NONPROFITS, ESPECIALLY those receiving government money, are bound by a host of regulations designed to ensure that they conduct their business openly -- at least most of the time. But the enforcement of those regulations is, more often than not, too little, too late.

Two examples:

In early 1995 the dissident listener group Take Back KPFA discovered that Pacifica, parent network of local listener-supported radio station KPFA, was conducting critical business during secret meetings. So the group lobbied, petitioned, and protested to get the network to reopen its doors. But Pacifica refused.

Opponents of Pacifica's new management policies, which were instituted in the early '90s, had found themselves fired from their jobs, kicked off their radio shows, or even banned from ever setting foot in any Pacifica station.

One Take Back KPFA member, former development director Maria Gilardin, was "banned" after Pacifica's national board determined her behavior at an L.A. meeting, during which she raised questions, "violent."

All this was occurring in the context of a move by Pacifica's management to dramatically restructure the network's programming and financial priorities. Many listeners and employees, who had labored long and hard for their local stations, felt left out of that process -- particularly since, as a result of Pacifica's shift toward secrecy, they were unable to observe first-hand the proceedings at national board meetings.

So Take Back KPFA then had First Amendment expert Terry Francke of the California First Amendment Coalition survey the evidence and look at the applicable laws and regulations; Francke subsequently wrote a letter in the fall of 1995 to Pacifica management informing it of its legal responsibility to open finance committee and board "retreats" to the public (see "Public Interest, Private Records," page 16).

Still, Pacifica's board continued to meet in secret, and even refused to release the minutes from those meetings.

Finally, the critics decided to go to the top: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which furnishes some 15 percent of Pacifica's funds and whose open-meeting laws govern the network's sunshine practices. The CPB's Office of the Inspector General is responsible for investigating just such transgressions.

But amazingly, the three successive investigators heading the Pacifica case have either been fired or have left the CPB. The case remains on hold to this day. Meanwhile, Pacifica continues on its new policy trajectory, unimpeded by regulators.

In a similar vein, in fall 1996 renegade KQED board member Sasha Futran tried to find out exactly how much the station was spending on independent local programming. She suspected it wasn't much, especially for a city as rich in cutting-edge and independent producers as San Francisco.

Getting the information was a difficult and time-consuming task even for a board member, and Futran says she was unable to get clear answers to her questions even after making direct requests to staff members. KQED has since decided to revamp the way it formats its budget -- next year's will show whether the average station member can get financial information more easily.

And although the station's board and committee meetings are generally open (with the notable exception of an incident last fall in which a Bay Guardian reporter was denied entrance to a Media Policy meeting), behind-the-scenes negotiations are not uncommon. In October KQED's plans to make a documentary on winemaker Robert Mondavi with Mondavi Winery money, funneled through a nonprofit, came to light. Board members and management staff then met outside regular meetings to plot ways to manage the crisis and deny the public a look at documents that would show whether the station had engaged in any wrongdoing. The documents were eventually leaked, and they did indeed expose funny business at the station, but it took that full-scale public relations disaster to make the information accessible to the station's members.

Belinda Griswold