Voice: WPFW’s local station board has voted to oppose the change in Pacifica bylaws but in line with the fair campaign code the following program presents those in favor who are advocating a yes vote. Participants are Carole Travis, Mansour Sabbagh and Sherry Gendelman. WPFW staff and listener members will have an opportunity to vote to change Pacifica’s bylaws and should receive a ballot on February 18th or soon after by email or Postal Mail. This is listener sponsored locally controlled WPFW in Washington, Pacifica Radio broadcasting station 89.3 FM streaming at wpfwfm.org
Davey D: Davey D, Hard Knock Radio here in the Bay Area I want to thank everybody who’s tuning in. And this afternoon this morning we want to have a discussion that has been percolating around the Pacifica Network around the bylaws, what’s it about– and we have some guests that are going to give us some insight as to why they feel the bylaws need to be changed. Joining us in the studio and on the phone is Carole Travis former Pacifica National Board director part of the litigation team led by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York city that has successfully challenged California for its violation of cruel and unusual punishment and due process by its use of the long term solitary confinement in its prison system and former president of the United Auto Workers local that represented 10,000 bargaining unit workers at General Motors locomotive plant outside Chicago. That’s an earful there, but uh Carole is no joke, also in the studio with us is Mansour Sabbagh, he is with KPFK he’s been a staff member for years he’s done everything in the background of KPFK except management, and also has done some hosting.
And lastly we have Sherry Gendelman of KPFA she’s part of the unpaid staff she’s an attorney who works with Osha Neumann’s Free Clinic and has a classic music station. So, folks, as I mentioned at the top of the hour a lot of people have questions about the bylaws and why they need to be changed and there are people that are tuning in that have no idea as to what this is about. So let’s give him a little 101. What is the Pacifica bylaws how long have they been in place and what important facets should listeners know about it before we start talking about the proposed changes.
Carole Travis: The current bylaws were– although Sherry and Mansour were around and I wasn’t when they were done but were put in place I think in 2002 or 2003
Mansour: 2003, yeah–
Carole Travis: as result of a attempted takeover of Pacifica by Democratic Party centrists and they put in place very ultra democratic procedures and Carol Spooner who is one of the people who now wants to change this, you’ll find her name at the last page of these complex current bylaws
Davey D: so i’m still a little confused, Sherry can you go into a little bit more detail what you said an ultra democratic process for somebody listening they would say what’s wrong with a democratic process, so let’s break this down what was in this these bylaws that made it so ultra democratic ?
Sherry G.: OK I was one of the plaintiffs in one of the three lawsuits that were brought in the early part of the 21st century to stop the takeover of Pacifica Foundation which was an attempt then to neutralize the message and the programs that went out over our airwaves but I was not part of the group that remained after we were successful in the lawsuits that created these bylaws, and the reaction to the attempted takeover was an overreaction and the bylaws that were created were an attempt to give every member the power to influence programming and management to such a degree that they created local station boards with 25, 26 members and a national board with 26 members all of whom represented different ideologies and different factions of the big tent that was Pacific Radio. Because of the size of the boards and the requirements for elections on a regular biannual basis, and because of the requirement of meetings, the network and the individual stations got bogged down in governance to the degree that the stations could not respond to the changing media landscape. In the early part of the 20th century radio was still compelling the Internet was not the force that it was now and yet because of these overpopulated boards both locally and nationally and because those boards were representing every idea except that there was no requirement that any board member have experience or knowledge about media and and what was compelling and what would work for a media network like Pacifica Radio um they did not address the needs of the station and the constant meetings drained the revenue and the budget because the meetings were very expensive they were held 4 times a year we would fly all over the country they were very costly the elections were very costly they were every 2 years there would be another election and it really drained the resources of the station without addressing the needs of responsible management
Davey D: let me ask you this, Sherry so for people listening about how many people are we talking about sit on these boards and you know make up these different scenarios that you described what are the numbers like I mean is it 10 is it 15 is it
Sherry G.: yeah well the national board is 22 members and I– I am currently a board member of Middle East Children’s Alliance there are 6 members on that board. A board cannot function and reach decisions with 22 members and furthermore if the elections resulted in factional representation
Davey D: before we get into that I just want to just kind of let everybody know so there are 22 people on the national board and are there other boards that feed into that are their local station boards are there advisory boards and if so what are the numbers on that? does it can anybody break that down for us– Mansour?
