Interesting. It seems a group filing for a LPFM used the name and address of a non-profit group to obtain a LPFM station however the non-profit group was unaware of this until they received a property tax statement for the station. The FCC revoked the license as the non-profit group stated they never applied for the station in the first place.
While I am in touch with many LPFM stations, I have to wonder if there might be more such actions. Many boards of non-profits have lots of 'personal problems' along the way. Folks that create a non-profit, assemble a board and then apply for a LPFM have actually been booted out of the non-profit they established. Some of these people did most of the work and/or invested the money to build the station before differences in programming direction lead a portion of the board to have a majority vote to oust the founders. In most every case, the 'rogue' group never files updated details with the FCC resulting in more than 50% of board changing, tower location changes, etc. I know four LPFM operators that had this happen to them. In half these instances, they managed to get control of the stations again but there was some explaining to do. While not identity theft in the classic sense, the result is no different. For the other half, the CP expired and station deleted.
In one instance two folks that wanted a LPFM for their town asked a well rounded group of community leaders to join their board. The differences in programming philosophy split the board in to two camps. Once one camp had the controlling vote, they created such havoc in meetings, opposing board members began to resign and the founders were voted out. Once that happened, the tower and office location was moved by the surviving group without notifying the FCC of any of the changes. The most glaring is the change in board members resulting in control of the station, requiring a Form 316 that was never filed. Fortunately the FCC was very understanding and once details were revealed, and these stations wound up going back to the original filers.
