Mar.] The three-year interest charge, with the coming recession dragging down the rate, will be less than $800k.);
the default rate, such as after a late payment – not least the paying of the principal on time (Sec. 8.1; p. 13) – is the lower of either 18% a year or the maximum under law (Sec. 1.1(10); p. 2);
Pacifica directors, with no public discussion, agreed to carry advertising, & on 23Mar2018 signed a contract with an advertising broker, F. Y. Eye, Inc.; FJC chose to make Pacifica do this “in lieu” of its “origination fee” (Sec. 3.1(2); pp. 6-7), & you may wonder why – details below; &
FJC never waits for a loan to default: it sells the loan on when it’s only “potentially impaired”, to the Marty & Dorothy Silverman Foundation; details below.

Link to the loan agreement again:

https://mega.nz/file/AI0iUYga#QzMtaBd0iRTZJ_YNmh2KZ1xKu7Qh_hQ6IcPMVkGWX94

Pacifica’s immediate future is structured more by this contract than anything else.

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PACIFICA’S $37 000 ADVERTISING CONTRACT with A FJC ‘DAUGHTER’ CORPORATION

As part of the FJC contract, on 23Mar2018 iED Tom Livingston signed an underwriting contract on behalf of Pacifica, for it to carry advertising. This hasn’t been acknowledged publicly by any Pacifica body, not least the Pacifica National Board (PNB). The details now follow.

Appended to the loan agreement, signed by Pacifica & FJC, is an unsigned underwriting contract (pp. 25-7). It is “substantially in the form” that Pacifica has agreed to sign with the NYC advertising broker, F.Y. Eye, Inc. (Sec. 3.1(2); pp. 6-7 & 25-7) – a corporation founded by its president, Lorin Silverman . . . yes, the President & Treasurer of FJC, and President & Treasurer of the Marty & Dorothy Silverman Foundation (of which, more anon). And, yes, it was Lorin’s signature that lent the money to Pacifica.

The language here is odd because IED Tom Livingston actually signed an advertising contract a week earlier, on 23Mar2018. The contract is with F. Y. Eye, Inc., & it’s dated 2Apr2018 (linked below). Signing for the latter was its President, Lorin Silverman (yes, a busy guy). Pacifica has publicly issued no document demonstrating that Livingston had been authorised by the PNB to do this. Likewise, there is no public Pacifica document showing that the PNB had agreed to advertising via the FJC loan. Such is the life of a secret society – moreover, one funded directly by the members, members who were never consulted on this matter. Moreover, members who have never shown any evidence, at any time in Pacifica’s 73-year history, of being enamoured to advertising on the Pacifica airwaves. Such is the anti-democratic disposition of the PNB majority. Shameless authoritarians. Eat yer heart out, Lew.

https://mega.nz/file/ZZ8gFSJD#VnNgdE2R4ap3_e0hMI2ma4RVssZSGek7tLWMle10zRM

And F. Y. Eye’s VP Strategy & Operations? Allison Silverman. Lorin’s daughter.

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FJC SELLS “POTENTIALLY IMPAIRED” LOANS TO THE MARTY & DOROTHY SILVERMAN FOUNDATION

FJC doesn’t let a borrower default: they sell the loan, without suffering a discount, to the Marty & Dorothy Silverman Foundation. FJC’s auditor refers to these loans as “potentially impaired” (emphasis added). This FJC policy is disclosed in any of their auditor’s reports & IRS form 990’s – the latest: pp. 10-11, pp. 12-13 of the PDF, http://fjc.org/uploads/user-uploads/image/FJC%203-31-18%20FINAL.pdf; & Schedule O, p. 90 of the PDF, http://fjc.org/uploads/user-uploads/image/file/990%20FY17%20-%20For%20Distribution.pdf).

Full details of this FJC arrangement are here:

Has FJC sold the $3.265m loan? Is the owner the Marty & Dorothy Silverman Foundation – or have they in turn sold it on?