New York non-com WBAI 99.5 FM is back on the air Thursday following a judge’s ruling in a lawsuit brought by its employees after it was abruptly shut down last month, according to The NYPost.
“I think it’s time to get WBAI back on the air and back to fundraising,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Melissa Crane said after ruling from the bench Wednesday in a lawsuit that laid-off station employees brought against non-profit parent company Pacifica Foundation last month.
Local programming on WBAI — which had been on the air since 1955 — went silent during an Oct. 7 fundraising drive, and the local programming was switched to a national feed.
California-based Pacifica cited mounting financial problems — including WBAI’s operating at a loss — to justify the closure.
Since then, WBAI and Pacifica have been waging a bitter legal battle that has gone to an appellate court, then to a federal court and finally back to state Supreme court.
Crane’s decision specifically hinged on two Pacifica board votes. One was taken on Oct. 12 upholding the closure, but four board members were barred from voting due to an alleged conflict of interest.
In a separate, Oct. 20 vote, the board annulled the decision to shutter WBAI.
Crane upheld the latter vote and said that the earlier one was invalid because three of the four blocked members didn’t actually have a conflict of interest. Crane said she was “disturbed” by those members being “disenfranchised.”
The judge did not specify when the station must go back on the air, but Arthur Schwartz, a lawyer for the employees, said the executive director told employees the station would go live at midnight.
“My hope is that they [Pacifica] comply. The station is ready to go, and all they have to do is switch the feed back for the studio at the antenna at 4 Times Square. There is a crew ready to go tonight if it happens then,” Schwartz said.
A lawyer for Pacifica, Kara Steger, said that the company plans to appeal the ruling.
No comments:
Post a Comment