> The Pacifica Foundation which owns the licenses
> of WBAI [and of the the other Pacifica stations]
> (is a California not-for profit Corporation and subject
> to California Corporations Code. WBAI is a New York
> station, but part of the national network. Any
> decision pertaining to the sale of assets of the
> Foundation would be subject to board approval.
> Pacifica has already gone through years of litigation
> on this very issue (sparked by the leak of the memo
> below) and it has been deemed that the sale of Pacifica
> assets would be inimical to the mission of the Foundation.
> * * *
This is not entirely accurate, unless "has been" as used above is construed to mean "was" (at the time of the dispute referred to).
Presumably, those participants of this List interest in this sort of Stuff know that Mr. Wanzala he is correct that a memorandum apparently suggesting the sale of WBAI and, perhaps, also of other of the stations, written by then self-interested members of a national board run amok in violation of the basic principles of Pacifica's charter at the time who were then apparently interested in dis-assembling Pacifica while profiting themselves and their apparent political and large corporate interest allies was one of the triggers of the litigations and related political action to which Mr. Wanzala refers.
But one of the key purposes of the settlement of those lawsuits that resulted in the creation of a new Pacifica Board of Directors was the promise of substantial reforms at WBAI, internally, in important part to try to insure against the sort of racialist politicking and spendthrift cronyism, which, however, (though with a slightly different cast of characters - the putative former "outs" who had once been the "ins" until ousted by the now "outs") is apparently still going on and, most important for that station, externally, in terms of not just improved but instead actually good programing that would attract a growing (of course, even if - indeed, one hopes, especially if - of course, "diverse" audience), although (and despite the fact that this seemed hardly possible during the Times of The Troubles) programming quality at that station has degenerated (except, again, notably/commendably, for Doug Henwood's program and an increasingly smaller and so now very tiny number of others).
The present Board, like the former, has fiduciary duties towards Pacifica. The question addressed by this thread is whether, unlike the former Board, the present one actually will act in accordance with those fiduciary duties -- a question re. which it certainly is not correct to say that the "very issue" that was decided as part of the settlement of the recent lawsuits was whether, in light of what has been occurring and is occurring at WBAI the question whether to sell that station ought be addressed openly by the present Pacifica Board (albeit, obviously, with meaningful attention given to the sorts of cautionaries referred to by Prof. Perleman and, more basically, to guard against the profiteering exacerbating the sort of political/cultural betrayal apparently too many of the former national Board members seemed to be considering).