On December 9, 2008 SaveWCAL attorney Michael McNabb filed SaveWCAL's Memorandum of Law [PDF, 49 pages] with the Rice County District Court.
As the Memorandum shows, if Minnesota law is followed, SaveWCAL will prevail.
The Memorandum itself is a powerful, compelling document that clearly and succinctly lays out St. Olaf's malfeasance as the trustee of WCAL and MPR's role as co-conspirator in the illegal sale of WCAL's assets and destruction of WCAL's 80,000+ strong "community of listeners". As some of you have noted, it's also a "good read".
It is the one document that we hope you will download and read.
SaveWCAL's filing included:
- Letter to Judge Borene [PDF, 1 page]
- Memorandum of Law [PDF, 49 pages]
- Affidavit of former WCAL General Manager, the Rev. Paul Peterson '56 [PDF, 4 pages]
- Identification of Exhibits [PDF, 7 pages]
- Memorandum of Law Exhibit A (Photo Montage of Minnesota History Center "Minnesota 150" WCAL Exhibit) **Not available due to size restrictions
- Memorandum of Law Exhibits B – H [PDF, 32 pages]
- Memorandum of Law Exhibits I – N [PDF, 23 pages]
- Memorandum of Law Exhibits O – P2 [PDF, 23 pages]
- Memorandum of Law Exhibits Q – Z [PDF, 20 pages]
- Memorandum of Law Exhibits AA – LL [PDF, 18 pages]
- Memorandum of Law Exhibits MM – ZZ [PDF, 20 pages]
- Memorandum of Law Exhibits AAA – CCC [PDF, 12 pages]
- Memorandum of Law Exhibits DDD – JJJ [PDF, 23 pages]
- Memorandum of Law Exhibits KKK – WWW [PDF, 18 pages]
The hearing on SaveWCAL's Petition will be on Thursday, December 18. The public is encouraged to attend. Information will be posted on the SaveWCAL web site.
And don't forget the TCGMC Holiday Concert this Friday, December 12, with their "Room at the Inn" discount for all SaveWCAL supporters.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
I have appreciated being kept up to date with messages, even though, not being a lawyer, I have not followed the legal maneuverings closely. However, I am heartened to think that eventually justice may be done. I have never forgotten a letter sent in to the StarTribune several years ago, in which the writer (probably a person from "the other side") suggested that what's done is done and that SaveWCAL should just "get over it." My reaction was that if a murder is committed, you never suggest that the victim's family cease pursuing a conviction and just get over it. If a law is broken, you don't just move on, no matter how complex the case may be. Thank you to all who have worked so hard for SaveWCAL to have come this far.
Lots of long hard hours and perseverence has paid off. No matter what the eventual court result, you have made them pay an awful price for this malfeasance and you can take great satisfaction in the punishment of idiots. Larger values are in place here and their claptrap about harming the college is a crock. This whole thing is shameful. The Petition was compelling and very interesting to read.
A real troublemaker would send this to the newspaper of Thomforde's current college and ask the students there to take a look and see what kind of unethical fool is running their college. His arrogance and ignorance is only surpassed by the current president who obviously thought you would go away and that the system would eventually beat you down.
The disappearance of WCAL is a cultural loss which daily renews itself, despite the intervening years. The possibility of reconstituting the WCAL that was lost is an additional pain only because of its impossibility. I hope SaveWCAL will utterly prevail over St. Olaf College and MPR and a court will finally order the remedy of re-establishing WCAL. Glory hallelujah if that should happen!
Time can not be reversed, alas. Even if the station's resources and staff could be put back together exactly as they were the day before St. Olaf and MPR colluded and concluded to silence WCAL, the former station would not (and could not) be the same as it once was. That is the sad part.
The happier possibility is that the old radio station might find a new identity and find new ways to fulfill the mission to which it had previous dedicated itself. Perhaps broadcasting would not be its only distribution channel. (Radio stations also exist on-line these days). It wasn't WCAL's first mission to provide an independent interpretation of classical music, and other arts and cultural fields, along side that of the MPR behemoth. (But then, MPR didn't fully express its behemoth-prone genetic potential until relatively recently.) But more and new voices are needed in the arts and public affairs in Minnesota. They are especially needed at the competence level which WCAL had achieved in the years immediately before its demise.
