Nalini wrote about last night's PNB meeting:
"Yikes. I'm telling you. Someone ought to get started in preparing a
bankruptcy and reorganization plan. The only way out that I see is
to have a Court appointed Receiver to provide legal protection while
Pacifica is totally reorganized. They could void the new bylaws,
dismiss all the LSBs, secure a small (may ten) person commission to
redraw the organizational structure and write up the most simple and
streamlined set of bylaws, -- not a Membership org, -- sell one of
the commercial licenses while they are still worth something, and
hire ONLY radio pros as managers until a new infrastructure can be
built to bring in the volunteer structure again. Without court
protection, I predict that the next wave of Lawsuits will be from
vendors. The thing I'm going watch carefully, will Amy Goodman be
the first to sue over nonpayment? Or, will she do the right thing
and pull out of the contract? She gives away her TV broadcast feed
for free to lots of stations.... why not Pacifica?"
You know, Nalini, as bad as this sounds on the outside, it may be exactly
what's needed to really save Pacifica. Our current organization can't even stop
a national board meeting that we cannot pay the bills for: do you think they
can responsibly reorganize the network? I' don't think so. That would mean no
more unbudged jobs for people's girlfriends, or high paying jobs for a woman
who do five minutes of radio a day.
The current group in charge can still meet, at their own expense of course, and
call each other racists, and have workshops and retreats, and vote to support
Haiti, or Tibet, or Luxembourg for that matter all they want.
In the meantime we could stand a change to get Pacifica back, stronger, leaner,
and more cutting edge: without all the cronyism and sweetheart back room deals.
We clearly need professionals in charge, and we're not going to get them with a
membership structure.
Sincerely,
Kevin White
KPFT Houston
----- Original Message ----
From: Nalini Lasiewicz <LasiewiczN@xxxxxxx>
To: PacificaRadiowaves@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 10:35:48 AM
Subject: [PacificaRadiowaves] Re: Please update us on the financial state of
Pacifica
Accordingly to what I heard on last nights emergency PNB call, the
financial state is terminal, and there are NO plans for how to solve
it. Some of the notes that I jotted down:
It sounds like we won't be able to pay Democracy Now this month. I
wonder if the PNB members are going to find out whether there will be
fines or interest.
WBAI has to cut $200K this quarter. Don't know where the cuts will
come from, doesn't know where new money will come from.
Pacifica will not going to be able to pay for the elections this year.
Challenges in 2009 budget that "will make your head spin."
Mike Martin says that it may be a breach of our feduciary
responsibilities to finance a PNB meeting in July.
National Finance Committee is meeting weekly. Staff is doing the best
they can in this time.
Lonnie, "this network is living payroll to payroll." The money to pay
for the meeting is not there. Every station is hurting. There is no
money. We're struggling to pay payroll. We're struggling to pay heath
care.
One week ago during the PNB phone call, Lonnie hemmed and hawed as
they decided to go forward with the July meeting and said "I'll try
to find the money." Last night, a week later, he reports that they
won't be able to pay $150,000 in bills for this month alone. For PNB
members who are part of the Finance Committee, they sounded like this
was the first time they heard that there is NO money. But they voted
to have the meeting anyway.
Yikes. I'm telling you. Someone ought to get started in preparing a
bankruptcy and reorganization plan. The only way out that I see is
to have a Court appointed Receiver to provide legal protection while
Pacifica is totally reorganized. They could void the new bylaws,
dismiss all the LSBs, secure a small (may ten) person commission to
redraw the organizational structure and write up the most simple and
streamlined set of bylaws, -- not a Membership org, -- sell one of
the commercial licenses while they are still worth something, and
hire ONLY radio pros as managers until a new infrastructure can be
built to bring in the volunteer structure again. Without court
protection, I predict that the next wave of Lawsuits will be from
vendors. The thing I'm going watch carefully, will Amy Goodman be
the first to sue over nonpayment? Or, will she do the right thing
and pull out of the contract? She gives away her TV broadcast feed
for free to lots of stations.... why not Pacifica?