Why did CapRadio and KVIE public television go to war over a radio tower? | Opinion
General Manager Tom Karlo of Capitol Public Radio said he began exploring a partnership with the local public television station, KVIE, over a breakfast with his counterpart, David Lowe, at Sacramento’s Sutter Club in August of 2023. CapRadio’s finances were in shambles, as an audit would reveal a month later, and Karlo wanted to better understand his options.
Yet by the following winter, Karlo said he called off the pursuit of a closer relationship with KVIE. All seemed amicable at the time.
What happened next is a matter of dispute. Karlo, who has since stepped down, said Lowe called to tell him that KVIE had secured CapRadio’s primary tower and wanted to talk about the future. Lowe said Karlo’s version of events is false, but he declined to elaborate.
That two titans of local public media cannot agree on how a potential courtship fell apart is emblematic of a broader, bitter conflict that has ensnared both institutions. In Sacramento County Superior Court, their respective attorneys have been filing salvos of briefs to resolve who exactly owns the tower structure that beams CapRadio news and entertainment throughout the Sacramento region. The dispute raises a central question: How could a radio station potentially lose control of such a key asset?
The answer falls largely to Sacramento State, the holder of the radio station’s license, according to numerous interviews and documents spanning three decades. Land that was bought by the university for the radio station was first held by one nonprofit organization and then another. Then the non-profit rejected a university audit recommending that it no longer manage its own assets, and it literally gave the radio land away to the television station.
“It was never our intention for the land or the tower to be owned by any other entity than CapRadio or some organization that’s inextricably tied to CapRadio,” said Mark Wheeler, senior adviser to Sacramento State President Luke Wood.
Meanwhile, KVIE views itself as a misunderstood landlord, accepting this tower property as a gift in order to properly maintain the facility.
“We do not have plans to move into public radio service and would like for CapRadio to emerge stronger than before,” Lowe said in a recent email. “It’s disappointing to have this situation become a legal matter, so I’m limited in what I can say.”
This is a story about how details really matter, because the unforeseen can happen.
Audits led to CapRadio losing tower land
Today’s modern media war has roots in a far more innocent era in Sacramento. Documents show that after a series of bingo fundraisers in the 1980s, Sac State had finally amassed $350,000 to buy 820 W. Delano Ave. in Elverta and build a new tower for its fledgling radio station.
Had the university taken formal ownership of the land, today’s dispute would not be happening. Instead, title of the land was initially held by a nonprofit organization known as Tower 91 that was created solely to support the radio station, as was the Capital Public Radio Endowment (CPRE), to handle larger donations.
Years later, in 2011, CSU system headquarters in Long Beach dispatched auditors to examine CapRadio. Auditors didn’t like what they saw, with the radio station being supported by separate nonprofits with no formal university affiliation. They concluded that this organizational structure “may provide unacceptable risk to the campus and the CSU.”
The eventual solution was to work with one nonprofit instead of two by merging Tower 91 and its land into CPRE.
But then, for accounting reasons no available document explains, CapRadio determined that the new and bigger CPRE could no longer exist only to support the radio station. It had to broaden its mission. “CPRE would have to amend its bylaws and soften its purpose and remove the exclusivity of working only for and with CPR,” wrote Jun Reina, CapRadio’s chief financial officer at the time.
The endowment complied with the audit, changing its bylaws in 2013 and expanding its duties to support nonprofits other than CapRadio “as determined appropriate by the board of directors.” From this point forward, the endowment was not solely beholden to CapRadio or the parent university.
Followup audit led to breakup
CSU auditors returned more than a decade later and found the station in complete financial disarray. Expensive plans to move into fancy downtown offices were fizzling amid a sea of debt, forcing the university to loan the station more than $8 million. A subsequent audit found hundreds of thousands in questionable travel expenses by the very same Jun Reina, who had since become general manager.
Yet these auditors still had problems with the Capital Public Radio Endowment. The audit declared that CapRadio had directed monies into an endowment fund that was “unauthorized.” And then the audit went one fateful step further. It recommended that the endowment voluntarily surrender its independence, and that Sacramento State “integrate the (CPRE) endowment fund into the campus endowment.” And President Wood formally agreed with the recommendation.
Yet thanks to the previous audit, this was now a fully independent endowment. And its president, long-time local attorney Dan Brunner, was understandably angered by the audit when CSU labeled one of its funds “unauthorized.”
“It makes it look like we’re some kind of illegal organization,” Brunner said. He also objected to the audit’s suggestion that the endowment lose its independence. “Ceding authority to unknown individuals was not consistent with the manner in which we viewed our responsibilities,” he said.
Auditors didn’t get what they wanted. Instead, everybody stopped talking to one another.
“It was a very difficult time,” Brunner recalled. “Communication had broken down.”
This seemed like a foreseeable outcome. What independent organization wants to be told by somebody else’s auditors how to do its job? Why would CSU auditors and President Wood think that the endowment would simply hand over its assets?
Wood declined to comment to The Bee on this subject, as did CSU Vice Chancellor/Chief Audit Officer Vlad Marinescu.
A spokesperson for the CSU system, Amy Bentley-Smith, said the recommendations for the nonprofit endowment were a result of concerns about shortcomings that the auditors had identified, such as untimely audits, “missing agreements and insufficient documentation for endowment distributions.”
The endowment strikes back
With the radio endowment no longer talking to the radio station or the university, Brunner remained interested in the possibility of the television station and radio station coming together in some sort of merger. “It would be wise to explore the potential for a working relationship between KVIE and public radio,” he said.
Brunner also said he was worried about the “horrible state of disrepair” of the tower, a claim CapRadio and the university have repeatedly disputed.
Whatever the reasons, the endowment last spring privately approached KVIE to take ownership of the tower land as a gift. KVIE agreed to receive the gift, and only informed the radio station afterward.
The television station “accepted the property only after understanding that the Endowment would not transfer it to CapRadio,” Lowe said.
The result has been a deepening dispute. CapRadio insisted it still owned the actual tower, pointing to language in an expired lease. KVIE filed suit against the radio station in October. CapRadio filed a counter claim three days later. The first court hearing, perhaps one of many, is scheduled for June 25.
Everyone’s role in a tragedy
In hindsight, the university and CapRadio did some sloppy managing over the years and didn’t keep this land or this tower directly in the hands of the radio station with recorded documents.
CSU system auditors were politically tone deaf when they challenged the independent organization that owned the tower land.
And then, incredibly, KVIE accepted the tower land without any due diligence, such as picking up the phone and asking someone like CapRadio’s Tom Karlo what this gift was all about. Leaders wrongly swore themselves to a secrecy against their own television station’s long-term interests.
Looking back at that first power breakfast in the Sutter Club, Karlo said he believed that KVIE wanted to merge with the radio station because it had something the television station lacked — lots of local journalism.
“They weren’t in the news business,” Karlo said.
By KVIE taking property so important to CapRadio and then suing the station, KVIE is now the news.
“This,” said Brunner, “isn’t the outcome anybody wanted.”
This story was originally published March 27, 2025 at 5:00 AM.