For Immediate Release

March 19, 2014

For Immediate Release

Contact: Summer Reese, Executive Director (510) 333-1965 (Cell)

Public Funds To Be Used To Finance Pacifica Board Coup D'Etat

 

Berkeley-At the Pacifica Radio headquarters at 1925 Martin Luther King Jr Way, the March 13^th late-night attempted firing of the executive director, looks to be getting expensive. The illegitimate dismissal, which happened at a late-night meeting with no prior notification and for no stated reason, looks headed to a court room.

 

 

Board member Jose Luis Fuentes, employee of Oakland mayoral candidate Dan Siegel, a controversial former corporate counsel for Pacifica, is reported to have stated the initiation of legal activities. The action would attempt to evict the nonprofit's director as a trespasser from the workplace she returned to for the past two days, along with the network's national employees, who were all locked out on Friday March 14, and returned to work Monday morning by removing the padlock placed on the door by the alleged chair of the board.

 

Fuentes appears to be violating CA Corporations Code by funding the takeover with network resources without a board vote to authorize a lawsuit. The Pacifica National Board has not met since March 13^th and is not scheduled to meet again until March 20^th. Several incumbent directors stated they had not received any notification of nor been asked to consent to a legal action initiated by the board. It is not clear whether the legal work Fuentes refers to is being performed by the foundation's counsel Terry Gross, another lawyer hired without authorization, or by Fuentes himself as an interested director.

 

On the evening of Monday March 17^th, a small number of coup supporters tried to force the employees out of the office, including the unelected board chair Margy Wilkinson, her husband, and KPFA host Brian Edwards-Tiekert, but they left the occupants undisturbed.

 

On the morning of the attempted firing, it is reported Berkeley station KPFA next door had refused to turn over its financial records for an annual audit $70,000 to $80,000 in event income from the last two-dozen speaker series events is missing. The income has still not surfaced.

 

Meanwhile rumors have been flying around the country that a small segment of the board has been in negotiations with an entity associated with Comcast news channel MS-NBC to take over WBAI's license, an ironic state of affairs for a network that has long accused the corporate media of “banging the drums for war”.

 

 

At the moment, it is impossible to verify one way or the other.

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