Despite Irregularities, Unfairness, and Lies, MAKE SURE YOU VOTE
And Vote Justice & Unity to Save WBAI!WBAI is known for unmasking the charlatans, telling uncomfortable truths, and facilitating new cultures. It is why the station exists. And it is part of Justice & Unity’s purpose to ensure that all communities are included at an expanded table.
On the Saturday Feb. 16 broadcast of David Rothenberg’s “Any Saturday,” and again during an on-air candidates’ forum, members of the Independents/IndyCaucus/ACE election and governance group distorted facts and openly lied about Justice & Unity, the recent history of the station and the Pacifica network, and a proposed partnership or Public Service Operating Agreement (PSOA) with the Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN).
In late 2017 and early 2018, WBAI listeners, staff, and Local Station Board members were invited to meetings organized by staff and listener supporters of the PSOA with MNN. We asked for information sessions about PSOAs at LSB Board meetings, but the Independents/IndyCaucus/ACE board majority, when they bothered to call meetings at all, refused to allow it. If they don’t know the truth, it isn’t for lack of opportunities to learn. And among those of them who do know the truth, the fear of structural changes that might reduce fiefdoms and the role of private lobbying is so strong that they don’t want WBAI Listeners to know that there really is a way out of the endless fund drives with a limited audience – that there can be a different approach and an expanded WBAI.
Ironically, WBAI’s decade-long steep membership decline from 15,000 to 6900 has occurred under the Independents/IndyCaucus/ACE Local Station Board majority. Around the network, mostly under their Pacifica National Board majority, management is unstable, with people in interim positions for years, financial controls sloppier every year since the partisan firing of skilled professionals, other firings and engineered “resignations” with payoffs, and rising debts – all of which are somehow someone else’s fault. Not only have they not turned the downward slide around; they haven’t even made the station, or the foundation, break even. They can’t turn it around. Locally, they won’t even show up for meetings. In the last 3 years, they have boycotted or been missing from 2/3 of regular Local Station Board meetings.
Following is a list of Independents/IndyCaucus/ACE fictions, misrepresentations, and false accusations, together with the clarifications that we at Justice & Unity believe you deserve.
Fiction
The PSOA with MNN is a hostile takeover or a lease with no end; we would lose “all control over programming content”; we would lose all our employees.
Fact
A PSOA is NOT a standard boilerplate document. In February 2014, Pacifica’s FCC attorney stated unequivocally that it is NOT a lease. It is an agreement for a fixed term, agreed upon by both MNN and Pacifica, and it can stipulate that the basic format of the station would remain the same, including details of time reserved for Pacifica.
FCC regulations require a carryover minimum of 2 staff (one management, one non-management), and MNN and Pacifica could negotiate more. MNN has specifically stated they aren’t about getting rid of jobs or shows, but rather about strengthening staff skills, improving the shows, and adding needed staff, especially for off-air fundraising.
Fiction
WBAI will be controlled by a corporate entity if it partners with MNN.
Fact
MNN works under a nonprofit board. Cable companies are required by state law to pay a franchise fee to MNN for operations and give it free channel space to air programs. Per State codes and regulations, TITLE 16. DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE, CHAPTER VIII, CABLE TELEVISION, “the cable television franchisee shall not exercise any editorial control over any public, educational or governmental use of channel capacity designated for PEG purposes provided.” The “franchisee” in this case refers to the area cable companies: Time Warner aka Spectrum aka Charter, RCN, and Verizon.
Misrepresentation
Pacifica will lose all control of the situation at the station if we have a PSOA with MNN.
Fact
Pacifica lost control years ago. We have a station that spends 35-40% of its broadcast days in fund drives, which have cost us a huge percentage of our listenership. They’ve been promising premiums that come late or not at all for 10 years. Pacifica doesn’t have the capital to turn this around.
Misrepresentation
WBAI doesn’t need to be part of a PSOA because we have lower rent at 4 Times Square and because of the “great” loans Independents/IndyCaucus/ACE secured and their resolution of the lawsuit. Everything is under control – the loans solved everything.
Fact
The half-a-million loan may not even have been necessary, and the costs may not have been worth the short-term relief. The 3-million+ loan has a variable rate that increases every time the prime rate goes up. There’s been a complete failure of disclosure, including a directive to not publicly mention the name of the lender after a huge national rollout. Interest-only payments for 18 months were reserved and are running out. A year into those 18 months, there is not even a plan to pay interest. All 3 Pacifica-owned buildings housing the stations in LA, Houston, and Berkeley, with their contents – including the Pacifica Radio Archives – have been put up as collateral.
Fiction
There is no reason to engage in a PSOA with MNN, since debts can’t be paid off under such an agreement.
Fact
WBAI is not meeting its basic current bills; it’s behind by hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. General Manager Reimers said in August 2018 that the station had debt that totaled $2,554,946. Lack of staff and lack of skill have held us here. Had we negotiated the PSOA with MNN already, we would not have current expenses and would be on the way to off-air fundraising too pay off previous debt. The bequests that have recently helped keep WBAI afloat could have been used to pay back at least some of the unforgiven organizational debt.
Fiction
The PSOA is the only kind of partnership WBAI/Pacifica could have with MNN.
Fact
MNN is open to simulcasting WBAI programs without a PSOA. It’s open to having a WBAI broadcast studio at MNN and other production facilities. It’s open to co-funding joint programs. Simulcast programs could lead to agreements to broadcast a WBAI TV signal to other area public-access stations, as with Democracy Now! and Free Speech TV. However, a PSOA would guarantee that WBAI would break even, instead of increasing its debt every year, as it has over the past 6 years.
False Accusation
Justice and Unity are trying to steal WBAI.
Fact
Justice and Unity has been open in its support for seriously negotiating a good deal for WBAI/Pacifica in a limited-term partnership PSOA with MNN. At the end of the term, the station returns to Pacifica management. This is why we’ve brought the MNN PSOA proposal to the listener-members. We want WBAI to reach further into the full entire metropolitan area and beyond.
Misrepresentation
“Only the independent candidates have taken a pledge to remain independent.”
Fact
It will take more than meaningless pledges to keep Pacifica independent. Justice & Unity candidates have ALWAYS opposed any sale or swap of the WBAI signal – one of the possibilities floated for paying off the $3 million+ loan. We want to end the shrinkage and accelerate the expansion of a station that could reach not just into cars as their radios scan the dial or the homes of a few, but also the neighbors down the block or around the way who need real information and analysis.
Why risk the whole foundation by keeping its governance in the hands of the Independents/IndyCaucus/ACE, when you have proof they have financially destroyed WBAI? They have a long track record of false and misleading statements and in addition to their other derelictions of duty, have presided over a consistent multi-year failure at the most basic board requirements:
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Annual evaluation of General Manager
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Creating the hiring pool for Program Director
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Public meetings for station business and public comment
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Town hall meetings for station members concerns
Please vote for all of the Justice & Unity candidates, and consider those on the Arise! slate. Do not risk the election of any of the candidates on the Independents/IndyCaucus/ACE slate: do not rank any of them!
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