I was never Lutheran, and am not certain that I should even call myself Christian at this point. None-the-less, one of the elements I liked best about WCAL was the religious programming. Sing for Joy, With Heart and Voice, and the Compline service from Central Lutheran were each good in different ways. So also the daily chapel service from St. Olaf, and the ability of WCAL announcers to play high end but definitely religious music without apology.
WCAL's on-air personality was, in the last few years, a high-end class act without stuffiness. Hopefully that flavor could be achieved again. One of the reasons announcers were as good as they were, it seems, was that many of them were musicians who could bring their own performance experiences to bear on the musical selections. Many classical music announcers are clearly depending heavily on liner notes. All of the announcers seemed genuinely engaged with classical music, whatever their performance histories. I don't get that impression about some MPR (and other radio station) announcers.
It would be wonderful if a new WCAL could establish a public affairs (broadly defined) programming stream that was less oriented toward establishment politics than MPR. It isn't that MPR, Public Television or National Public Radio are conservative or liberal. What I find tiresome, tedious, shallow, and unrewarding about a lot of the public affairs programming I hear is that it follows the same old ruts, trots out the same hacks over and over again, and approaches every big issue in about the same "dominant paradigm" way. In times of multiple crises as these, it is essential to provide the public with fresh, sound thinking.
Well, I could go on. I hope that the judicial process does the right thing and pulls the plug on the St. Olaf/MPR deal and forces an unwinding of the whole transaction in which WCAL was destroyed. It would only be just if the court also made them pay a penalty towards undoing the damage these two entities caused.
Thank you SaveWCAL for your efforts.
Mike Jefferis
Good job! I know SaveWCAL will win.
Mr. McNabb's document is incredibly powerful. It lays out with clarity and force the reasons WCAL was never St. Olaf's to sell.
It can't be overstated how important Judge Wolf's opinions are in all of this. Judge Wolf states with utter clarity that SaveWCAL has perfect standing in this trial; what's more, between the lines he makes an argument for SaveWCAL to be an appropriate trustee until a board can be reassembled. When McNabb cites him, the memorandum is particularly devastating to MPR and St. Olaf's specious arguments.
The only way SaveWCAL can lose this trial (other than us failing to support SaveWCAL and our able counselor) is if the judge actually decides, "gee, that patently illegal act took place so long ago–FOUR years–that I'm just not going to bother to make the obvious remedy."
[Now might be an appropriate time to remind my fellow SaveWCAL supporters that documents like this one take a lot of time for our great attorney. Please consider contributing today.]
Thank you for your dedication in continuing the fight to save WCAL. Music and legacies are worth fighting for. Keep up that Norwegian perseverance, hope, and fight. We are proud of you!
Good news!
Well, after reading all the details here, I'm wondering if an "overwhelming" presence of SaveWCAL supporters would be appropriate at the December 18 hearing. It seems that the MN Attorney General – among others – can find more diligence readily for those subjects that have obviously, significant "public support". For those of us who definitely want to attend this hearing, exactly where in the Courthouse, in what Court Room Number, and at what exact Time of Day would we we find welcome? Please post a response!
SaveWCAL responds:
The hearing on SaveWCAL's Petition To Redress Breach of Trust, St. Olaf College's Motion to Dismiss and Minnesota Public Radio's Motion to Dismiss has been set for Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 9:00 a.m. at the Rice County Courthouse in Faribault, Minnesota. The presiding judge will be Judge Bernard E. Borene. Maps and directions to the Courthouse in Faribault will be available on the SaveWCAL web site early next week.
The public is encouraged to attend the hearing. A show of support by the physical presence of SaveWCAL supporters will help to demonstrate the interest of the public in the case to the court. Please join us!
