[grc] TEXT: Heavy Handedness and Conflict Kill Brand New LPFM

[Adrienne Lauby]

Monday, October 27, 2014
Roots Town Radio goes silent after internal struggles
By Zack Harold, Life editor

A little more than six weeks after it went on the air, Charleston’s first community radio station is 
nothing but static.

The community radio station collapsed in a heap of dysfunction.

Burr Beard, 95.7 FM WXDB’s vice-president and station manager, moved to West Virginia earlier this 
year to set up the volunteer-run, low power FM station.

He spent months raising money for the project, collecting thousands of dollars from local donors.

The station’s parent organization, Roots Town Radio, received a $9,000 grant from the Greater 
Kanawha Valley Foundation, a $1,000 grant from the Tamarack Artisan Foundation, and $1,000 from a 
crowd funding campaign on the website Indiegogo. The station also held several fundraising concerts 
to help pay the bills.

Beard organized and trained a cadre of dedicated volunteer disc jockeys, who began broadcasting on 
local airwaves on Sept. 7, playing a wide variety of music from classic country, bluegrass, classic 
rock, Americana, gospel and more.

The music stopped last Monday.

That day, Roots Town president Dawn Warner, Beard’s ex-girlfriend, contacted the Federal 
Communications Commission and surrendered the station’s construction permit, shutting down the 
station for good.

The reasons behind the demise of WXDB’s differ depending on who you ask.

Volunteers blame Warner. They say she created a toxic environment at the fledgling station, 
alienating staff members with a heavy-handed management style while remaining largely absent from 
WXDB’s day-to-day operations.

Warner, meanwhile, alleges the volunteers attempted to wrest control of the station from her and Beard.

Emails obtained by the Daily Mail provide a glimpse into the drama.

Volunteers say around the second week of September, Warner and Beard ended their romantic relationship.

WXDB engineer Larry Hoskins said Warner notified volunteers Beard was fired from the station. 
Someone also posted an announcement on the station’s Facebook page that Beard would no longer have 
any affiliation with WXDB.

But things had changed by Monday, Sept. 15.

In an email, Warner confirmed that she and Beard would remain owners of WXDB.

Her attempt to fire Beard apparently worried WXDB volunteers, however.

Emmett Pepper, co-host of the WXDB world music show “Beats Without Borders,” suggested the station’s 
parent organization add two additional board members to serve as secretary and treasurer.

He expressed concerns that Warner’s son, Nemo, was serving on Roots Town Radio’s governing board 
despite having no involvement with the station. Pepper said one of the new board members could serve 
Nemo’s replacement.

“I speak only for myself, but given what has happened over the past month, I am very uneasy being 
involved with this organization under the previous/current structure, which has proven to be highly 
volatile,” Pepper wrote in a group email on Sept. 25.

Volunteers also were becoming concerned that, despite repeated promises to move from Pennsylvania, 
Warner never made it to West Virginia.

“Beats Without Borders” co-host Alasha Al-Qudwah expressed this sentiment in a Sept. 26 email to 
Beard, Warner and others involved with the station.

“Dawn doesn’t live in (West Virginia),” she wrote. “Why is she president? I don’t have anything 
against her or any of you, just against the actions that caused a lot of drama and negativity.”

Warner responded later that day in a tersely worded email.

“The fact is I am (president) and that is not going to change. That is not me being bossy or pushy 
that is simply a fact that both Burr and I felt needed to be explained,” she wrote. “Burr and I need 
to regain control of an unfortunate situation. We either move forward together and let the past be 
the past or I am concerned about WXDB’s future.”

A few hours later, Warner sent another email with a much different tone.

She apologized for any her previous email, expressed her appreciation for the volunteers’ hard work 
and promised to replace Nemo and add a secretary/treasurer to the governing board.

“Let’s leave the past where it belongs and move forward,” she wrote.

But on Sept. 29, Beard sent out an email announcing Warner’s departure.

“Dawn decided to stay in (Pennsylvania) with her family and friends and will not be part of WXDB. 
She was happy to hand over the reins of the station to me. We are breaking up our previous business 
and personal relationship and are keeping up a friendly level of communication,” he wrote.

This alone probably would have been the death blow for the station. FCC regulations forbid stations 
with pending licenses, like WXDB, from replacing more than 50 percent of their governing board 
members. The departure of Warner and her son meant two-thirds of the original board was gone.

But Beard and the volunteers held onto hope. He assured them he was “here to stay and be your 
leader” and urged the team to move forward.

On Oct. 6 volunteers received another email from Beard, announcing he was taking the week off. He 
said he lost his job with Friends of Old Time Music and Dance, where he was arts administrator, and 
needed to find new work.

