Greetings WBAI Family, 

We hope you and your relatives and neighbors are well…considering the current circumstances. We have some good news to share and then an urgent update and alert on where things stand within Pacifica.

GOOD WBAI NEWS

WBAI’s morning radio-listening is once again, a “thing”!

For the past several months, from Monday to Thursday, we’ve had community-connected issues from King Downing on Good Morning Nueva York at 6am, and Johanna Fernandez on It’s a New Day (no connection to the “New Day Pacifica” schemers) at 7am before Democracy Now!

Beginning last week, Wake Up Call is back!!
On Fridays from 6-8am, Errol Maitland heads the team that includes Bernard White and Don DeBar. Welcome them home with a:

in the name of the show.
(Or choose another or all programs, if you like!)

Remember, a gift of $25 or more gives you VOTING membership for a 12-month period!

You will recall that on October 7, 2019, Pacifica’s then-interim Executive Director John Vernile, walked into WBAI with then-national board members Bill Crosier and Adrienne LaViolette from Houston, and reportedly, with security guards from the firm owned by ex-police officer Patrick Brosnan. (Brosnan was one of two NYPD officers who, as shown in the documentary “Justifiable Homicide”, executed Anthony Rosario and Hilton Vega in the Bronx in 1995.)

Vernile told our staff they were done, told our landlord to find another tenant, directed the dismantling of our new volunteer-built broadcast studio, and switched our local programming to stuff from Berkeley and Los Angeles. It took a month of local litigation before we could regain access to the air. That same Fall morning in northern California, other Vernile cronies filed a lawsuit that forced an expensive membership vote on proposed changes to our bylaws. Their anti-democratic, anti-diversity, anti-staff, anti-poor people initiative was rejected 2:1 across the nation, and by an overwhelming 95% of WBAI’s staff and listener voters, in March. That 6-month process cost upwards of $150K of listener donations.

They’re trying to dismantle the network, again.

DON’T SIGN THE “NEW DAY PACIFICA” BYLAWS PETITION:

In the past few days, you may have received an email asking you to sign a “New Day Pacifica” bylaw petition. It’s an appealing name, but PLEASE DON’T SIGN!

Different Day…Same Intent

This round, the main thrust is out of Los Angeles instead of Berkeley. And they’ve changed the name from “Pacifica Restructuring Project” to “New Day Pacifica”. But their claims are misleading and their offerings are much the same as before.

They’ve tweaked language based on our previous criticisms such as previously devaluing listener-volunteer labor to about $3/hour, but have not changed their general approach.

• LSBs would not be eliminated, but would be removed from oversight authority and restricted to fundraising and outreach with a vague programming role

• Without naming it so, they’d institute proportional representation and pay-for-play. The 4 national board officer positions which would exclude staff – regardless of a person’s ability to help the body cohere and manage its time – requires 100 nominations from 3 or more station areas. Elections for 2/3 of the national board – for each officer, the single paid staff seat, the single unpaid staff seat, the sole affiliate seat, and the 3 individual at-large seats – would be winner-take-all national elections. As would be the 5 individual 1 spot station elections.

There are other hidden poisons within their “new day” promise.
Just say “NO”.

DON’T SIGN THE “NEW DAY PACIFICA” PETITION
Wrong tune because Pacifica is rebuilding!

• Pacifica is utilizing pandemic-related financial assistance like the Payroll Protection Plan and the (pending) $2 million low-interest Economic Disaster Injury Loan from the Small Business Administration.

• Debt management strategies include: Stations’ re-alignment of expenditures and income, repayment via a dedicated percentage of general bequests and all unexpected income, and possibly refinancing since interest rates are lower now.

There’s other GOOD NEWS at pacifica.org

What the “New Day-Old Tricks” crew claim is merely consideration of a new board formulation is in effect another attempt to curtail member involvement. Your signature would mean you are endorsing the position, not just the idea of discussion. With enough member signatures, they will be able to force another expensive membership vote!

There are built-in ways to improve our bylaws that will not bankrupt the organization. But those desirous of a network break-up will not use those methods. They won’t engage in open and direct discussion, and won’t bring any needed membership votes during the regular election next year.

Instead, illustrating the very dysfunction they ascribe to current governance, they are ignoring the March 2020 bylaws referendum where their ideas were resoundingly rejected by 2 to 1. And if successful this time, they would strip any real authority from those elected in December 2019 to 3-year terms. They obviously believe they know better than you.

While our staff are working in tight home spaces, bearing higher transportation costs, learning new skills and remote broadcasting to keep essential staff safer, and our larger communities are dealing with worrisome congregate learning settings from daycare to grad school, increased food need and higher utility bills, heightened threats of displacement and gentrification and eviction and foreclosure – even as we hear that more $3,000 apartments are empty, and we all deal with the shortened census period and voter suspicion and voter suppression, we think that $150,000 could be better used on fulfilling Pacifica’s mission instead of this massive distraction.

PLEASE DO NOT SIGN THE PETITION.

Stay tuned for upcoming Town Hall meetings where these and other issues will be discussed, here, and at pacificafightback.org.

And as always, stay strong, pay close attention, and never give up!

In loving struggle,

Ralph Poynter
Sharonne Salaam