A busy few days in court next week may seal the unhappy fate of a 37-year-old cultural resource — or give fresh hope to advocates looking for a way to preserve it.
Leaders of community radio station KDHX 88.1 FM will seek a bankruptcy judge's approval on Wednesday to sell the station's radio frequency, broadcast tower and other equipment to K-LOVE, a syndicated network of evangelical Christian radio stations.
Station supporters will be in court trying to stop the proposed sale, arguing that the KDHX board of directors violated the organization's bylaws in a rush to declare bankruptcy and sell.
Before KDHX's appearance on Wednesday in bankruptcy court, the station's creditors will have a chance on Monday to ask questions about KDHX's finances in a routine session mandated by the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process known as a 341 hearing. KDHX representatives will answer questions under oath, but no judge will be present.
Tuesday is the deadline for station supporters to file a formal objection to the sale of KDHX to K-LOVE.
A crisis years in the making
The station holds about $2 million in debt, according to KDHX attorney Robert Eggmann.
Its largest single creditor is former board member Mark Hamlin, who is owed $120,000 for a construction loan. Its second-largest individual creditor is AHC Consulting, the Brentwood-based public relations firm that has represented KDHX during its recent years of public acrimony. Current and past employees are owed $177,469 in back wages due to irregular paydays going back a year and a half, according to court filings.
Gary Pierson, president of the board of directors for Double Helix, the nonprofit corporation that runs KDHX, has said that financial problems dating back at least to the station's 2013 move to its current studios in Grand Center — exacerbated by a steep drop in listener donations during the yearslong dispute between the board and many of the station's DJs and volunteers — have made it financially impossible for KDHX to continue as an over-the-air radio station.
Yet the activist group League of Volunteer Enthusiasts of KDHX has argued that many station donors are only withholding support because they disapprove of the station's leadership, particularly Pierson and longtime Executive Director Kelly Wells.
LOVE of KDHX recently offered the station's board $100,000 in accrued donations, plus a promise to collect another $100,000 in pledges, if Double Helix would agree to reorganize the station under a new board. KDHX rejected the offer outright, declining to discuss it.
In a statement, the station said the proposal "naively or willfully misinterprets KDHX's public financial records" and is based on "a seriously flawed financial understanding and is rooted in the kind of magical thinking that contributed to KDHX's long-standing financial instability."
When asked during a press session held over Zoom last week what the board may have done differently to avoid dissolving the radio station, Pierson did not cite anything related to the current board's governance of the organization. But he said the board may have garnered greater community support if it had been more explicit about the alleged offenses of DJs whom the board previously removed.
"We're talking about things that would not have been tolerated in any organization. Maybe we should have given more details about that. I don't know. I don't like to drag those things through the public. I think it's kind of disgusting," Pierson said.
Dispute over decision to sell
Some critics of KDHX leaders are optimistic about their chances to slow down and ultimately block the sale to K-LOVE.
"I feel as hopeful and confident as you can, because we're so in the right and they're in the wrong. I think we do have a chance," said former KDHX DJ Steve Pick.
Station supporters argue in court filings that the KDHX board unilaterally changed the organization's bylaws in 2018 and 2021 without required approval from station members. One change in the revised rules was to reduce the number of station members. Critics of KDHX leadership say these moves invalidate the board's subsequent moves to sell the station.
Another cornerstone of station supporters' legal effort is a motion that will be heard Wednesday to lift a stay on a lawsuit in St. Louis Circuit Court that was automatically paused when KDHX filed its bankruptcy petition.
In the Circuit Court suit, a group of former station DJs and volunteers challenged KDHX's move to strip them of their status as associate members, a role that gave them voting rights over key issues like any potential sale of the broadcast license.
Critics of station leadership said the mass dismissal of more than 100 station volunteers on Jan. 31 was a tactic designed to skirt the provision in KDHX bylaws that requires any sale to be approved by two-thirds of associate members. KDHX argued that its decision to stop live broadcasting, also announced Jan. 31, simply meant that no more volunteers were needed.
In February, Judge Joan Moriarty granted a temporary restraining order that preserved the membership status of 16 plaintiffs so they could participate in an annual meeting at which many expected a sale proposal.
KDHX attorney John M. Reynolds told the judge that the meeting, billed as an annual gathering for associate members, would be merely informational with no votes held — and indeed, Pierson allowed only himself and board Vice President Paul Devers to speak at the meeting, conducted on Zoom. They presented what they described as a recent history of KDHX's financial woes, predating the current board. There was no discussion of a sale.
Yet in court papers, KDHX leaders say they then convened another meeting "of the board and associate members" on March 3, at which they voted to sell to K-LOVE.
This meeting predated even the bankruptcy petition and was previously unknown to the public, seemingly including the 16 plaintiffs whose right to participate in the annual meeting a few weeks earlier had been preserved by Judge Moriarty.
KDHX declined this week to provide minutes from the March 3 meeting or any details about the vote to sell the station.
Meanwhile, court papers show that station volunteer Courtney Dowdall was elected to join the board in an electronic voting process that ended March 7 but was not informed of her victory until weeks later.
In an email from Pierson to Dowdall dated March 26, included in court documents, he informs her of her election victory but lists a series of further steps she'd need to take before being seated, and asks if she still wants to proceed.
Dowdall and Kip Loui were previously elected to the board by associate members in 2023, in a meeting whose legitimacy was questioned by KDHX leaders. The two were finally seated in September 2024 as part of an out-of-court settlement.
The rest of the board suspended them after their first meeting. Loui subsequently resigned, while Dowdall hoped to be reinstated.
The start of Dowdall's new board term has been held up "in light of her suspension from the Board, as well as her status as an active litigant against KDHX," Pierson said in an email this week.
Other offers to buy KDHX
Critics of KDHX leadership are raising money with hopes of making a competing offer to buy the station's assets and keep it on the air as an independently run radio station, programmed by volunteers playing a wide variety of music styles.
In court papers, KDHX said it has already shopped the station's assets to potential buyers, entertaining other offers in addition to that of K-LOVE. Those efforts were previously unknown to the public. The Christian broadcaster is offering up to $4.8 million for a quick sale, with the offer decreasing incrementally depending on how long the sale process takes.
Industry observers say K-LOVE's offer is generous in today's market. But critics of the sale say it's unclear what benefit would accrue to a defunct KDHX in millions of dollars beyond the amount needed to pay off its creditors. Pierson has suggested the organization could live on as an internet radio station, but he declined to offer specifics or say who would be in charge of a reconfigured version of KDHX.
In challenging the sale to K-LOVE, station supporters are likely to argue in court that a lower sale price, coupled with a plan to keep broadcasting as KDHX, better suits the nonprofit organization's mission than its leaders' current plan to take the station off the air and then ostensibly bank a surplus fund for future activities that are yet to be determined.
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