What’s Tracy Rosenberg doing with the extra time her lawsuit has bought her? While chairing Pacifica’s Finance Committee, she led a new charge to get Pacifica to impose massive staff cuts on KPFA and other stations.
This Saturday, August 4, Rosenberg led her Independents for Community Radio faction in a quorum-busting walkout from KPFA’s Local Station Board (LSB) meeting, with the explicit goal of blocking the board from approving KPFA’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Without an approved budget, Rosenberg could use her position as Pacifica treasurer to draw a budget up for KPFA — and impose layoffs that way.
These 6 board members joined Rosenberg in walking out: Anthony Fest, Cynthia Johnson, Janet Kobren, Henry Norr, Akio Tanaka and Kate Tanaka.
KPFA is projected to end the current fiscal year with a surplus, so its 2012/2013 budget contained no staff cuts. The station’s budget was calculated according to guidelines in a resolution, authored by KPFA delegate Dan Siegel and overwhelmingly passed in late July at Pacifica‘s National Board meeting in Berkeley. The resolution directed general managers of all 5 Pacifica signals to assess their stations’ current financial situation within a week, and if a station were on budget, there would be no need for cuts.
Saturday’s LSB meeting was under-quorum by one vote, after Rosenberg and her 6 colleagues walked out. With the budget’s approval due that day, and no guarantee of further extensions, the remaining 12 board members voted unanimously to approve the budget. A provision of Roberts’ Rules of Order allowed the members present to act without a quorum on any urgent or important matter, and then seek ratification at a later meeting. | LISTEN to audio of the LSB meeting: PART A | PART B