Once again, we should note how well the SaveWCAL effort has been presented to the Courts and the public! The SaveWCAL staff have done a MOST marvelous job; now as we approach this critical hearing – what more can we, who are so ardently supportive and interested do to assure we succeed in this quest for justice? Yes, probably more donations of funds to support the effort would be helpful. If nothing more – at the moment – then, "let all men know" that SaveWCAL has a supportive group ready for a beck and call, anytime. Thanks so very much!
I was recently talking to a retired Lutheran minister who asked about the LAND underneath the Skifter building. He remembers many times in the past when institutions and organizations would make deals such as "You build it and we'll give you the land." I wonder if St. Olaf made that kind of deal with WCAL, never dreaming that the college's future leaders would be stupid enough to do what they've done. If so, a new trustee would be sitting on some fairly valuable real estate right in the middle of the St. Olaf campus, wouldn't they?
Reading these proceedings in detail, the possibiity comes to mind that The Skifter Building, among other physical assets, would – could be returned by Court Order to the WCAL Charitable Trust. What is the appraised, or estimated value of this building to St. Olaf College – should they be allowed to "choose" to purchase it from the restored Trust? Or, would St. Olaf "welcome back" WCAL? In a similar vein, there is the great, relatively new Broadcast Tower in Rosemount – to consider. Wow! The possibilities here are truly far-reaching; such prospects could mean a real "ouch" in the budgets, or other head-spinning issues to their management types…
Thank you, Mike McNabb and the folks of SaveWCAL!!!!! You have made us proud. The Memorandum is riveting. How grateful we are for all your efforts, for your dogged pursuit of the truth. Now we will pray that the courts will bring justice.
SaveWCAL's Memorandum of Law is profound, genius and heartwarming. I will continue moral & financial support until good ol' "Music & Ideas" returns.
Where does one go when the MN AG doesn't uphold MN law? I can go there too . . .
I was online with a friend the other day who works for a public radio station Back East. I was telling her about WCAL and how upset I still am. Then I asked her a question. I said, how can an organization just sell my radio station out from under me? I mean, after all, I was a member of WCAL. As a member don't I have rights to stuff like this? Selling the station which I gave money too? Why did I become a member if not to have a say in how things are run, music played etc. Then I asked her the kicker–something every PBS and Public Radio station needs to address: Am I a member for advertising purposes? Is it just a word for pledge drives? I am still waiting for an answer. 8,000+ members of WCAL are still waiting too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, yes, yes! Reading all this makes you wonder what is happening to us, the rank and file "Minnesota Nice" in the new order of things: There seems to be an elite operating among us who feels the broad lot of Minnesotans just fell off pumpkin wagons a while back and they need to lead us to better things; no need to discuss anything with the hayseeds because they are not knowledgeable about the "new ways" – no way. The thumb-in-the-air is the way you measure it; if the wind is blowing to your left – it's "good"; if the wind is blowing to your right, it's "BAD"; no need for more info or looking at the law books. Especially if there's some money in it. You sucker those guys out of their historical radio channels, naming rights, programming rights, antenna farms, buildings, music libraries – anything you want with their government funding for creating employment, and public pleas for funds – "xerox" all the good stuff and resell it nationwide with new labels and make the big bucks you can't believe and don't have to tell anybody like in Chicago. And when your New York, left or right – even comedian buddies need a Senate seat – you just send in a bunch to register all the clucks who don't know how to vote and get the job done right; if you run short in the balloting – you save a few in car trunks, sleepy out-state polling places and what not and keep counting till it all comes out okay. And if it don't look like you can make it by yourself, just have that Secretary of State or Attorney General check it out and they'll fix it up, just like Clark Kent and Lois Lane, when I was a kid. Merry Christmas; have we got some presents for you nice folks!
