Sacramento’s top public media institutions filed Monday a settlement agreement in their dueling lawsuits to determine the owner of a transmission tower, ending a bitter legal dispute.
NPR affiliate Capital Public Radio, licensed to Sacramento State, and PBS station KVIE filed lawsuits in October 2024 after a separate nonprofit donated to KVIE a broadcast tower that CapRadio uses to transmit its programming.
The nonprofit, Capital Public Radio Endowment, gifted the tower and the Elverta property on which its stands to KVIE after its board members alleged the tower was not being properly maintained by the radio station. CapRadio has disputed allegations of neglecting the tower.
The terms of the settlement, and the ultimate decision about which entity owns the tower and its land was not made public. KVIE filed in Sacramento Superior Court a notification of a “conditional settlement” and a request for dismissing the case will be filed no later than Sept. 1.
Both CapRadio and KVIE declined to comment in a news release issued early Monday morning by the radio station.
“All parties agree that this resolution serves the best interests of the community, and they will offer no further comment regarding the settlement,” according to CapRadio’s Monday news release.
The tower’s donation was once called “misguided” by CapRadio, which also deemed in an April 2024 news release that it was “disappointing and shocking” KVIE “worked with the Endowment to the detriment of local public radio.”
Emails reviewed by The Sacramento Bee showed how the endowment donated the tower on the heels of a proposal to merge KVIE and CapRadio. The NPR-affiliate experienced major financial setbacks in 2023, forcing layoffs and programming cuts, and the discovery of alleged embezzlement by former general manager Jun Reina.
Sacramento State and CapRadio rebuffed any potential integration. But emails show the endowment and KVIE’s pursuit of a merger continued and eventually the endowment handed KVIE the title to the Elverta land.
The move caught then-interim General Manager Tom Karlo by surprise.
“I didn’t even know what to say,” Karlo said in a December 2024 interview with The Bee. “Am I in some sort of hostile takeover?”
The disagreement between CapRadio, KVIE and the Capital Public Radio Endowment appears to have been buried.
“CapRadio thanks the Endowment for its years of support for public radio, and for the Endowment’s help in facilitating a settlement between KVIE and CapRadio,” the news release said.
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Ishani Desai is a government watchdog reporter for The Sacramento Bee. She previously covered crime and courts for The Bakersfield Californian.