Steve Ballman, a FOOTMAD board member, said both Beard and the organization agreed he would quit.

“The stress and difficulties of the radio station kind of overwhelmed him,” Ballman said.

In his email, Beard made it clear he would not leave Charleston, however.

“I am not going back to (Pennsylvania) or leaving the station. Roots Town will prevail,” he wrote.

On Monday, Oct. 13 — one week before the station would go dark — Beard sent an email to volunteers 
announcing he would step down as station manager but remain a board member.

Five days later, on Saturday, Oct. 18, Beard sent the volunteers an email announcing his complete 
departure from WXDB.

“I think I got myself in too deep. My time for starting up a new station came, happened and went, 
some 25 years ago,” he said.

On Monday, Beard forwarded staffers an email from James Bradshaw, deputy division chief of the FCC 
media bureau’s audio division.

“Please treat this email as the official notification of the cancellation of the construction 
permit, per the request of Roots Town Radio,” Bradshaw wrote.

The email also included a note from Warner and Beard, saying the WXDB call letters were deleted from 
the FCC database.

“There is ​no legal authority whatsoever to continue operat​ing​ the station,” they wrote.

Beard, in a short phone interview last Wednesday, said he was moving back to Pennsylvania. When 
asked about the closure of the station, he said he didn’t feel like talking about it right then.

He has not responded to multiple requests for a follow-up interview.

Rookie mistakes

Warner’s story of WXDB’s demise is quite different than staff members’ accounts.

“The volunteers bullied me out of my moving down there and wanted to take control of the station,” 
she said. “You have a group of volunteers that never have done radio, never had experience with it, 
and it all goes to their head.”

Warner said DJs were not providing station identification at the beginning of each hour, which is 
required by the FCC, and said some DJs were allowing profanity to go out over the air.

She also alleged the station was violating FCC rules because WXDB’s antenna was not installed at the 
height specified by its construction permit.

(Radio stations receive construction permits before being granted full licenses, to allow the 
stations to test their equipment.)

Worried the FCC might fine her or Beard, Warner said she wrote a letter asking the agency to 
terminate WXDB’s construction permit.

“Burr decided he was leaving the station because he had lost control over it. To protect ourselves 
from any FCC violations, that was the only thing we could do,” she said. “The only way we could 
become not liable legally was to surrender the construction permit.”

Hoskins acknowledged radio hosts sometimes forgot to give station IDs at the required times and 
profanity sometimes crept onto the airwaves, but he said volunteer DJs were not intentionally 
skirting the FCC rules.

They just did not have much experience in radio.

“It wasn’t DJs cussing on the air. It was songs that had profanity in them, because they’d never 
(previewed them),” he said.

It’s standard practice for radio stations to preview every song they play on air, no matter what. 
Hoskins said WXDB’s amateur DJs weren’t aware how important this due diligence was, so some explicit 
language slipped through.

“I chalk that up to rookie mistakes. I don’t think any of that was intentional,” he said.

He said problems with the station’s antenna could have been fixed with a little paperwork.

Hoskins said the station had some trouble getting its antenna installed on West Virginia Public 
Broadcasting’s radio tower, since the state government’s new vendor hiring system did not include 
any approved tower climbers.

By the time WXDB finally got its antenna installed, it was only installed at about 50 feet instead 
of the 100 feet specified in the construction permit.

But Hoskins said the station only needed to modify its construction permit with the FCC to 
accommodate for the new antenna height.

“It wasn’t like it was set in stone,” he said.

Every WXDB staffer who spoke to the Daily Mail for this story denied Warner’s accusations that the 
volunteers tried to bully her or Beard out of the station.

And while none claimed to have a close relationship with Warner, many expressed feelings of sympathy 
for Beard.

“Burr Beard did a really great job of pulling together some of the best people, most knowledgeable 
and most connected musicians and music lovers in the area. We had a really great station going,” 
Pepper said. “It’s not a good idea to mix your business with your personal relationships. I think 
this is an example of that.”

Silver lining

Despite the demise of WXDB, community radio in Charleston might not be dead.

Chris Long, a local critical care nurse and chief operating officer of Pulmonary Associates in South 
Charleston, is working to set up his own low power FM station.

The FCC did not accept his initial low-power application because of a problem with his chosen 
frequency, but Long is in the process of reapplying.

He is working with the Prometheus Radio Project, a Philadelphia-based group that seeks to help 
communities start low power FM stations.

“They’re very optimistic that with the reapplication on the right channel I should be able to (be 
approved),” he said.

He said the Prometheus Project has warned him the process will take at least three months, however.

Long also said he is in “preliminary talks” to assume control of WXDB’s equipment.

