Tehachapi News

larger view

Spurred by the city's need to communicate with residents during emergencies and just for the challenge of it, people gathered in two workshops recently to discuss the possibility of launching a community radio station.

Mayor Deborah Hand, a principal organizer of the project, said a radio station would help people understand their neighbors.

“We need to get information both in emergencies and for daily information to the public,” Hand told the Tehachapi News. “We need to communicate with each other. As a community we don't communicate well.”

Hand introduced radio industry consultant Rick Dearborn of Elsa, Ill., who spent several days studying the area's physical features and collecting information about the community.

While the goal is to secure a low power FM license, Dearborn said the window for such licenses is narrow and availability is limited, and he suggested that the proposed station be up and running on the Internet first.

The FCC is more inclined to grant a license, he said, if they see station is already functioning.

“Internet we can do by next school year,” Hand said. “We can get the bugs worked out.”

The station organizers, she said, “could make a very good case [for an FM license] if it were up and running.”

Those in the community who lack computers will not have access to the station in its initial Internet form, organizers admitted, but the transition to FM will bring them into the fold.

A low power FM station, Hand said, would increase the number of listeners and offer vital emergency assistance.

“It would bring the station to a broader number in our community,” she said. “We are in the mountains. We have earthquakes, fires, floods - all those possibilities. The train goes through - there's the possibility of chemical spills. There's one highway going in and out and one other mountain road.

“We are 425 square miles, spread out in six or seven different valleys. We don't have a way to communicate with each other. [With a station] if the power goes out, the city will be able to pre-empt it for the emergency.”

The station would be run along the lines of National Public Radio, with underwritten programs but no commercials.

The project organizers plan to set up a Tehachapi Community Radio Foundation that will own and manage the station.

 “Neither the city nor the school should own the radio station,” Hand said. “That would restrict political and church programming. The churches should be able to participate. They can't if the school district or the city owned it. They [city and school district] can be partners on the foundation board.

“In a week or two we will get everybody together.”

The area boasts a wealth of people who can set up and run the station.

“Technically, we're fine,” Hand said. “I was impressed with the backgrounds of the people who came to the workshops.”

There will be two or three paid positions at the radio station, she said.

Hand said she would like to be part of the operation as a volunteer - as advisor, programmer or news director - but “It's not right for me to take a paid job because I am promoting it.”

Dearborn said the FCC requires 12 hours of local programming.

Suggestions from the first workshop for programming included local sports events, broadcasting from the library, talk shows, a book club that takes call-ins, a series on candidate information, local live performances of plays, automated music, business spotlights, interviews and conversation with elders.

The informal first meeting on Sept. 16, held at Mama Hillybeans restaurant, attracted a dozen residents who brought a depth of experience in the radio industry to the table, including programmers, builders and managers. About 20 people attended the second meeting, held Sept. 17 at the old Jacobsen Junior High school board room.

The city is paying Dearborn $5,000 for his consulting services and report.