Mansour: so the local station board is comprised of 24 members who currently have to get 15 signatures from members of the foundation or their local radio station to be a nominee for the board and then the election will take place and top– how many numbers of votes you get it makes you to become a member. these are delegates then they would hold a meeting and would elect among themselves four representatives going to national boards and those would be directors those guys are the custodians of pacifica’s licenses. As I am one of those members right now representing KPFK And from those four, three of them are listener members and one of ’em is the staff representative. And then we have the affiliates we have about over two hundred affiliate radio station and there are two directors who would be elected by Pacifica National Board to be on Pacifica National Board and that’s how the PNB is. It consists of twenty-two members.
Davey D: let me ask before the attempted takeover in 2000, 1999 that that that that that period of time was the Pacifica national board that numerous in terms of its membership?
Mansour: there used to be about seven to nine self-appointing members to Pacifica National Board who were coming up from self-appointing Local Advisory Boards. each station had its own advisory board and the way that it worked out they X number of people were on the board and if one of ’em resigned or had some other job or conflict in time the others would nominate one of their friends or colleagues there so who knew and they would just bring him on board that’s how it was a self-appointing members of the National Board of Pacifica
Davey D: so the reason why this expanded to twenty-two was to kind of establish a you know what I guess would be intended was a failsafe system so that no one person or one group could just take over you would have this spread out over a large body of people is that correct in my understanding that’s why it increased to twenty-two?
Carole Travis: I think so – it was an overreaction to the narrowness the previous narrowness and so it went all the way to the other end where there is now twenty-four people in five stations feeding in every single year to a new national board so the national board is elected every single year replaced totally and the only qualifications to be on the national board is that you were previously for one year on a Local Station Board. There are a myriad of also committees that operate and so on and so there is this gigantic you know structure paralyzed and unable to move and yet attempts to micromanage the management but the by the current bylaws say there should be four meetings a year in 2019 there were sixty-three meetings over forty-four days plus eighteen meetings were canceled of the national board and yet a lot of stuff was not addressed as the most important stuff but the financial cliff that we’re facing and danger that’s threatening the whole structure with collapse.
Davey D: if you just tuning in that’s the voice Carole Travis but joining us we have Sherry Gendelman and we have Mansour Sabbagh and we’re talking about the proposal to change the Pacifica National Board bylaws .
Mansour: would add one thing regarding the current bylaws delegates there is no requirement from any of any people who running for Local Station Board to bring any sort of expertise, skills, fund raising skills, management skills, financial– being able to read financial books there’s no required skills from anybody as long as you pay twenty-five dollars, as being a member or volunteer three hours that just qualifies you to run for Local Station Board. And as the result for national board to be in charge of twelve million dollar operation that Pacifica operates on annually. That’s what we’re facing right now
Davey D: Let me ask you this what sort of business has not been done that you attribute to this large body of people because it’s just not governable as you describe.
