Statement From Independents for Community Radio on 8-4 KPFA LSB Meeting

Statement from Independents For Community Radio on August 4th KPFA LSB Meeting

To our friends at KPFA:

We are writing to express our disappointment at being unable to attend the scheduled August 4th KPFA Local Station Board meeting. The primary item on the meeting agenda was the board discussion and vote on the 2013 KPFA budget.

The budget draft was sent to the local station board at 5:09 pm on Friday August 3rd. The backup material needed for the review was sent at 6:10pm on Friday August 3rd.

The local board can't do a substantive budget review when members are given less than 16 hours to read the document before voting on it. The members of Independents for Community Radio ask the rest of the KPFA local board to responsibly exercise financial oversight by scheduling a special board meeting immediately for a comprehensive budget discussion and vote before the end of the month of August.

We will support the rest of the board in requesting an extension from Pacifica's Finance Committee to allow the board to schedule the meeting prior to the end of the month. An extension request is in effect until August 14th. The original deadline for local station boards to forward approved budgets was July 31, 2012.

The current response from the chair of the KPFA Local Station Board is that it isn't possible to schedule a special meeting for budget review because not enough members of the board allied with the Save KPFA faction can attend such a special meeting.

We ask the board to put aside such concerns and enable the board to review the documents for 3-5 days prior to attending a board budget discussion and vote. Rushing to push forward a document without adequate time to review it is an irresponsible practice and one we cannot endorse.

Anthony Fest Cynthia Johnson Janet Kobren Henry Norr Tracy Rosenberg Aki Tanaka Kate Tanaka