WBAI Battle Escalates As Both Sides Say The Other Went 'Rogue'

NEW YORK — The battle for the future of WBAI grew even more bitter Tuesday as the beloved radio station and its nonprofit owner accused each other of going rogue.

The Pacifica Foundation's decision last week to abruptly shutter the Brooklyn-based station has led to internal conflict on the nonprofit's board of directors as well as an outcry from WBAI's dedicated Big Apple listeners.

WBAI's producers and supporters — at least 50 of whom rallied outside City Hall Tuesday — call it a hostile takeover orchestrated by a cabal of the Pacifica board of directors that wants to silence the station's decades-old progressive voice.

"It was a rogue faction of the board, with Interim Executive Director John Vernile, who carried out this action, which we believe is completely illegal, immoral, unjustified and a slap in the face at the citizens of this great city," Alex Steinberg, who sits on WBAI's local board and the national Pacifica board, said at the rally.

But Pacifica used similar language to slam the WBAI backers trying to thwart the station's closure in the boardroom and the courtroom.

After three days of meetings, the foundation's board voted Saturday to formally ratify Vernile's decision to shut down the cash-strapped station and lay off its staffers, according to court filings in a federal lawsuit over the closure.

But 12 of the board's 22 members voted Sunday at an emergency meeting to essentially reverse that action by returning control of WBAI to its local staff and suspending Vernile from his post, according to court records and WBAI supporters.

Pacifica contends the meeting was illegitimate because it was called with less than a day's notice — and the board member who convened it had been communicating with Arthur Schwartz, the WBAI host and lawyer representing the station in the lawsuit.

"To permit Petitioners (WBAI's allies) to continue to act as puppeteers behind the scenes of a rogue faction of the Pacifica board and to permit the continued attempts to act by a rogue faction of the Pacifica board would cause irreparable harm" to the foundation, Pacifica lawyer Kara M. Steger said in a Tuesday filing in Manhattan federal court.

U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer on Tuesday upheld a temporary restraining order issued in state court last week restoring local control of WBAI while the legal battle proceeds.

A state appellate court modified the order, barring Pacifica from firing WBAI's employees but allowing the foundation to broadcast its national programming over the station. The order will be in place until Oct. 21, when representatives for Pacifica and WBAI are due to appear in federal court for a hearing.

"They don’t care what the rules are, they don’t care what the law is, they don’t care what the bylaws say," Schwartz said. "They’re just gonna act in what they say is the best interest of the station."

Pacifica leaders say they had to shut down WBAI because the mismanaged station had insurmountable financial problems and was unable to make payroll. Those dire circumstances required layoffs, which Vernile had the authority to impose, the foundation argues.

WBAI had more than $8.2 million in recorded losses from 2014 to 2018 and failed to pay rent for its Times Square broadcast tower for the past two months, according to Pacifica's court filings.

"I took the action required by my position ... to save the Pacifica Foundation from almost certain financial ruin and to protect the other four affiliate stations," Vernile wrote in a declaration to the federal judge filed Tuesday.

But WBAI's supporters charge that a minority of Pacifica's leaders is just trying to censor a station that has given a platform to many left-wing vocies and causes since its founding in 1955.

Among those who showed up to support the station Tuesday was Sharonne Salaam, the mother of Yusef Salaam, one of five black men exonerated for the 1989 rape and assault of a Central Park jogger. She said WBAI was one of the few outlets that gave her a chance to speak about her son's case.

"If we lose WBAI, where do we go to get our words out?" Salaam said. "Where do we go if you get arrested unjustly? Where do you go if someone’s taken your children unfairly? Where do you go to seek justice?"

This article has been updated to clarify the nature of the state court order that a federal judge upheld.