what sort of things have been missed? go ahead–
Carole Travis: The bylaws– the audits which are required by law to get done have not been attended to. we owe a tremendous amount of money, we’re operating on a huge amount of debt we took a 3.2 million dollar loan that comes due April 2021, and there are absolutely no plans or discussion by the national board about how that’s going to be paid and that loan is secured by all of all of the assets of Pacifica except for the licenses to broadcast, but all of the buildings, all of the equipment, all of the things that essentially allow Pacifica to um broadcast the voices that you know we so specially do broadcast, and so we’re really– we think that these bylaws and these this change to get us into a functional governance structure is the only chance Pacifica has to survive over the next year, and we’re quite serious about this that we’re frightened we think this is the last ditch Hail Mary pass to save Pacifica each of the stations all of the jobs, all of our voices and that even if we do it, it’s not clear to us that because things are so dysfunctional and so much behind and so many bills and so many unpaid vendors that it still might go down
Davey D: can any of you walk us through a meeting. So the way I’m hearing this in a way the way that I think a lot of listeners are hearing this– And I’m just going to create a scenario– you have a huge loan bill or loan debt that is due three million dollars OK we just toss that out and you have twenty-two people sitting in a room. How does this work? do you all vote and the majority wins– you know the majority takes the direction that is needed so we say we need to pay X amount of dollars by next week, do you all take a vote and if it’s twenty-two people, if thirteen go one way and an you know nine go the other does the majority win or is it completely paralyzed because of some other reasons how does this work walk us through the process in a meeting that makes this such a difficult thing to handle. Ad I’m asking this because people would just say, why don’t you just take a vote on an action and just move in a particular direction?
Mansour: Sure I’ll be happy to because I am sitting member of Pacifica National Board right now. I can tell you that last year middle of last year we held meetings that lasted six hours, Davey D, and here’s how meeting would start we start at 5:30 and before the roll call is made at least ten, fifteen minutes has come and gone then we spend supposedly we allocate five minutes to approve the agenda it takes us sometimes thirty minutes forty minutes and sometimes one hour to approve the agenda. nothing it’s pre-handed out– let’s say two or three days ahead of the meeting to members to know what the meeting is going to be about. People would bring motion on the same day that we have the meeting so everybody has to vote on it. In one word it’s dysfunction of the board that creates all this, and lack of skill that creates the chaotic Pacifica National Board and LSB meetings that we have. That word, dysfunction.
Davey D: so what we’re talk about is it takes a lot of time but are people voting in one direction or the other, and then everybody follows, or does it break down? If you say that you want to go to the left, and somebody goes they want to go to the right you take a vote and left-leaning people win, do you move in that direction or does all progress stop. I’m trying to understand how this works in a meeting that I think on the surface people would just say, why not take a vote and keep it moving?
Mansour: yes, a simple majority of vote would take directions but there is always this conflicting issues and ideas that come together without the background of knowing exactly what we’re doing. I have brought up the issue to discuss, designate Pacifica National Board meeting to deal with paying with the loan back a year ago we never discuss how to pay the loan back we have not discussed we don’t have a plan to pay the loan back.
Davey D: why is that were people saying and we don’t need to discuss it and they voted in the majority not to do that? or it just never got around on the agenda?
Mansour: it’s a directionless board meetings we go ahead Sher– uh Carol
Carole Travis: Yeah I actually think one of the things is it’s a hard question to answer it’s you know if you really put that on the agenda what are you going to say OK everybody call up friends send out letters to major donors, things like that it’s a hard question, and it’s not just the 3.2 million dollars it’s the payroll that’s why the health care bills, the pension plan the lawyers bills, the pension lawyers bills, the election supervisors there’s huge continuous mounting– and there’s just total distrust among people most of the people I mean I think I’m one of the most recent people and I’ve now been involved seven years, but you know most of the people who stick around are people who’ve been around for twenty years. It’s an addictive place to be because many of us and I think many of us on each on all the sides think that Pacifica is important, it’s potentially usually important I mean we have white supremacists not only in the United States organizing but around the world, we have the climate ready to collapse we have a fascist in the White House you know like that and yet we’re not hiring people that we trust to move to to a CF– as a CFO as a general manager people just fight with each other all the time and in the meetings there are often there’s a close vote on who’s controlling the board and the board the people who– the culture of Pacifica is that the people who are not controlling the board often become disruptive to the people who are– have the majority and so there’s “point of order, point of order, excuse me I have a question excuse me–“ there– they are Roberts Rules of Order nightmares and although this most recent board people have been so sickened physically by having sixty-three meetings in forty-four days that a number of people who have been in the– not in the majority have just quit, and it’s also because among those people there’s a feeling we’re going over the cliff so why should I give my life to sick meaningless toxic interactions that tax me physically, that are not going to go anywhere, but a number of us are in there because we see the potential
