This meeting of the Pacifica National Board (PNB) was held from July 24, through July 26, 2009. at the Beekman Towers Hotel, 3 Mitchell Place, in Manhattan, a borough of New York City.
In May the General Manager of WBAI had been moved to a different job in Pacifica and Pacifica's interim CFO, Lavarn Williams also became WBAI's most recent interim General Manager.
Unlike any of her predecessors Ms. Williams knew where WBAI's main problem lay, what do to about it and she did it. She fired Program Director Bernard White.
Bernard White's faction had run WBAI for years, maintaining control by a combination of lies, bribes, cronyism and an atmosphere of intimidation in the halls of WBAI that occasionally erupted into physical assaults on Staff by faction operatives.
With the removal of their faction boss from his position of power at WBAI the faction operatives began to attack anyone whom they perceived as being their opposition within Pacifica.
They have been disrupting WBAI LSB meetings since their faction boss was removed and things began to improve at WBAI. They had an all out effort for the weekend that the PNB was in town.
On the July 27, 2009, Back of the Book program I played the edited audio of WBAI interim General Manager Lavarn Williams' report to the PNB. This audio is a lot clearer than what anyone in the meeting room heard. Lavarn Williams' report on WBAI, edited 4:55 — download the mp3 file.
Here is the full report from Ms. Williams. Lavarn Williams' report on WBAI, full 12:53 — download the mp3 file.
If you'd like to see the conditions under which Ms. Williams was making her report, and why she seems to be shouting into the microphone so much of the time, click here for a short, 3:06, video.
Former WBAI Program Director Bernard White was at the meeting with his faction underlings. On the morning of July 26, he got up during public comment and gave his speech. In it he attacked some Staff by name and this is becoming known as Bernard White's “We will get you!” speech because he said just that twice during it. There's no doubt that he wants to come back and get revenge on those who stopped him from destroying WBAI. Bernard White's public comment 3:37 — download the mp3 file.
Pacifica Treasurer Jamie Ross made a report during this meeting. The video of his report is in this video on YOUTUBE, it's at 14:58 of this video. Before it you can see a report from the interim General Manager of WPFW.
Since Jamie Ross' report about the serious condition the finances are in was so disrupted you might want to read his report here.
Joe Friendly shot video of much of the PNB meeting. You can find his videos here. There was another person making videos of this meeting, but I can only recommend that you look around YOUTUBE for their video because I don't think that I can mention that person's name on my Web site, since I mention this Web site on WBAI. After the elections are over I should be able to be more specific.
There is an official Pacifica audio record of this meeting.
The July 24, 2009, recordings are here.
Back to the New Pacifica Page.
Back to the page for the July 27, 2009, program
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