BREAKING NEWS: JUDGE RULES AGAINST PACIFICA IN EMPIRE STATE BUILDING LAWSUIT

WHY WBAI/PACIFICA LOST THIS CASE

This is what WBAI General Manger Berthold Reimers said in his own words to reporters after the judge ruled in favor of the Empire State Building:

Berthold Reimers

What is happening now is unexpected. We had a horrible contract signed by the Pacifica national office, like a couple of years ago. And we are basically going for, oh we hope…

We had a very good lawyer, who gives us tens of thousand, no hundreds for thousands of services. And, also, you know, he’s not exactly one of those, you know, those lawyers with millions of dollars of resources to fight them [inaudible].

And so this is one other aspect that we could have taken. But we chose to [inaudible] see if the Empire State Building would be reasonable and if the judge would see WBAI as an asset.

This is a public air. You know it actually should be free. This is our air, this is the air of the public. [inaudible] No radio station should be charged what is, you know…what we are paying for renting the top of the Empire State Building. But most of the money we owe is for the right to have access to the air.

This is actually kind of nonsense to me, you know, like um, we should call up the politicians, and, you know locally and nationally, you know, this is like a travesty. You know, air should be free, it should always be free.

Wednesday 10/4 6:00pm CT.

This just in: A New York District Court judge has ruled against WBAI and Pacifica and now Pacific must pay Empire State $1.8 million. The money is due immediately and in full.

Pacifica CEO, Bill Crosier, sent this note to Pacifica stations:

A NOTE FROM BILL CROSIER
RE TODAY'S JUDGEMENT

Here's the news from court in NY - not good.

But *we will get through this*, and *please continue doing what you are

doing.*

Obviously, what happened in court is public, so you can tell everyone you wish. I don't want to scare away donors in our fund drives with the word bankruptcy, but people need to know what when/if we go into bankruptcy (more likely now), it will be *chapter 11 bankruptcy* (look it up), in order to continue operating. *It will NOT mean that we'd shut down*.

Ch. 11 brings with it additional problems but would stop collection efforts by ESRT and allow us to keep operating while we develop a plan to pay off the debts.  It's possible we might get some more time from ESRT to come up with money, if they know we'll declare bankruptcy to stop collection activities, so that might finally give us a little leverage in negotiating with them for more time (a few months perhaps).

The PNB will discuss this tomorrow night, and I'll keep you updated.

But again, just keep doing what you are doing at your stations, and I hope your fund drives do great.

Bill

WBAI immediately began a desperate fundraising effort. Pacifica promises to lobby elected officials.

Moving forward, most likely this will drive Pacifica and/or WBAI into bankruptcy. Today’s judgment allows Empire State to force the sale of assets including Pacifica’s broadcast licenses.

You can hear an audio report with WBAI’s response at this link:

https://www.wbai.org/articles.php?article=3533