Sherry G.: It is also indicative of the lack of experience of board members that you have twenty-two people for the last five years of declining listenership, declining revenues, not addressing both of those issues that are critical for any media outfit. You have people with no experience, no administrative experience, no business experience, no media experience, not addressing the issues that have weakened this foundation and it it is a situation that those of us who feel– who realize how important these five stations are in the five of the largest media markets in this country that we came together to try to address the structure and the bylaws that have resulted in this situation of paralysis and inability to address the needs of the network and it is for the reasons that we have described that several activists came together to try to create bylaws that were not– that would not strangle the organization but it would allow it to stabilize itself and then move forward
Davey D: that’s the voice of Sherry Gendelman. She’s a lawyer. She’s also with the unpaid staff at KPFA you also have with us this afternoon Mansour Sabbagh of KPFK is a staff member there and also Carole Travis former Pacifica National Board director and Mansour currently is on the PNB. Somebody listening to this would raise a couple of questions one, the network prides itself on being accessible to the people, and for the most part the people whether they have experience in radio they may say that they have experience in terms of loving this network, they have experience in terms of listening to the various shows that come on and they– they were able to get elected by a body of people who hopefully have the same values in terms of loving this network and wanting to see it prosper. So they get on this board– some would say that is the ultimate demonstration of democracy that you have people who came from the community who are now there. Are we looking to eliminate somebody who haven’t had the privilege of working in media or haven’t had the privilege of acqu– of of obtaining a certain amount of skill sets like management or or accounting or anything like that– how do we respond to somebody who goes, well I’m just somebody who loves the network why can’t I be involved in its governance?
Carole T.: can I answer that?
Davey D: sure go ahead
Carole Travis: The organizations that normally have membership really totally running an organization are organizations that deal with what the members need, so labor unions are run by members and the leadership is totally elected by members. Political parties supposedly have are selected by members, churches maybe also have those kind that kind of structure. we are an organization that we’re trying to preserve a network that is both available to the community to have their voices heard, and available to national programming to help intersectional conversations that move and help build the movements that are required to deal with the tremendous problems we’re facing and but we we can we in order to do that we have to pay our bills follow the laws, know what the laws are, know how to read spreadsheets and so on so yes we are saying that although that it’s a good sentiment, and we understand how in the way you expressed it, how it came to be that the bylaws had that kind of access to running the organization built into the last set of bylaws, but what has happened is that means that our audits aren’t done where our our our non-profit status is totally at risk, we have had a revolving door for Executive Directors and Chief Financial Officers– since 2003 there have been nineteen Executive Directors and eight CFO’s– most all of those people have been interim none of you know a few of them permanent– it’s it’s an organization which now hobbles along and Pacifica all of the five stations the National Archives and the National Office are legally and financially one organization, the Pacifica Foundation. They operate as five independent organizations and until recently in the last year or so a year and a half they had no financial systems that even interacted, the accounting systems couldn’t do it so you couldn’t do audits you couldn’t it was a impossibly time-consuming and expensive to get the audits done, so in order to preserve the national singular corporate-free structure and national communication network in the United States to be available to have the programming that we have to have the voices of the community to have the national conversations we need they have to have a functioning business model that is legally responsible otherwise there’s gonna be nothing and we think we’re close to that situation now where where it’s all gonna collapse
Sherry G.: I think that also, that the idea that the community has to make the decisions to keep the airwaves viable is not a definition of democracy. If you have a healthy media organization with five functioning stations that broadcast wonderful interesting program much of which is created by community members, that is keeping the airwaves open to the various communities that we desire to serve, but to allow an organization to be destroyed by this governance structure is not in the service of either serving the communities and having a healthy media outlet for them to talk about the issues that concern them rather than what the current situation is– which is it’s just a venue for people with different ideas to fight with each other and not run this organization in a healthy way
Davey D: what are the– what is the proposals– for go ahead Mansour–
Mansour: With the with the new proposed bylaws they still would be one elected member from each radio station going up to the national board so if democracy, meaning election we still would have that and the we bring in experienced knowledgeable people well-recognized on the progressive side from national throughout the nation, geographically diverse gender diverse racial diverse six at large people who are vetted and appointed which means they have to send us a resume tell us what services what skills they bring into the foundation to– to be serving on Pacifica National Board so we still have an activist progressive person who listens to a station can and is able to run for the election and be elected if he or she gets enough votes at the same time we bring in the experience and the knowledge that we need to make sure the business side of Pacifica, the functioning side of Pacifica and the management side of Pacifica it’s functioning so we don’t have to pay all this extra expenses that we are dealing with for mistakes that inexperienced Pacifica National Boards are making.
