Proposed Pacifica By-Law Revision Permits Sale of Stations

A proposed by-law revision, drafted by John Murdock,

a partner in an anti-union Washington law firm and

Mary Frances Berry's designated legal

representative on the national Pacifica board, is

now being circulated for possible adoption at the

upcoming March board meeting in Houston.

The revision would...

* Reduce to as few as five members the Pacifica

Board of Directors (currently 19).

* Allow hired Pacifica executives to be members

of the board.

* Allow key decisions to be made by as few as

three board members.

* Permit the sale of Pacifica assets (i.e. stations

like KPFA and WBAI, estimated to be worth at least

0 million to commercial broadcasters) by a vote

of the executive committee only, as long as the sale

did not include "all or substantially all of the

assets or or property of the Foundation."

* Allow directors (such as Murdock, a partner in

the law firm of Epstein, Becker and Green, currently

handling many legal matters for Pacifica) "to receive

reasonable compensation for services...in a

professional capacity."

* Reduce meeting notice time to as little as 24

hours, and meeting notice to consist of as little as

a message on an answering machine.

* Allow the national Pacifica board to appoint

1/3 of local advisory boards, and ban membership

on such boards of staff and volunteers.

* Ban elected local advisory board members (as at

KPFA) from serving on the national board.

There are other centralizing, corporatizing measures

as well, as may be seen in reading the proposed by-laws

at http://www.savepacifica.net/bylaws_revise.html

(a PDF version is also available at:

http://www.radio4all.org/freepacifica/murdock/murdock-bylaws.pdf)