This is an interesting problem. How would you handle it?

From All Access:

BURLINGTON, CT claims that the ARCHDIOCESE OF HARTFORD's noncommercial Religion WJMJ/HARTFORD must move from the town's radio tower because of recent changes that elimiated ecumenical programming from the station's schedule.

The HARTFORD COURANT reports that the town claims the switch to all-Catholic programming violates the station's 1987 agreement for the use of the tower on JOHNNYCAKE MOUNTAIN and a cease-and-desist order to the station has been approved by the town planning and zoning commission. WJMJ recently dropped the multi-faith "FESTIVAL OF FAITH" SUNDAY programming in favor of shows from the EWTN GLOBAL CATHOLIC NETWORK.

Read the article from The Harford Courant:

http://www.courant.com/community/news/fv/hc-wjmj0702.artjul02,0,975222.story

Thus began the Battle of Johnnycake Mountain. :0)

I hear a Charlie Daniel's song a coming.

Frankly, why does a Church need to broadcast religious programming anyway? Isn't God's big booming voice in the sky enough?

How in the world is a city involved in making programming decisions for any radio station?

Not wise for them to have aggrement...of course if thats your only tower option at the time?

You can assume this is a liberal city council if you need an explanation for the silliness of the whole thing.

>>Isn't God's big booming voice in the sky enough?

Sometimes when your not listening He uses radio waves!!!

This is not a liberal thing.

The contract stipulated that the programming be multi-demoninational.

IMHO, that's a happy medium where proselytizing on the public dime is concerned. That serves the town as a whole, and does not make an implied endorsement of any particular religion on the part of the township.

Now that it's a Catholic only station, it's not serving the town as a whole, and that's not ok.

Heck, they could have said non-demoninational, which would have sharply limited the station programming. At least with multi-demoninational, they can air good quality, focused programs for everybody interested.

Bet all the non-Catholics in town are pissed, and rightfully so.

This is an American thing, not a liberal one.

I would make it very clear why multi-demoninational programming matters and give the station time to either return to the public service committment it entered into, in exchange for the use of the tower, or give them the boot.

I also would take public commentary on that matter so that the church can see why that matters and that it's not just some problem with the township itself.

And if it was somehow, just the township, then take a vote on a new agreement.

Bottom line would be no agreement, no tower access.

I'm not religious, so my core position would be NO religious programming on the public dime.

However, most people are religious, so having a station serve that is in the public interest.

I like the current agreement. It's just and that's really all that is needed for a good balance overall.

Upholding a contract is not silly nor is it liberal. As the article states, pretty cut and dry if you ask me.

This is such a constitutional and legal can of worms I hardly know where to begin. The article leaves me with a lot of questions.

According to the tower registration info the tower is owned by the station but it appears to be on top of a lookout tower owned by the town.

If the town planning and zoning commission based their original decisions on anything beyond environmental and aesthetic impact of the tower, then the whole deal was unconstitutional from the get-go! The city has no legal standing to regulate religious programming, any other kind of programming, or to otherwise discriminate against the station in question, period.

If town (taxpayer) monies were used to promote any kind of religion, whether ecumenical or not, in the form of free or subsidized tower space rental, that too is unconstitutional.

The town can own a tower and/or land/structure under it and rent out space at a cost that at least covers all expenses, but they cannot discriminate on who they rent to the basis of religion, race, nor the usual other bases people often try to discriminate on.

If the station owners originally agreed to give any third party veto power over programs, they are not only incredibly stupid, but are possibly in violation of FCC rules regarding transfer of control without FCC consent.

If the town "leaders" would wake up, they'd see an opportunity to simply make a few bucks in space rental fees. Otherwise they need to get their own station. If they don't own it outright, they have no legal say in program content.

>>The city has no legal standing to regulate religious programming

spot on Randy...and any station is unwise to sign any agreement for any format control. Should of had lawyers involved before lease arrangment.

I agree with both of you.

And had the law really been followed, that would not be a religious station at all, or there would be no station there, or the station tower would be somewhere else.

It is though, and I don't exactly see that as a bad thing. Maybe it is, but it seems to be a case where the town tried to make it work, maybe bend the rules a bit, but try to serve the people of the town with a religious station that was multi-demoninational.

I think the original contract was ethical, if not exactly legal.

At this point it's a huge mess, instead of a careful balance that probably would have just existed with few problems, had somebody not tipped it too far one way or the other.

Perhaps the city should not allow any radio tower on land that it owns?

What if a Muslim company bought the radio station and started broadcasting it Muslim programming 24/7 from land owned by your city, to which you pay taxes?

Andrew

To answer the Muslim question, as long as the station owner is paying the full cost of their presence and then some, it's a non-issue. The same is true for many, if not most school districts that make money from renting school gyms to churches on Sundays. Such rental deals actually LOWER taxes slightly as long as the public entity does their arithmetic in setting fees.

>>Perhaps the city should not allow any radio tower on land that it owns?

Technically speaking, most cities own towers for their own police/fire/utility communications, but typically they don't rent to anyone else to avoid interference with emergency communications.

If the city has a problem with a Catholic-owned station, they should never have done business with them. However, hypothetically if the city had a previous history of renting space to other radio stations, then refused to rent to the Catholics for non-technical reasons (assuming some technically suitable tower space was still available), the city would be open to a discrimination lawsuit.

>>I think the original contract was ethical

I guess I don't understand how it is ethical for government to endorse a particular kind of religious programming, as happened in this case. While there is no church denomination called "The Ecumenical Church," ecumenicism is a particular train of religious thought. Some denominations and individual Christians buy it, others don't.

Well, the original contract provided for multi-demoninational programming.

That serves people pretty well.

It's a violation of church and state, but it's also a balance. There is no real harm in religious programming, provided the government does not endorse a particular religion.

By requiring multi-demoninational programming, it's only an endorsement of religion itself, and I see that as distinctly different than endorsing a particular sect.

I think about 90 percent of us are religious. IMHO, that qualifies as serving the public interest.

On principle, I would not have supported the deal at all, meaning the station would either not exist, or would have it's tower located somewhere else.

That's a given.

However, the way things were structured just wasn't a harm, and we've all got bigger fish to fry. Maybe that's wrong. I don't know. I do know that it's just not worth it to go looking to pick fights, meaning that had I lived there, for example, and had learned of the deal, but saw the multi-demoninational deal actually being multi-demoninational, I would turn a blind eye.

Now it's being abused, so it's an issue. Perhaps that's why no deal of this kind should be made. I'm open to that. Somebody now is trying to claim some entitlement and promote specific religion on the public dime. That's not ok.

...or it's more not ok than it is not ok to promote religion on the public dime.

Best thing to do now is just make them move the tower and consider it a lesson learned. There isn't gonna be a solid resolution to this now.

And, perhaps those people in the town, who enjoyed having a station like that can consider who abused the deal, leaving them with a mess.

Add HD and multicast?

Deane_johnson:
You can assume this is a liberal city council if you need an explanation for the silliness of the whole thing.

You can assume it, I'll bet it's not.