Davey D: who who would make the decision in terms of the vetting? who looks at somebody’s resume and decides that they’re qualified and their not qualified– and let me let me ask let me put it out there like this we have in academia a set of standards that are you know put in place you need to have a masters and PhD in order to be inside the classroom and on one hand that works great, on the other hand is large bodies of people who are underserved because people who or in particular professions don’t have those credentials and they’re often excluded and said not to be qualified so you see that for example with activists and organizers who may not have obtained a master’s degree so theoretically they’re not qualified to teach in the classroom and so somebody else is teaching when they really weren’t organizers. So how do we who’s going to be doing the vetting in and what is going to be the standard that is is look that folks are looking for?
Carole Travis: I’ll answer that I’ll answer that. First of all I want to point out that those of us who put forward the bylaws do not want to run Pacifica and do not want to be the people who are judging this. We went out of our way to find people who, as Mansour indicated, were from geographically racially gender etc etc diverse from different areas of political activity– Progressive radical political activity to be the six at large people on the board– so the members when they vote to either accept or not accept this board, these bylaws will be voting that they are choosing the the at-large people who we presented as part of the bylaws and then the members of each radio station will decide who the other person is and the history of Pacifica is that we’re very interested in activists and community representatives, and it’s just what we have is all activists and community representatives, all passionate lovers of Pacifica running something and not people who are used to be…
Mansour: knowledgeable–
Carole Travis: …skilled about being on boards. They’re people who care, but they are not people who are a part of running multimillion dollar, singular corporate-free communication system in the United States that has by the way 220 affiliates that reached people in in you know the the kitchens and cars across the United States. But going forward who will choose on this six people who are the ones that will be the at-large directors at first if there are openings there the whole board the five from the stations plus the remaining people of the six will vet and look at decide what kind of you know what kind of whole do we have here– are we now missing somebody from the immigration community are we now missing somebody from black lives matter are we missing somebody from the Palestinian community– what what are we missing are we missing somebody who knows how to read spreadsheets and so it’ll be a smaller group we presume that will be trying to actually represent Pacifica. The current board is actually an amalgamation of parochial Local Station Board positions and that are that have shifting alliances that mostly prevent zero– make for zero financial accountability. Zero. Every station was making its own contract, spending its own money and spending our– everybody else’s money so that our debts are your debts your debts are our debts so every poorly performing station was rewarded because it could just go ahead and have really most recently KPFA and people who died in both WBAI territory and KPFA territory to pull us out of the cliff with mounting enormous debt. I know i said many things there I apologize.
Davey D: let me let me ask you this. First of all can you tell people where they can look at a comparison between the current and the proposed new bylaws and then Mansour, or maybe Sherry you can complete some of the proposed changes that so you know for our listeners? Anybody want to hit that tell us where people can find the in writing the comparison of the current and new bylaws that are being proposed?
