elections and governance – Page 6

Financial results: KPFA beating budget, Pacifica lagging

February 6, 2025March 20, 2013 by Save KPFA

KPFA’s most recent fund drive turnaround seems to have had a big impact on the station’s bottom line. On February 23, Pacifica distributed first-quarter income statements for the network. Brian Edwards-Tiekert (now serving as KPFA’s staff rep on the Pacifica National Board) reported the statements “show KPFA outperforming its budget to the tune of $115,000 in just three months. The main driver is KPFA’s fund drives — the statements show that KPFA brought in $154,348 more listener support than budgeted” before the most recent drive even started.

“The bad news,” said Edwards-Tiekert, “is that KPFA appears to be the only part of Pacifica doing well. First, a caveat: there appear to be some accuracy problems with the numbers that the Pacifica National Office distributed. As things stand, however, every other station in the network appears to be racking up deficits right now. The worst losses are coming from the Pacifica National Office, which appears to be over-spending its budget by roughly $80,000 per month. Pacifica’s current management has not made clear what is driving the over-spending.”

Late last year, Pacifica’s board allowed the contracts of then-executive director Arlene Engelhardt and then-CFO LaVarn Williams to expire. The chair of that board, Summer Reese, is currently also acting as the network’s interim executive director.

New board members seated at Pacifica (finally)

February 6, 2025March 20, 2013 by Save KPFA

After much delay, the Pacifica National Board (PNB) seated newly-elected reps from its stations at a February 22-25 meeting in New York. SaveKPFA-affiliated rep Margy Wilkinson was one of them.

In her report-back, Wilkinson said highlights included a short video about the Pacifica Radio Archives and a full-length documentary about WBAI’s Bob Fass. She added that most of the meeting was spent behind closed doors in “executive” sessions, at least one of which was “probably held in violation of the law governing public vs. executive sessions.”

“We received no written reports from Summer [Reese] in her role as either as PNB chair or iED of Pacifica,” wrote Wilkinson. “The finance report, which was a statement of Pacifica National Office expenses for the first quarter of FY 2013, had no budgetary info or comparisons to previous years, making it pretty hard to evaluate. It was never presented (except for being handed out) or discussed.”

In addition, there was no action on the McCarthyite, anti-dissent, “loyalty measure” that hundreds of SaveKPFA supporters have written about to the board. You can read Wilkinson’s complete report here, or listen to audio of the Feb. 22-25 PNB meeting at these links: Feb 22 | Feb 23 | Feb 24 | Feb 25 | agenda

Local board elects SaveKPFA reps to nearly all leadership positions

February 6, 2025January 28, 2013 by Save KPFA

While Pacifica’s old guard is desperately clinging to its power at the national level, KPFA’s local board is moving forward.

The first new Local Station Board (LSB) in more than two years took office at its January 12 meeting. In December, SaveKPFA‘s candidates won a landslide in elections – a majority that was reflected in the local election of board officers and delegates to the Pacifica National Board (PNB).

Burton White was elected chair of the local board, and Carole Travis, vice-chair. Craig Alderson was elected secretary. Barbara Whipperman continued as the appointed treasurer. Margy Wilkinson, Dan Siegel, and Brian Edwards-Tiekert were elected as delegates to the Pacifica National Board. All 7 are SaveKPFA activists.

The proportional voting system gave local board members aligned with United for Community Radio the ability to elect a single delegate, and they did so by voting Tracy Rosenberg into the fourth KPFA delegate position to the Pacifica board. Last fall, Rosenberg sued over a technicality to prevent votes in the recall against her from being counted. Her allies on the Pacifica board majority failed to remedy Pacifica’s error, so the ballots remain uncounted.

Last month’s election was the first held since Pacifica’s former executive director Arlene Engelhardt overrode KPFA’s local management, purged the station’s popular Morning Show, replaced it with an all-volunteer lineup, and then put notorious union-busting law firm Jackson Lewis on retainer to deal with the backlash. In 2012, the PNB decided to let Engelhardt’s employment contract expire. The board is currently considering how to move forward to find a new executive director.