“We’re thinking we can easily turn the keys over to my organization,” he said. “All of the 
volunteers are still interested. All is not lost. There’s a very big silver lining.”

Warner said Beard left everything associated with WXDB in Charleston.

“We walked away from everything. The assets — equipment, computers, antenna — that is all there in 
Charleston for this group of volunteers. We did not take any of that,” she said.

It is unclear, however, who owns the equipment WXDB purchased.

Because Roots Town Radio was not a registered nonprofit organization, it partnered with FOOTMAD, 
which served as the station’s fiscal agent.

FOOTMAD received donation money from the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation and other donors on 
behalf of Roots Town Radio, then made purchases for the station.

Ballman, who was FOOTMAD’s treasurer at the time of the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation grant, 
said there is no money left in the station’s accounts, but wonders if his organization now owns the 
equipment purchased for WXDB.

“That’s a murky question, we’re seeking legal advice to figure that out,” he said.

Ballman said FOOTMAD has no interest in using the equipment but would like to hand it over to 
another community radio group.

It might not be that simple.

Sheri Ryder, senior program officer with the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation, said no one had 
notified her group that WXDB has gone off the air. Ryder was not aware the radio station was defunct 
until a Daily Mail reporter called last week.

Even though FOOTMAD served as the station’s fiscal agent, Ryder said the organization does not own 
WXDB’s equipment.

“They would need to contact us and we would need to see if we could work something out,” she said.

Ryder said in the past, organizations have returned grant money to the foundation when projects failed.

Other times, the foundation’s board has required the money (or items purchased with the money) be 
given to another organization.

On some occasions, the foundation has not received anything back.

“The money was given, it was gone and the organization was gone,” Ryder said.

She said the fate of WXDB’s equipment ultimately rests in the hands of the foundation’s board of 
directors.

The fate of the station’s legacy — the volunteer DJs who, however briefly, filled the air with 
unique programs — also is unsettled.

Al-Qudwah said she initially wanted to help with WXDB because community radio stations allow DJs a 
large amount of freedom to choose music for their shows.

“That’s inspiring to me,” she said. “I’m obsessed with world music and instrumental music. I think 
it’s important people hear those kinds of sounds.”

She’s determined to continue her efforts even without WXDB, and said other DJs feel the same way.

Al-Qudwah and Pepper also are looking for ways to take “Beats without Borders” to online audiences.

They had a few dozen people listening online during their first few shows, which they consider a 
success for an unknown show on an unknown station.

The duo, like many former WXDB hosts, also has agreed to join Long’s station whenever he gets it 
running.

But Al-Qudwah said she’s disappointed WXDB didn’t work out.

“I feel very sorry for Burr, honestly. He had a big vision for this radio station,” she said. “When 
love gets involved everything gets messy.”

Contact writer Zack Harold at 304-348-4830 or zack.harold at dailymailwv.com. Follow him on Twitter at 
www.twitter.com/ZackHarold.

On 1/2/15 10:02 AM, juice at whidbey.com wrote:
> Here is the corrected link
> http://www.charlestondailymail.com/article/20141027/DM01/141029232/1420
> [1]
>
>   Tom.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "fm2dmax"
> To:"al davis" , "GRC list"
> Cc:
> Sent:Fri, 02 Jan 2015 08:37:12 -0500
> Subject:Re: [grc] Heavy Handedness and Conflict Kill Brand New LPFM
>
>   I got "article cannot be found", please paste the body of the text
> if possible ... thanks!
>
>   Sincerely, Max
>
>   Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device
>
>   -------- Original message --------
>   From: al davis
>   Date: 12/31/2014 6:12 PM (GMT-05:00)
>   To: grc at maillist.peak.org
>   Subject: Re: [grc] Heavy Handedness and Conflict Kill Brand New LPFM
>
>
>   On Wednesday 31 December 2014, Jim Ellinger wrote:
>   > FYI
>   > http://www.charlestondailymail.com/article/20141027/DM01/1410
>   > 29232/1420
>
>   So common!!!!!
>
>   This illustrates one reason why many applicants time sharing is
>   better than all getting behind one.
>
>   also ..  that having the entire board be friends and family is
>   not a good idea.
>
>   The dysfunctional family would rather shut it down out of spite
>   than loosen up and listen to the volunteers.
>   _______________________________________________
>   grc mailing list
>   grc at maillist.peak.org
>   http://maillist.peak.org/mailman/listinfo/grc
>   _______________________________________________
>   grc mailing list
>   grc at maillist.peak.org
>   http://maillist.peak.org/mailman/listinfo/grc
>
>
> Links:
> ------
> [1]
> http://www.charlestondailymail.com/article/20141027/DM01/141029232/1420
>
> _______________________________________________
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