Excerpts from Indybay publication:

Why the Pacifica National Office intervened at WBAI by Akio Tanaka
Thursday Nov 14th, 2019 4:28 AM Pacifica have a directorship that somehow believes you can VOTE reality out of existence. Recently, as I was reading an exchange between Bill Crosier, KPFT Director, and Tracy Rosenberg, former KPFA Director, regarding the crisis at WBAI, it seemed that they were talking past each other. So, I asked a fellow board member Darlene Pagano, who sits on the Audit Committee, for her take on the exchange. I want to share her response.

Akio Tanaka

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“Hello Akio,

I joined the PNB Audit committee, having been on the non-profit org side of many an audit in my time, and what I can say is that NETA is pulling Pacifica out of a lot of stinking muck and mud and we should be as thrilled with them as we can possibly be. NETA has been sounding the alarm on the Pacifica financial DISASTER since about day 3 of working with us.

I do think that there was NO money to further give to WBAI, and the fact that no one said NO to their GM earlier (and then dealt with the consequences) was an incredible lapse of Fiduciary responsibility at the very top of our governance structure.

John Vernile did do what an Executive Director should do, and that is make hard choices and prioritize the PACIFICA FOUNDATION needs, even if is a terrible shock to one station. Triage.!!

The NFC meetings affirm to me that NETA (a professional, “dis-interested” financial specialty firm) is the best thing that has happened to Pacifica recently. The financial documents they produce can be relied upon and will give the iED and all the GM’s a great deal of help in making some hard decisions and possible direction in planning.

Major donors and lenders will be helped by this level of verified information as well. Perhaps even our CA Attorney General who has made repeated warnings about revoking our Incorporation due to th . . . “

Darlene

Kinda Ridiculous …. by Tracy Rosenberg
Sunday Nov 24th, 2019 6:10 AM “While I can’t help what some people want to believe, it is really sad to see people on the board of a community radio network being so oblivious to what their mission actually is: to operate local community radio stations. The mission of a nonprofit is not a joke. It’s the purpose of its existence. And nobody ever said it was going to be financially easy.

Pacifica’s national office is bleeding money right and left, due to poor supervision by the board. Plain and simple. The numbers are right in front of our faces. Anyone who chooses not to look at them is simply complicit in a blame game that is focused on dangling WBAI and its very lucrative broadcast license as a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Look at these crazy numbers for a supposedly poor national office that claims it is on the verge of collapse due to a payroll loan of $35,000 for a week.

A national office payroll of $1.026 million dollars over the past two years.

National office consulting contracts totaling $399,417 over the past two years.

National office legal bills totaling $607,785 over the past two years.

National office contracted accountants totaling $321,933 in the past year. (The NETA folks).

National office corporate travel totaling $61,000 in the past year or more than $5,000 a month.

More than $2.0 million dollars received in major donor income and how much used to pay back a loan due in 2021 that holds real estate assets including the three production studios in Berkeley, LA and Houston?

Answer: $100,000 or 5% of the total.

Get real.”