This letter from Tomas Moran, Pacifica
National Board member from the KPFA listening area who is considered
a defender of Pacifica against the takeover, addresses typical Board
malfeasance and obstructionist practices. As he says in it, he has
not received communication about the meeting or agenda, but the fax
that Pete Bramson received said that the only item was the approval
of a new accounting system. We have heard it is approximately $80K.
Date: Thursday, May 03, 2001
To: David Acosta
From: Tomas Moran
Cc: Pacifica Board, Jennifer Spearman, Bessie Wash
Re: "Special meeting" on Friday, May 4, 2001
David,
This morning I received a communication from Ms. Spearman which
said that I could expect to receive information about a "special
meeting" of the Board has been scheduled for this Friday, May 4, at
11am (Pacific Time).
This notification is said to have been communicated to Board
Members via fax several days ago. I have not received any such fax.
To what number was this communication sent? I would appreciate a
copy of the fax transmittal rep ort, showing that this notification
was indeed sent without transmittal errors be sent to my attention
at my usual mailing address which is:
3790 El Camino Real
PMB #264
Palo Alto, CA 94306
I am disappointed to have learned of this meeting via an email
from Pete Bramson in which he asks several questions, including why
Rob Robinson's name was not in the distribution list of the fax. I
subsequently talked to Pete to find out what fax he was refering to,
and I was told that it was about a meeting the agenda for which
included only one item, which was the approval of expenditures for a
new accounting system.
I will be available for the conference call. However, I have the
following objections:
1) It is not appropriate to have the board meet in conference
call form at this time. An open meeting of the Board was suspended
on March 4, under a motion requiring resuming the open meeting
before the end of March. I and others have repeatedly communicated
with you and the rest of the Board asking that this meeting be
resumed. We have also specifically requested (as was the intention
of the motion to suspend) that all Board Members be consulted as to
appropriate times. This has not occurred.
2) The agenda and pending items from the March 4 meeting are
still open.
3) There is insufficient notice of this meeting. Leslie Cagan is
out of town. She has specifically communicated to you her desire to
reconvene the March 4 meeting and has informed you of her
unavailability this week.
4) We have received no financial statements at all since the
September 2000 meeting. It would be inappropriate to make any
expenditures in absence of this information.
5) We have received no information on the proposed accounting
system. Even if that information arrives prior to the meeting in the
packet mentioned in Ms. Spearman's email from this morning, this
would not be sufficient time to study the materials and make a
responsible decision.
6) We have received no information about the status of the search
for a new Controller. A major decision, such as large expenditures
on a completely new financial system, should include the input of
the staff member that would be most responsible for using the
system. The discussion that is on the agenda for the proposed
meeting should wait until we have a Controller on board and have the
advantage of his/her expertise.
7) You have not replied to the memo that I hand-delivered to the
Board in March in which I asked about the current composition of the
Board Specifically, I asked for a written statement laying out your
understanding of your tenure on the Board (the memo indicated that
your 3-year elected term ended in March 1999) and of Mr. Ford's
tenure (listed as re-elected in June 2000, but lacking evidence as
to such re-election).
8) Also there is a motion pending from the March 4, 2001
suspended meeting to re-elect Pete Bramson, who has been re-elected
by the KPFA Local Advisory Board. There are two other individuals
whose terms expired in March 2001: Michael Palmer and Andrea Cisco.
These questions must be answered before the board takes further
actions.
Therefore we should treat the scheduled call tomorrow as a phone
conversation to discuss how we can reconvene the March 4 meeting and
how the questions above are to be resolved.
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