From the Pacifica interim national board meeting June 21-23, 2002, in Berkeley, CA ...

The board selected Dan Coughlin who has been acting Executive Director since January to fill the permanent executive director position. Dan has a tremendously challenging task ahead and will need all of our support.

To my mind the three greatest challenges now facing Pacifica are:

1) To restore the confidence and spirit of the producers, programmers and staffs (paid and unpaid) at our five radio stations ... where nearly a decade of bad management has created toxic work environments, several hundred creative people were fired or left in disgust, co-workers were pitted against each other, unions were busted, racial divides were encouraged to fester, and competition for air time was the norm rather than a collaborative spirit of creative commitment to the purposes of Pacifica. There are many "walking wounded" both inside and outside the stations. To restore staff morale, we will need the patience, insight & skill to bring about forgiveness, reconciliation and some common agreements and vision about how to move forward.

2) To rebuild the decimated financial base of Pacifica. All of Pacifica's reserves are gone ... equipment reserves, program endowments, savings accounts for a rainy day ... all gone. Thanks to the enormous generosity of our listeners the approximately $2.7 million in operating debts we inherited from last year are now paid off. But we do not have enough money in the bank to get through the next fund drive (October). Our controller reported that we will not have the money to meet the payroll in August. Additional fundraising will be necessary. In addition, there remains approximately $1.6 million in disputed "professional services" bills from the last years for the lawyers, PR firms, and private investigators used against us by the former administration. (These professional services bills have been reduced from $2.1 million by a $500,000 payment from Pacifica's insurance.) Negotiations are underway with these alleged creditors in an attempt to avoid further lawsuits.

3) To rise to the demands of this horrific time in our country and our world ... to bring to wider audiences across the country dialogue and the voices of dissent from endless wars abroad and destruction of civil rights and liberties at home that are now openly advocated by US foreign and domestic policies. This will tax our depleted resources and staff ... so we must find new ways of doing things. The 3 national days of programming since January ... with "pinwheels" of productions from each of the five stations have been a good start. First and foremost, however, we must strengthen the programming at all five stations ... look to what engages and informs our listeners, reaches out and touches them, and inspires them care to change the world ... and do more of it. This includes both political affairs and cultural affairs. Sometimes music and poetry can move people to care more than talk. Local programming forms the base of the best national programming (just as Democracy Now! came out of WBAI). We must strengthen our local news departments (since we can no longer afford to produce a national news program) and form partnerships and collaborations with other innovative alternative media ... such as some stations are doing with Free Speech Radio News, Indymedia and independent producers such as TUC, the National Radio Project and others. The greatly weakened Pacifica affiliate system needs to be reinvisioned with a new spirit of common cause with the grassroots radio movement. At one time more than 60 community radio stations across the country carried some Pacifica programming ... that number went way down as they joined the opposition to the old Pacifica and we must now find new ways for Pacifica to participate in the alternative media rennaisance around the country that refuses to conform to the inanity of distractions and "entertainments" and chatter that passes for most of "public radio" (read "government/corporate-sponsored radio") today.

Given those challenges, we must also redefine our governance structure to provide a democratic base of listeners and staff members who can protect Pacifica in the future from rogue boards and managers while still maintaining a "manageable" and "governable" organization. We will need to build in checks and balances that will safeguard not only against the kind of takeover from above we witnessed this past decade, but also safeguard against takeovers from below. The challenge in doing this is to create a governing system that first and formost exists to preserve and carry out the mission of the Pacifica Foundation. Brainstorming committees around the country have been working on this for the past three months, and the work continues. For contact info on how to participate go to www.pacifica.org/
http://www.pacifica.org/bylaws/index.html

Please be as generous as you can be in donations to your local Pacifica station ... don't wait for fund drives ... send checks or go to the web at www.pacifica.org - www.kpfa.org - www.wbai.org - www.kpft.org - www.wpfw.org or www.kpfk.org for mailing addresses or to give on line. Thanks.

On the positive side, our listeners have demonstrated throughout this long fight their commitment to Pacifica's ideals and future. Listeners' groups have formed around the country and are still active. I was tremendously moved and inspired by the deep thought and constructive criticism from listeners around the country who met at the Pacifica Now! conference in San Francisco the week before the board meeting. For papers and reports from the conference go to http://www.newcollegenews.net/pacificanow.html [ some docs also on wbai.net daily notes page ] I hope many more such conferences will occur and that this discussion will continue throughout the Pacifica communities.

I've pasted below for your information the "action items" from this past weekend's interim board meeting. The reports to the board and many of the proposals brought to the meeting will be posted soon at
www.pacifica.org and
www.wbai.net.

Finally, on a personal note, I failed the California bar exam last February due to lack of study time, so must take it again the end of July. Please forgive in advance my failure to respond to much email over the next few weeks.

Pacifica means Peace.