Mansour: yeah Yes so I the website is rethinkingpacifica.org rethinkingpacifica.org and I’ll say this our current bylaws are sixty-four pages our newly proposed bylaws that Sherry can speak more about it how it came about it’s only sixteen pages. Now I want our listeners especially in New York and Washington DC to know not that they’re not aware of but there is bylaws are policies procedures you know how to conduct the survey how to evaluate the general managers those are different than the laws governing an institution. Our bylaws are governing a way of doing things and then we have policies to evaluate general managers, evaluate executive directors and all this– those are all intact. This is in sixteen pages. The website rethinkingpacifica.org has the current bylaws, has the new proposed bylaws, has the comparison between the two, has a who’s who is going to be at-large people if he gets elected and and so on and so forth and there is a FAQ as well on the web page, Sherry–
Sherry G.: yes and um the– the main changes are the streamlining and reduction in the number of the national board, the requirement that people who would eventually end up on the national board would have experience in media or fund raising etc, plus the the overall requirements of creating a diverse board and diverse in every issue that is of concern to us we– I want to add something here also the process in the new proposed bylaws makes amending those very bylaws a much easier process than the current bylaws which are nearly impossible to amend, in fact we have had to go to court on four separate occasions because the current governance of Pacifica has opposed even our efforts to bring these proposed bylaws to the membership across the country and allow the membership to look at old look at new look at our arguments look at the other side’s arguments and then vote yes or no for the proposed new bylaws, we have had to be in court on four separate occasions just to allow the listeners to consider what we are saying, look at the new bylaws and to vote up or down on these. And I want to just talk a little bit about the people who were in the group that came up– we have been working because of our concerns about the dire financial situation of Pacifica and because of our concern that the national board had failed to address the financial crisis, and it– because of the financial crisis we were falling desperately behind other media outlets and having the influence that we should have, several of us came together and thought: we’ve got to rewrite these bylaws, we have to do the the last effort that we can to try to save this foundation. The group has been made up of several lawyers Carol Spooner, Peter Franck, Mansour who is not a lawyer, William Crosier, there are people on the committee that we have worked on from California, from San Francisco, the Bay Area, Berkeley, from Los Angeles and from Texas, other people on our committee were Aki Tanaka, Donald Goldmacher, who is a filmmaker and activists in a member of the LSB and PNB– Aki Tanaka has been a longtime activist in the KPFA community, Susan Da Silva, myself, Carole Travis– we spent hours meeting, we had consultation from and very generous support from a few attorneys who deal with nonprofit corporations, and then we reached out to members of the community across the Pacifica network and had input from many activists um telling them what we wanted to accomplish, and all of them supporting our efforts to save this very precious five station network with all of the affiliates we are not anti-democratic, we’re pro-Pacifica, and we hope that the proposed bylaws will give Pacifica a chance to recover from decades of mismanagement and debt. We wrote these bylaws with the help of a few nonprofit attorneys as i said previously, and the moment we were satisfied that we had come up with by laws that would allow the Foundation to function we posted them for our membership and within 48 hours of posting these bylaws 2% of the Pacifica’s members endorsed the proposed bylaws, so once we wrote the bylaws and we had to have a small group because large groups cannot do the work that was necessary– the moment we were satisfied with the product that we had developed we exposed that product and posted it for all of the Pacifica members across the country to look at and respond to and that’s the process that we are involved in right now .
Carole Travis: so we are a member-sponsored petition, not as you know a small group petition we are 2% of the members which is twice the amount that’s required by the current bylaws
Davey D: Let me ask you this you know you mentioned that it’s hard for large bodies to govern. Somebody would look at Congress but one of the things with Congress is that when you come in you are oriented, they teach you how to pass laws and all the procedures and all that– is there any sort of training that would be given to people who come on the board aside from how to conduct the meeting, I know everybody learns about Roberts Rules and all that– but in terms of you know acquiring with skill set that Hey here’s some basic things you need to know about budgets, here’s some basic things you need to know about media, so that people coming in even if they have different orientations in terms of political viewpoints they have a baseline knowledge as to what it takes to have these five stations and all these affiliates operate well.
Sherry G.: No.