Lurching along in traffic yesterday, on my car radio the pitchman was suggesting a new HD Radio set as a great return gift to the neighboring, door-to-door carol singers – which thought returned just now, reading all these comments about WCAL. While I haven't been through all the pages here, I find no mention of this new, digital medium in broadcasting so far and suddenly was struck with the oh-my-gosh thought that we may have two more dimensions to our issues needing detailed, technical review. First, with HD (digital signals transmission – like cd players use, as I understand it) taking up less radio spectrum space, the 89.3 frequency can now be split up into three and maybe more future, additional broadcasting uses in the same space as the current analog signal takes up. So, the sale of WCAL was just an analog radio proposition to our listeners – mostly, and the future-uses, tech-types at M(oo-lah) P(ublic) R(esources) did their numbers on all this and saw this as a 3X better deal than most – in the future, of course. The ditto-types on the selling side chuffed along on $10.5 million – or so – and probably gave away twice that sum in future gains to the much more tech-competent side. Just guessing; but I'll take some bets on that. The other aspect would be – gaining the channel back would open all kinds of new, technical broadcasting potential. Is the detailed, technical side of this open to review? Comments from the advanced thinkers in radio broadcasting technology would be interesting here, too.
SaveWCAL responds:
WCAL was already well-aware of HD technology before the station was destroyed. In fact, WCAL had received three major grants in 2004 — prior to the sale — to cover the cost of adapting to this new technology. WCAL had reportedly hoped to broadcast BBC on one of the HD spectrums.
A Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) grant had been received on April 15, 2004. WCAL received two (2) Department of Commerce PTTP grants on August 20, 2004. The grants nearly covered the cost needed to adopt HD. We are quiet sure that, as in the past, WCAL donors would have covered the small amount needed above and beyond what the grants covered.
It is not know what happened to the grant funds.
This is the technology that Regent Mark Johnson '82 claimed was "too expensive" in his December 28, 2004 StarTribune commentary, ""Sale of WCAL-FM, though sad, was the right thing to do"". In fact, Johnson's comments were misleading. St. Olaf had ceased any direct financial contribution to the station as of May 2004. There would have been absolutely NO expense to the college for WCAL to embrace this new technology.
As SaveWCAL said in our January 2 response, also published in the StarTribune:
"[Regent Johnson's] commentary fails to admit that WCAL had already received major federal grant funding to proceed with converting the station to the "new technologies" Johnson claims are "too expensive." He also ignores the fact that MPR would not buy WCAL—or make offers for additional stations—if it was investing in a technology whose time had past."
MPR has been investing in HD technology for quite some time. As we reported in August 2007, MPR's HD signals have sometimes interferred with the signals of other non-MPR public radio stations.
Reading that recent comment on digital broadcasting, with MPR now holding three radio frequencies in our area (89.3;91.1;and 99.5) they are in for big-time pay-offs if I understand this new broadcasting technology right. Using the arithmetic of 3 times 3 bringing 9; that looks like a windfall of windpower with no windmills even. All for free, like the oil companies got their gains before the gas prices came down with the overall, general economy. Yet, radio space is kind of like gold; there's no more of it and these new gains are permanent. If you have a calculator handy, you can crank up the ever bigger numbers and MPR's gain with our now, growing PAIN.
Very interesting to get the overview on HD broadcasting technology and WCAL's receiving grant money to get it all started. A couple of months ago I was at a meeting where MPR's application of HD broadcasting here in St. Paul was brought up; by chance, a contractor's engineer who had worked on this was present and answered some technical questions raised by others. On the matter of costs he uttered "modifications and add-ons were over a hundred thousand, even brick and mortar is involved because the signal transmission equipment throws off more heat…" In fairness, he was a bit vague on $ – but definitely intended his listeners to be impressed with this as "big investment", I thought. The audience reflected on that a moment and I raised my hand with a comment, saying: "We, and I do appreciate all that – since I'm giving HD radio a try, along with also enjoying XM Satellite – but I'd be more impressed with the 'dollar-pain' of this investment if those expenditures were more than just a fraction of the MPR's annual presidential salary – which has been reported in recent years, in the media." After a pause of absolute silence, the moderator said: "Any more questions?" and then – the subject was changed. Many in the audience appeared stunned with the ending to the interlude and the face of the engineer looked more like that of an accountant then, at that point, to me. Yet, for full disclosure: I was just having fun there and am not expert on any of this, only quite interested.