Carol Spooner
interim Secretary

Meeting Summary

"Action Items" from June 21-23 interim Pacifica board meeting. The board & staff person in charge of follow-through are listed by each item. If we left the follow-through people vague, I put Deputy Executive Director Verna Avery-Brown in charge of delegating the matter to a staff person & board Chair Leslie Cagan in charge of delegating the matter to board member(s).

1) Minutes & Reports- Spooner/Avery-Brown January & March in person meeting & February phone conference minutes were approved and are to be posted to www.pacifica.org webpage right away. All reports to the board to be posted on Pacifica web page as well. Motion to approve minutes and post minutes & reports passed unanimously.

2) Archives - Cagan/Avery-Brown Motion to urge national fundraising day be held soon to support the archives. Passed unanimously.

3) Severence Packages - Cagan/Coughlin Board requested a list of managment severence packages showing how much has been paid to whom, how much remains to be paid to whom, and any disputes pending including who and how much.

4) CFO - Cagan/Coughlin Motion to hire part time CFO if capable volunteer not found. $40,000 line-item in budget authorized. CFO need not be in Washington, job can be done by internet/phone/fax with occasional days in the finance office. Passed unanimously.

5) Budgets - Zakiya/Yhasmin Bryant (controller) Budget for July-Sept 2002 - Finance committee to meet in 2 weeks to review 3 month budget July-Sept 2002. Yhasmine to pull those figures together reflecting only actual 4th quarter projected income and expenses. Finance committee to work with managers from each station and department heads to make sure the 4th quarter budget includes only actual projected income and expenses. Budget to include line item for CFO. Stations to give budgets to LABs for review and comment. All to be posted to the web page. Board to meet (by phone) within 3 weeks to approve 4th quarter budget. Motion passed unnamiously

-Income and Expense Report January-June 2002 -
A report of actual income and expenses (national office/stations/archives/national programmin) from January 1st through June 30th will be prepared for board retroactive approval at the September board meeting. Passed unanimously.

-Budget for fiscal year ending 9/30/03 -
Finance committee to meet to set up process. Suggested that FC members work with the station managers on their budgets prior to submission to Yhasmine for review. Full board needs copies of all budget working documents. Budget to be submitted for board approval at September board meeting.

-Motion to include folio as line item in '03 budget. Passed unanimously.
-Motion to include elections budget as line item in '03 budget. Passed unanimously.
-Motion to include training coordinator in each station's '03 budget. Passed 9-3. (Allen, Spooner, Zakiya opposed.)
-Motion to include outreach coordinator in each station's '03 budget. Passed 9-2-1 (Fertig, Spooner opposed, Zakiya abstained.)

These last two motions were later clarified (on Sunday) to mean that the board is not passing "unfunded mandates", but setting policy directions with the expectation that stations will look for ways to do training and outreach, for example by seeking grants, adding job responsibilities to existing positions, finding volunteers to run such programs, etc., or by cutting other expenses to pay for them.

6) Democracy Now! contract - Cagan/Coughlin Motion to ratify passed 9-2 (Ferguson and Lee opposed.)

7) Pacifica Personnel Committee - Fertig/Joyce Snowden (human resources manager)

Motion to form a personnel committee consisting of at least one iPNB member and one LAB member from each station area to review and assess and propose revisions to personnel policies. The committee will seek comments and suggestions from all station managers and staff, as well as the LABs. LABs are encouraged to form policy subcommittees. Passed unanimously.

8) Race and Diversity Report - Fertig/Avery-Brown
Motion to adopt the report of the Anti-Racism working group of the Pacifica Now! Conference as a guideline. Document to be distributed to the LABs. Mandate that the Executive Director, General Managers and LABs, working with members of the working group and listeners, convene on and off-air community meetings to develop plans to implement these goals, and to implement them. That each signal area report ongoing progress and developments to the national board and present reports to the national board at the September board meeting. That a Race and Diversity committee of the national board be formed to assist and monitor these efforts. Motion passed unanimously.

9) On-Air Policy - Referred to Personnel Committee.

10) What's currently on our air? - Cagan/Avery-Brown
LABs are requested to gather and compile information on what our station programming currently is, including statistics for hours of public affairs, cultural affairs, music, etc., and race & gender of program hosts. The KPFA LAB has already compiled this information with the assistance of Max Blanchet. Max has offered to assist other station LABs. Reports to be submitted to board at September meeting. Passed 10-1 (Ferguson opposed.)

11) WBAI Committee Report
Motion to dissolve committee passed unanimously. Follow-up recommendations from the committee referred to Personnel Committee.

12) Bylaws - Spooner/Avery-Brown
Sub-committee chairs to meet and confer and draft proposed bylaws for review and comment. Sub-committee to meet and confer with LABs to ascertain their views on portions of bylaws they must approve. Target date for draft circulation July 15th.

13) Bylaws programming - Spooner/Avery-Brown
Motion to require 2 hours per week of programming regarding the bylaws and governance changes issues and background on all five stations. Suggested that this programming include knowledgeable board and community members. Passed 9-3 (Bryant, Ferguson, Robinson opposed.)