Mansour: David no– believe it or not believe it or not they come in as a slate, a group of people who put names together because they go OK I feel like this way with uh this radio station and the other group says I feel like this way– they get together and they become a slate and that’s how factionalism start– actually you learning at the job what Robert Rules are, what the bylaws are how to– what are the issues I mean everybody comes in green, and it takes ‘em about a year and a half to actually learn to what’s going on and how deep this rabbit hole is that Pacifica is buried in– so nobody gets training nobody has comes in with skill as we said we are majority of them are activists, they passionate about Pacifica they come, they run, they get elected and that’s how there is a disconnect between management, the business side of the Pacifica Foundation and what’s going on in the media as we are a progressive noncommercial non advertising radio media outlet
Sherry G.: and furthermore there is no orientation for– about the requirements of the FCC the CEB [CPB?] or any other federal or state governing requirements about broadcasting over the airwaves which belong to the people in theory– there is no orientation as to the laws that govern or what it takes to manage a media empire, or what the cutting edge notion of a media foundation are, no orientation what so ever.
Carole Travis: well it’s also true that we have not written into our bylaws a process for orientation either, but we are now– what we are concerned about right at the moment is the total collapse of the network and the loss of the buildings, the airwaves the the whole you know the whole megillah and what and we are concerned with taking Pacifica to a place where none of the old distrusting people and players usual suspects who rotate through the Pacifica boards including all of ourselves are removed from this and where we’re putting in place people who have a knowl– who have a commitment to Pacifica I mean as we interviewed them that’s what was you know the all the five stations we talked about the affiliate stations and they are totally committed to trying to deal with that and so– what– they have people who have been on boards, who understand laws, who understand spreadsheets and understand media we have a mix of those people who are in this among the six, and then they’ll be one person from each station area and they are going to be immediately overcome with problems that are so enormous and so daunting– at some point they might decide that they need to have new people and they need to have skill training for them as they come in but they are going to be in deep trouble and– immediately– and it’s not clear whether they or anybody else can save us, but we think this is the only possibility that if these bylaws aren’t passed– by the way everybody thinks that the bylaws should be changed. Sherry had given the thing about how difficult it’s been to change them in any case but so I understand your concern about people who don’t have regular credentials and having the ability and the importance of those people to participate. What I think is that we want those people to be able to be on the air participating about the subjects that they’re concerned with in their community, not concerned with the spreadsheets of running a national organization of you know compliant with FCC_
Davey D: right see the thing– the thing with this, Carole, though in this is you know a concern there have been people that are only these airwaves that have to fight tooth and nail to get there because there were people sitting in the seats of power who just didn’t have an understanding– I know with our show we had several General Managers who tried to get rid of us ’cause they didn’t understand us even as popular as we were and are– and so that becomes the fear that people have that they’ve experienced that there– they’ve had people sit up there with all the credentials and all the bells and whistles and sit up there and go I don’t know why we need to have a La Raza chronicles and I don’t need to need to know why I don’t I don’t understand why we asked to have a show focusing on Asians and what’s this hip-hop stuff about– that is still a tangible nightmare that many people have experienced and have reacted to, and the question that people would ask is what is the safeguards to make sure that you don’t have somebody who’ll come there and decide that, well you know I don’t care about labor, labor is not my thing so let’s get rid of the labor show, you know those are the types of things that have led to some of the paralysis that people feel are happening because one, they’ve experienced being excluded and two, you also have people that come in with very little vision, so they haven’t figured out how to make these this network become a robust media center, that is you know proficient in terrestrial radio, proficient in digital radio, all sorts of things we haven’t had that but people are just literally scared to be excluded. How do we ensure that they don’t as we kind of close out, and as we do who as you get your last words let people know where they can get the information.
