Editor: 

If Mr. Smith wants WNKI to fail, why doesn’t he just come out and say so? He says it has been mismanaged. Just to clarify, the co-founders and managers have all passed away, save one, who is elderly, has moved away and is unable to be contacted, though many have tried. IFPD then approached the Mile High Radio Club to consider managing the station.

Since that time, Bill Tell, along with other radio club members, has spent countless hours assessing equipment, tracing wires and phone lines, cleaning equipment, etc. He has talked to a number of county agencies, equipment specialists, and communications specialists. Mr. Tell was able to glean what technical background and assistance he could from co-founder Carroll Lindholm (who developed the programming software for WNKI), before Mr. Lindholm passed away in 2013, to keep WNKI running in an emergency.

The radio club then proceeded to draft a Memorandum of Understanding, an agreement, with IFPD. This agreement covers the bases and allows the radio club to move forward with taking over management of WNKI.

The Mile High Radio Club has not taken this endeavor lightly. The process is time consuming and will take some effort to organize committees and technical support. The equipment is outdated and will take quite a bit of money to replace, but in the meantime, with technical support, they will upgrade what they have.

The FCC has guidelines and the parties involved do not intend to ignore those guidelines. Mr. Smith needs to read all of the FCC material and not just what suits him.

As far as the location at IFPD, where else would it be? IFPD is often the location of the command center. It is convenient and centrally located.

I have not stood by and observed a group with limited vision, but a group with expanded vision. The only tunnel vision seems to be Mr. Smith’s focus on failure. If he thinks he’s going to continue to detour progress in this community at every turn, he is destined for failure.

Colleen Tell
Idyllwild