How confusing !!!!

How does a website [ Counterpunch or Pacifica too ] provide information that remains erroneous and is read and resposted and then can never be corrected everywhere else… as the info has been used, repeated, misunderstood and there has been no corrections ? huh ?

Is a comment from www.anngarrison.com/ saying that the PNB vote On Phone to ‘fire’ Executive Director Summer Reese was 11 to ‘fire’ and “7” opposed? That does not add up to the 22 Pacifica board members many assumed were telephone-at-least-present to vote on such an important issue.

And no names were noted anywhere - to reveal who is choosing to do what to Pacifica ?

How do we know if how many were our KPFK PNB members ? And how did they vote to agree to firing ED or disagreeing ?
or which other station members voted how and why ?

Can there honestly in anonymous voting - - which means no responsibility for anyone saying whatever ? huh ? Can such a delicate and vital issue as firing or not of the top position person be left as no-one-known-or-counted-by-name ? Is this possible? How ?

Are there no records or accountability ? - so the secret-ballots are the way to pretend rational neutrality when other intentions are at play? huh?

what a way to steal elections, anyone's, here or in Ukraine, Iraq, India, Pacifica, or USA government- anywhere else too ?

Those on PNB = Pacifica nat'l Bd = who took-counted votes, or recorded the votes, or even those who actually were present and voted on phone, they must know who spoke up and who said what, no ?

And there are no public records available ?
Or no one is saying anything but hiding behind secret collusions ?
or what ?


Did not the PNB members not hear each other on the phone nor name themselves while voting ?
was it a secret voice vote ?
Was that a legally binding voting ?
Did it confirm to Pacifica's bylaws [own self rules made by themselves for themselves] ?

Really ?

What the everF is going on if this is how Pacifica has been claiming to [dysfunctionally] work at all ? Or who is pretending to be 'working' on behalf of all who pay for it's upkeep, all the while instead fiddling and making Pacifica burn ....down....down...down...

Has this same process and procedure been going on before too, in the same ways ?

A USA public non profit corporation acting as if it were a private fiefdom with anything-we-want-goes ?

Is this a business we want to ever again send $$$money to or free work volunteer for, ever again ? How or Who has the power to change or shift HOW voting occurs, if not by the bylaws already written and in place ?

We are confused, and not just in LA.

down down down dump…and, oh yeah, also drop 'hope', because that is just a wish and dream. Reality has just appeared !

Apparently, only legal court proceedings can rectify and clarify what is and must be happening in our NON PROFIT CORPORATION called Pacifica Fdtn - which is not acting businesslike nor is being held accountable for the ways that PNB board members proceed ... or how some attempt to take full charge and all authority.

If this is how Pacifica and all whom we have assumed, erroneously, are trustworthy organizations operate, then who can be believed ? ever ?


--------------------- another Indy comment reposted here = --------------


"by Ann Garrison - Apr. 17, 2014
anniegarrison@gmail.com

I just came across this and thanks to the poster for sharing my work. I just wish it were a little more clear that I did not write the opening summary, because at first I read that and thought, "Huh? I didn't write this."

There's also one error that this is reminding me to ask Counterpunch to correct. The vote was actually 11 to 7 because of low PNB attendance, lack of notice that Summer Reese's employment would be put to a vote, and several Board members leaving the meeting in outrage. I believe that one of the WBAI members also had to leave before the meeting ended,near midnight, because of ill health. www.anngarrison.com/"
=================================================

repost from Counterpunch article mentioned in article above=
- - - - - - -


"Confidential” personnel matters

So what is Pacifica’s latest “crisis, “coup,” “siege” or “occupation,” depending on your point of view, all about? “Confidential” personnel matters, as usual. Hiring and firing, or more politely put, “termination.” This time a one vote majority of the Pacifica National Board (PNB) attempted to fire the network’s top executive, Pacifica Radio Foundation Executive Director Summer Reese, near midnight at the end of a conference call, with no discussion allowed. Members of the Local Station Boards, staff, and listener communities also complain that there was no advance notice to anyone on the national board or in the wider community.

Since Monday, March 17th, the offices of the Pacifica Foundation at 1925 Martin Luther King Way in Berkeley have been the site of a round-the-clock vigil, complete with air mattresses and sleeping bags, in support of Summer Reese, who has vowed to remain, holding her ground in the foundation’s executive offices, despite PNB members repeated demands that she leave. Reese says that the Pacifica National Board attempted to illegally terminate her three-year contract, without regard to either the termination clause or the process stipulated in the contract.

Reese and her staff also allege that other stations, including KPFA, have so often failed to reconcile their books and submit requisite reports to the Foundation, and so resisted examination of the books by Foundation staff, that she has begun to suspect malfeasance and asked the California Attorney General to intervene.

Also in dispute is the election of KPFA Local Station Board Member Margy Wilkinson as Chair the Pacifica National Board, which gave her the power to set the agenda and preside over the conference call meeting, Wilkinson’s election is reported to have resulted from a ranked choice vote, with only two candidates competing, in which a fifth place vote for Wilkinson was counted to decide a tie. Reese says that the fifth place vote was a joke about Wilkinson being “a fifth column,” but we don’t really know because the Board member who marked Wilkinson fifth after marking one other candidate first has not stepped up to own the vote or the joke.

Those of us on the outside can only ask why was the Board holding a ranked choice vote with only two Board members vying to become the Chair?