Carole Travis: when the– we put the directors not people who are FCC lawyers or CPB lawyers we put we have among our um alternates and there are two openings now because one of the attorneys, Heidi from New York left, and also Barbara Ramsey got calls from everybody– we put political people in those at-large spots– we put in political people who had experience on boards but from a labor from black from immigration from from uh Is– Islamic media– media so we put people– but political people, not technically you know who are also have some technical skills and knowledge but we, we understand the central importance of having a political radio station, a radical political radio station at this time in the United States at this time, in the world at this time on our planet– that we are not just at a cliff at Pacifica we’re on all kinds of cliffs and it’s very dangerous and that as the single noncorporate, corporate-free national media network with 220 stations across the United States, this is a precious resource and we feel it’s very important that it keep alive and have the access of radical thought, of edgy thought and intersectional conversations and also rooted in local communities and local concerns and local culture that’s my wrap.
Davey D: we appreciate that. Mansour, you want to give some closing remarks
Mansour: absolutely Thank you very much for hosting us, Davey D, and I want to say let me say something about myself, that I’m an Iranian and I’m not a paid staff I don’t– I don’t want anybody to misunderstand that that I’m not a paid staff, that because I volunteer about 90% of my time with KPFK with activities around KPFK and Pacifica, that’s why I was able to run as a staff representative. What I would like to add as a last comment, please visit our website rethinkingpacifica.org rethinkingpacifica.org Davey D, there is no guarantee even with our– this recommended amended bylaws that we might be able to save the Foundation, that I’m being honest with everybody it scares the heck out of myself when I think of these things but it’s a reality, we have a loan of 3.2 million dollars to be paid. We have no plans to pay it. We have no directions to pay it, and a majority of people on Pacifica National Board advocate for more fund raising on the air to pay the loan, and this is a no-no. We already having too many fund drive days. We need experience. We need knowledgeable Executive Director, CFO, management teams at all radio stations to think, and bring extra money, funds for the Foundation. We need those experienced people to stabilize the Foundation in order to become a viable source of information as as Carole and Sherry has talked about, now you want us to guarantee that none of the above would happen. We don’t have it, but I can tell you what it is. What it is right now with current situation, we might be out of existence even before the end of the year, and the only chance that we have right now to reduce the dysfunctional boards that Pacifica has, bring experience people, stabilize the foundation and let’s rebuild Pacifica Foundation and my thought is if we have twelve to fourteen hours of excellent programming that brings money to the Foundation it’s great and the other ten- twelve hours has to be for community, has to be for new programming, the visionary stuff that we have always been at the front forefront of the media and we shall be again.
Davey D: OK, Sherry, the last comment’s from you.
Sherry G.: Yes I– I urge people– the listeners to visit the website. I have been associated with KPFA in Pacifica for many, many decades I was chair of the Local Advisory Boards when those existed, I was chair of the Local Station Board when that existed, I was chair of the National Board, and I have an experience of this huge nonfunctioning board. There were moments when I had to, because of California state law, act as the interim Executive Director though I did not take any salary for that, and I hesitated to make any serious decisions about the operation of Pacifica because I am– was a civil rights lawyer, I now practice criminal law, I know nothing about running an organization of the size and potential of Pacifica. I am very attached to this venue. I am very emotional about all of this. I want Pacifica to continue, and I believe that the last chance for Pacifica is to streamline its bylaws to bring in a more manageable and efficient structure at the Top and I urge everyone to inform themselves and to vote for the proposed bylaws.
Mansour: And Davey D, if I may just there’s 30 seconds and that is what we are proposing as a new bylaws are these are the same thing that the assistant to California attorney general recommended to us in PNG meeting in 2017, this is the same thing that Corporation for Public Broadcasting has recommended to Pacifica, this is the same thing that our financial organization, the NETA has recommended to us, and it’s the same thing that our audit company has told us to do, and that is come up to the 21st century and you need in order to get your money and your paperwork in order and to survive and thrive you really need to change your bylaws, and this is what we are proposing, and these are the same thing that the last few executive directors have told us, too. So rethinkingpacifica.org website to find out more information about current bylaws newly proposed bylaws, the comparison the facts and if you have any questions we would be very happy to answer it .
Carole Travis: And Bill Fletcher, who is very influential on the East Coast is one of our endorsers.
Davey D: OK we appreciate that. We’re going to take break on this, and thank you Carole thank you Sherry and and thank you Mansour for the show.
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