LAKE COUNTY — Money and the mountain.
That”s what it”s going to take to get community radio station KPFZ 88.1 FM on the air, says Andy Weiss of Lake County Community Radio (LCCR), who is driving the project.
The money needed received a major boost earlier this month when LCCR was awarded a federal grant of $94,266 from Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP), a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
It is a one-quarter matching grant, Weiss says, so to fully secure it LCCR must raise another $32,000. It has already raised $20,000 of that total, he adds.
The mountain issue is not as clear cut. What LCCR seeks to do is add KPFZ”s signal to a tower on Mount Konocti that carries the signals of nearly all of the county”s radio and television stations, as well as Yuba Community College. That”s of pivotal concern, Weiss says, because if LCCR does not succeed in getting space on the Mount Konocti tower in the next 18 months there will be no grant. And no KPFZ.
“We need that mountain,” says Weiss. “The grant really helps us as a vote of confidence from the federal government and will help us get other grants. We have a lot of support from the county every school district, the Board of Supervisors, the district attorney, the theater group. You name it, we”ve got their support. That”s one of the ways we got the (PTFP) grant.
“But they (PTFP) don”t want to give you the money if you can”t get the mountain.”
LCCR received a license to operate from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about 18 months ago and has broadcast for limited hours on 104.5 FM just to keep it. Simultaneously, it has vainly pursued space on the Mount Konocti tower.
It”s not that there”s anyone who doesn”t want to give it to them. What”s keeping KPFZ off the mountain is ongoing litigation over property rights between land owners on the mountain.
“I think they should be able to do that (get their signal on Mount Konocti), but we”re working out some ownership issues,” says Lakeport attorney Peter Windrem, one of the lawyers involved in the negotiations. “I”m not able to comment too much about that, but I think they”re close to being resolved.”
… Within the next year and a half?
“Oh, absolutely!” Windrem says.
But, says Weiss, “We don”t understand that, even if there is a controversy, why we can”t be up there, too.”
For those unfamiliar with community radio, it is low-power broadcasting with wide-range programming. Much of the programming is given to residents of the county simply “speaking their minds,” as Weiss calls it, over a variety of community matters.
“The fundamental idea of community radio is that the station is open to members of the community to use as their radio station and state their views. I would think that people would want to hear local, local, local,” he says.
“There are going to be things said on the air that are going to knock the local media, the county government, the local businesses and maybe the schools,” says Weiss. “A commercial station might have a narrow point of view, but community radio doesn”t have a point of view. Every two hours its changes.”
With the altitude of a signal on Mount Konocti, the station would cover Lake County and parts of four surrounding counties, Weiss says.
Getting KPFZ up and operating, he adds, will require the resolution of three elements:
1. The equipment to broadcast. “We have most of that, but we have to raise another $12,000,” says Weiss.
2. Permission to use the mountain.
3. Operational costs for the first year on the air.
Because KPFZ is a nonprofit, all work is done by volunteers and no one receives a salary, so the operational costs do not appear to be a significant obstacle.
“We honestly believe that once we get on the air we”re pretty self-supporting,” says Weiss. “We are not going to be asking for handouts. We have a lot of ways to make money. A year or so after we go on the air, we”ll be pretty self-sufficient. It will be a real asset to the county.”
But in order to receive the PTFP grant, the “drop dead” deadline is 2 a.m., April 10, 2008.
And the clock is ticking.
Contact John Lindblom at jlwordsmith@mchsi.com.
