May 8, 1997
The Berkeley Voice

Pacifica Radio has been violating the Federal Communications Act by barring the public from national board meetings and forcing local advisory boards into acquiescence, charges a recent report by the Inspector General of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The accusations against Pacifica were first leveled last summer by members of Take Back KPFA, a local watchdog group, after an initial investigation had reportedly stalled.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a governmental organization charged with facilitating the development of telecommunications entities, currently provides Pacifica with approximately $1 million in funding annually.

The audit report published last month states that the Pacifica Foundation "failed to comply with 'open board meetings' and 'advisory board' provisions of the 1934 Communications Act." Because of that failure, the report continues, "the public has not been able to voice its concerns regarding operations and programming at KPFA."

In the report, Inspector General Armando J. Arvizu outlines a series of recommendations for bringing Pacifica into compliance with federal law within the next six months. If Pacifica fails to do so, the foundation would be ineligible for funding in the coming fiscal year.

But, Arvizu said, CPB management must approve the findings before future funds can be withheld. "hopefully, it won't come to that point," he added, "the recommendations are not that stringent."

Curt Gray of Take Back KPFA says that the report "exposes the secretive and unresponsive corporate culture which has developed within Pacifica."

Bob Bergstresser, also of Take Back KPFA, added that he was pleased, for the most part, with Arvizu's findings. "The most important thing," said Bergstresser, "is that the Inspector General upheld the primary charges of TBK."

Communications Director of Pacifica, Burt Glass felt that the report was a "mixed bag." Glass noted that Pacifica had been vindicated on the charge that the national board used "retreats as another form of holding closed deliberations."

Arvizu found that for the most part that the board of director "did not deliberate on foundation business at those sessions."

The bulk of the 17 page report, however, noted flagrant violations of federal law. The most severe of which included the failure to provide the public with reasonable notice of national board meetings, holding those meetings in executive session and coercing local advisory boards into upholding positions taken by the national board.

Glass retorted that the report was riddled "with egregious errors." Savaging Arvizu's qualifications for the task, Glass said, "he is new to the job and doesn't have a background in community radio, and he simply dropped the ball on a number of issues."

With regards to the issue of notification about meetings, the report stated that with two recent exceptions, the board of directors had no documented evidence to prove that national board meetings had been publicly announced since 1993.

Glass responded, "no where in our guidelines does it spell out how extensive the notifications for national board meetings need to be."

Furthermore, Glass denied the report's charge that listener access to national board meetings has been restricted to a one hour public commentary period. "The Inspector General must have assumed that people were ushered out after the public comment session, and that's simply not true."

However, according to Jeffrey Blankfort, who has attended a number of the meetings, that is exactly what happens. And, Blankfort adds, Glass wouldn't know, because (sic) has never been to one. "Glass has never even attended any of the meetings; he's simply regurgitating what Executive Director Pat Scott told him to say," Blankfort said.

With regards to the local advisory boards, whose is (sic) role to make recommendations to the national board, Arvizu found that they were unable to function effectively due to "the undue influence" being exercised from above.

Citing memos issued by the board of directors, Arvizu noted that "the local advisory boards were being threatened to support board decisons or resign." Such threats, Arvizu argued, inhibited the autonomy and efficacy of the local boards.

Glass responded that Arvizu had "read too much into" the memos, adding that such an evaluation seemed "highly subjective.

"I think that's an unfair characterization that the national board is sitting on the local boards," Glass said. When asked what measure Pacifica might take to correct such problems, Glass responded that "none seemed necessary."

Gray, however, felt that such findings corroborated Take Back KPFA's position that "local democracy was being replaced by directives from an ever more centralized ruling body."

In evaluating the recommendations of the report as a whole, Glass reported that Pacifica had found "many of the criticisms valid and would act on some but not all of the." He also added, that executive director Pat Scott intended to file a formal complaint with the CPB Board of Directors.

(End of Story)