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The story behind the station going off the air in mid-March 1999

A year later, a new Board of Trustees assumed control of KOOP, and immediately began making changes to KOOP's programming, policies, and bylaws without seeking the input of the membership (and ignoring it if it was given anyway). Thus began the struggle against the trustees that's the focus of this website. After a great deal of serious mismanagement of the station by the Trustees and their refusal to step down despite a demand by the membership for them to do so, Chamkis and KOOP underwriter Michael Zakes filed a lawsuit against the trustees in late 1998.

In the meantime, the Trustees had not been making the monthly equipment payments to Chamkis regularly. Sometimes they would miss a month, and then sometimes tried to make up for that by doubling the next month's payment to $660, although in one case the $660 check bounced. Chamkis' contract with the station allowed him to remove the equipment if KOOP fell behind in its payments. After continued frustration with the Trustees' mismanagement of the station and their continued refusal to resign, Chamkis decided to end his generosity regarding the Trustees' default on their payments to him, and he removed his transmitter equipment on Tuesday, March 9th, 1999, taking KOOP off the air. Chamkis informed the Trustees that they could purchase the equipment for the remaining balance of $2484. He also offered to sell them his Emergency Alert System (EAS) which he had been letting the station use, for $1500.

Board of Trustees President Teresa Taylor then directed Station Manager Marcelo Tafoya to file a false report with the police, claiming that Chamkis had stolen KOOP properly. Tafoya readily obliged and made the false police report. Chamkis then rescinded his offer to sell the equipment to KOOP for the amount of the outstanding balance. In the meantime, while listeners were calling the station and asking why KOOP wasn't broadcasting, Tafoya lied and said there was some kind of minor technical glitch they were trying to isolate.

The trustees then moved to get KOOP back on the air. They asked KVRX to broadcast on 91.7 twenty-four hours a day until KOOP was back up. They then contacted Southwestern Bell and had the phone lines reconnected, getting the signal back up by Thursday evening, March 11th. The cost to reinstall the phone lines was reportedly $540, with the monthly charge being $173. (They cut the cost almost in half from the $330 it had been a few years ago by choosing to broadcast only in mono, not stereo.) This means that in less than one year, KOOP will have paid more to the phone company for RENTING their lines than it would have paid to Chamkis to finish PURCHASING all the transmitter equipment. And of course, KOOP will continue to pay $2076/year to the phone company to rent the lines (and double that if KOOP wants to broadcast in stereo).

While waiting for the phone lines to be reconnected, Teresa Taylor sent a "clarifying" statement to the internal KOOP email list, full of lies and distortions. We address that statement here:

"Under the terms of the agreement, KO.OP has paid Jerry Chamkis $330.00 a month. To date, KO.OP has paid Jerry about $9500.00 for the equipment. On Tuesday, I asked Marcelo to research what it would cost to buy the equipment new. Marcelo informs me that new STL equipment can currently be purchased for about $3,500. This price goes up to about $4,000/$4,500 when the antenna is included. New EAS equipment can currently be purchased for about $1,500. The total current purchase price for new STL and EAS equipment is about $5,500/$6,000."

First, KOOP paid Chamkis $8580, not $9500.

Second, Taylor implies that Chamkis was ripping off KOOP by charging more than $9500 for the equipment when its true cost is only $3500. Taylor fails to mention that the $3500 transmitter is NOT the same quality as the more expensive transmitter. She also fails to mention that the costs of transmitters has come down a little in the last few years, but that Chamkis definitely spent $13,000 when he bought the equipment in 1996.

Finally, Taylor fails to note that had Chamkis not purchased and installed the equipment, KOOP would have paid $9,900 to SWB during the previous 30 months just to lease the phone lines.

Taylor continued the lies:

"Jerry also claimed that KO.OP was missing payments from 1998 and that the check we had most recently given him had bounced. A review of our 1998 bank statements indicated that as of November or October, KO.OP was current in its 1998 payments to Jerry. We also asked our bank to verify whether the most recent check to Jerry had bounced. The bank informed us that they had no record of the check being submitted."

In fact, the Trustees were behind $1980 in October and $2310 in November. As for the bounced check, it is curious as to why Taylor had to call the bank to learn whether an old checked bounced -- aren't the Trustees keeping their monthly bank statements? In any event, to prove beyond any doubt that the check did bounce, here is a scan of both sides of the actual bounced check:

"KO.OP made the remaining 1998 payments to Jerry and Donnelle and Marcelo worked out a verbal agreement with Jerry whereby KO.OP would make double payments to Jerry until the four payments from 1997 had been made up."

Nobody from KOOP ever made such a verbal agreement with Chamkis.

"Since January of of 1999, KO.OP has paid Jerry $660.00 a month. Under this arrangement, KO.OP is current on all payments through March of this year with the exception of one back payment from 1997."

The Trustees were actually two months in default when Taylor made that statement.

"If Jerry had not removed his equipment, we would have paid him $660.00 in April, which would have completed all missing payments from 1997 as well as bringing us current through April of 1999."

Actually, paying $660 in April would still mean that the Trustees were still in default by one month.

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