I know nothing firsthand about the allegedly unreconciled books, the suspected malfeasance, or the curious ranked choice vote for a PNB Chair, but I do have some relevant firsthand knowledge, as a KPFA and WBAI news and public affairs producer who has also participated in the attempt to create a democratic Pacifica, no matter how seriously silly it often seems to outsiders. I hang in there not only because there has to be an alternative to NPR, but also because Democracy Now can’t cover or research everything in depth. And, because, despite Amy Goodman’s huge achievement, Democracy Now still needs the reporting that filters up from its roots, the Pacifica Network, along with the feedback she receives from her NPR audience.

When news of the current stand-off began to leak out, I at first threw up my hands, saying that Pacifica’s internal war will never end. However, now that I’ve learned a bit more, it seems like it might be an important step towards solving one of the network’s most basic management problems: establishing and respecting policy and procedure for hiring, terminating, or laying off paid staff, including the requisite involvement of a Human Resources (HR) professional. If an HR pro, perhaps even a labor lawyer, were consulted every time the network hires, terminates, or lays anyone off, then the sieges, sit-ins, and court actions would hopefully end and the cost to the network would be far less in the long run.

Dull stuff I know, policy and procedure, even written policy and procedure, HR and legal consultations, but Pacifica needs some of that dull stuff to end its internal drama and soaring legal expenses. The network’s internal wars are dull stuff to most listeners, who are weary of hearing about it on the airwaves, where it competes with the news of aerial bombing wars, holocausts, climate catastrophe, extreme concentration of wealth, and the music and art we all need to chill. Isn’t Pacifica supposed to be bringing us the most incisive reporting, the deepest thoughts, and the best strategies about all this?

Last year I spent several hours talking to the Pacifica Network’s insurance investigator and provided documentation regarding a KPFA hiring committee that I sat on which made its decision in ignorance of California law, in ignorance of the Communication Workers of America (CWA) labor contract, and in ignorance of Pacifica policy regarding affirmative action. In so doing, it left the station with a still unsettled, potentially large legal liability.

I”m no HR pro, nor was anyone else on the committee, so it’s not so surprising that none of us realized this until after the decision had been made, and I’m not reporting this to blame anyone else on the committee; it’s just clear that we needed the help of established, written procedures, and the help of an HR pro at any point of uncertainty.. As soon as I realized that we’d made these mistake, I warned the former General Manager, who could have simply asked the committee to reconvene and reconsider the decision, with the correct information about California law, the CWA contract, and Pacifica policy.

Would the decision have been different? Quite possibly, quite possibly not, but we’ll never know, because the previous General Manager didn’t instruct us to revisit the last stage of the process, which we could have done by convening for just a few hours, in a single afternoon.

Instead he got verbally abusive with me, refused to deal with the errors, and therefore created the liability that still lingers. He is no longer KPFA’s GM, for whatever reason, and I do not know that reason because I’m not privy to the investigator’s report. That report is a confidential Pacifica personnel matter. But I do know that this kind of heartache could be avoided with established, written hiring and termination policies and procedure, including a requisite consultation with an HR pro every time Pacifica hires or terminates paid staff. And again, the cost of the HR help, or of having a full time HR pro on the Foundation staff, would be far less than the network’s legal costs and its consequently high insurance costs for legal liability.

Someone is likely to say that I have violated the hiring committee’s confidentiality agreement, which was an agreement that “what’s said in this room stays in this room,” without further definition, but I interpreted that to mean that none of us would repeat anything any member of the hiring committee had said about anyone in the pool of candidates, which included eight members of the KPFA staff and listener community, so as to protect all our working relationships with one another.

And I am quite sure that confidentiality agreements are not license to break the law with impunity.

I’m still trying to understand how the Pacifica National Board’s attempt to terminate Executive Director Summer Reese came down. I assume we’ll learn once we’re able to read whatever legal pleadings are filed and whatever ruling is handed down, because this is no doubt going to court. I could be wrong, but right now it looks to me like carelessness similar to that I just described, because the PNB doesn’t seem to have respected the termination clause in Reese’s contract, or the process requirement, which obliged them to warn her in writing that they were dissatisfied with some aspect of her performance. Nor, it seems, did the Chair of the Pacifica National Board even allow discussion of a matter as critical as terminating the Executive Director. I say it seems that no discussion was allowed, because that is what has been reported to me, but if a judge were to summon the recording of the conference call, that could of course be proven wrong.

Executive Director Summer Reese has said that she will go to court to keep her job because she believes in the Pacifica Network, instead of suing the Foundation for some hundreds of thousands of dollars in severance that she may have a better chance of both winning and finding a lawyer to represent her on a contingency basis. I can’t swear that she won’t sue for severance if she does indeed lose the job, but that’s her stand right now.

This will have to be settled in court because Summer Reese is holding her ground, with supporters, in the Pacifica Foundation building next door to KPFA, with a signed three-year contract in hand, and no one’s going to call the police without a court order. If anyone did, the police would be unable to make a legal determination as to who’s in charge and possession is 9/10ths of the law. Meaning, in this case, possession of Pacifica’s executive offices, files, phones and other communications tools, not ownership of the building, which belongs to the Pacifica Foundation."

Ann Garrison is an independent journalist who contributes to the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, and the Black Star News, and produces radio for KPFA-Berkeley and WBAI-New York City.

Counterpunch "

To find out more information, you can go to:
www.2014.supportkpfa.org

and read the lawsuit. I am one of the PNB members and plaintiffs in the lawsuit. I cannot say how other people voted but I can tell you how I voted: I voted against all motions to terminate the ED, Summer Reese. Yes, some people were absent from that meeting. The motion to terminate, or any discussion of that nature, was not noticed for the meeting and since the majority will not set meeting dates for the year, as has been requested and voted down, not everyone can accommodate the haphazard schedule of meetings that the majority calls when they feel like it.