The Looming Crisis is Here
The world is in crisis, with endless wars, people in and out of government thinking violence is the way to solve all disputes, people and companies with incredible wealth holding incredible power, and people without wealth and power finding it increasingly more difficult to get by.
But Pacifica is in crisis, too, with a financial emergency and paralyzed governance, growing debt each year, a $3.2 million loan due in Spring 2021 that uses all of Pacifica’s buildings and even our intellectual property as collateral, no plans whatsoever to pay off or refinance that loan, and shrinking numbers of listeners (greatly impacting both finances and our mission).
Despite valiant efforts of some Pacifica national and local board members to get their colleagues to focus on these problems, for years Pacifica’s boards have spent most of their energy with internal struggles for control, micromanaging programming and helping themselves and their friends get and keep jobs and programs, failing to address the financial calamity that awaits us – and in some cases even denying that our growing debt matters!
Our boards are indeed twiddling while Rome burns.
Pacifica members have a choice to make – now
The Pacifica Restructuring Project has proposed new Bylaws that would address these serious problems and allow Pacifica to recover. But many current board members, and their friends, have worked to prevent the members of Pacifica from even being able to vote on the new Bylaws. There’s been a huge amount of scare tactics and misinformation floating around, and denial of our problems, but it’s time for members to decide.
Choice 1 – Keep things the way they are now
The default option is to do nothing, and hope for the best. This has been what has been happening for years, with board members saying all we have to do is maybe do a few tweaks to our Bylaws (which determine how our boards and governance work). But over the last 17 years, it’s proven to be impossible to get the Pacifica national and local boards to change anything other than trivial aspect of our Bylaws. Meanwhile, our debt has grown to millions of dollars, our auditors have repeatedly given “going concern” alerts to our boards (meaning Pacifica’s survival for the next year is in doubt), and board dysfunction has driven away many dedicated and hard working volunteers and managers.
Choice 2 – Approve New Bylaws to Fix Pacifica
The new proposed Bylaws would correct the major impediments to having functional governance, so that the Pacifica National Board could concentrate on solving Pacifica’s problems instead of fighting with each other.
The new Bylaws will not instantly reduce our debt or get us new listeners and members, but we’ve been told by experts (including multiple attorneys, auditors, and accountants) that fixing our Bylaws (to fix our governance) is the only way Pacifica can survive. The new Bylaws will give us more than hope, more than a new chance – they will breathe new life into Pacifica so we can work on better fulfilling the Pacifica mission, and attract new listeners and supporters, instead of spending countless hours enduring personal attacks, misinformation campaigns, and refusal to accept economic reality.
There’s been a lot of questions and outright misinformation about the new Bylaws, so please review the links below to learn more about that they’ll do and not do, and why they are needed.
COMPARISON BETWEEN OLD AND NEW BYLAWS