A View from the Board

by

Tomas Moran, for the Folio

 

 

Having recently returned from the Pacifica National Board Meeting, held in Washington D.C. June 9 through June 11, I’m finding it difficult to focus on other aspects of the Pacifica / KPFA story. This meeting was the second one held in Washington D.C. in a row, breaking a precedent of rotating the event across the cities of the sister stations. Most notable, for me, were the various things that did not happen at this meeting.

First, I was not seated officially during the Governance and Structure Committee (AKA Governance) meeting held Saturday afternoon. I attempted to present copies of the transcript from the October 1999 meeting, which were finally available in May 2000 at the Pacifica website (the Board members have still to receive official copies of the transcript or official minutes from either the October 1999 or the February 2000 meetings). The transcript showed that I had been named to the Governance Committee in October 1999. Mr. Acosta, the Chair of this committee, refused to allow me to present my evidence, insisting that a May 2000 unilateral memorandum from Board Chair Mary Frances Berry, in which she "reassigned" membership to all committees, overturned whatever assignments had been made by the Board in the October meeting. My arguments as to the lack of validity of such unilateral reassignments were not heard.

I was also not given any explanation to the fact that the Governance Committee met in February 2000 and made crucial decisions without my participation. The February meetings are especially significant because they occurred during a time period that is not even covered by the "unilateral reassignments."

Second, the bylaw amendment (frequently referred to as "No Sale Amendment") that I submitted for consideration was not sent in the Board packets to the entire Board, as required in Article Nine of the Bylaws, in order to be voted on at the meeting. Mr. Acosta read a statement that "explained" that the Governance Committee had selected a different amendment for recommendation to the Board. I was not given any response to my argument that no person or committee on the Board is authorized to prevent consideration of a bylaw amendment duly submitted by a member. This is the second time that this maneuver occurred, as the same scenario had played during the February 2000 meeting.

I was approached by the security guards during this portion of the Governance Committee and asked to leave the room. The guards refused to tell me who was asking them to remove a Board member from the room, so I refused to leave.

Third, Pete Bramson was not notified of a meeting of the Executive Committee, of which he is a member, that took place Friday night. Mr. Acosta and others gave various conflicting and outrageous "explanations" when Mr. Bramson challenged this behavior during Sunday’s session. Among these, Mr. Bramson was told that he should have surmised that the Executive Committee would meet Friday night, as it had during other previous Board meetings. This, in spite of the fact that the official schedule given to members of the Board omitted the listing of that meeting. Somehow, all the rest of the Executive Committee was notified of the time and location of that meeting.

I challenged the validity of excluding any of the Board members from witnessing the Executive Committee meeting. My motion to request that all future Executive Committee meetings be properly noticed and that all Board members be allowed to attend (as with every other committee) was ruled out of order by Board Chair Mary Frances Berry without explanation.

Finally, I was not given the opportunity to present the work that I have done to develop the basis for additional metrics to supplement the Arbitron ratings, in spite of the fact that I was one of only two members that responded publicly to the Call for Agenda Items, and in spite of requesting this of chair-elect Mr. Acosta.

This project will develop metrics that will measure some aspects of the programming’s compliance with the mission of Pacifica. Pacifica’s feedback to management is currently only focused on audience size. Without additional metrics, the direction of Pacifica’s programming will continue to be guided exclusively by the commercially derived Arbitron ratings.

I will continue to work with KPFA and the Bay Area listener community to develop the alternative metrics over the next few months.

(726 words)