PEORIA, IL -- The Illinois State University Trustees on Feb. 22 learned about the issues over the so-called partnership/merger between Peoria Public Radio, WCBU, Bradley University's NPR station, and the ISU NPR station WGLT. I spoke at the quarterly meeting of the trustees during the public comment period of the agenda.
Here is what I said:
Hello – I am Elaine Hopkins of Peoria. I am a retired journalist, and once served on the Publication Board for the Daily Vidette as its outside journalist, so I am familiar with ISU and respect it as a fine university.
However I am here today to represent hundreds, even thousands of people in Peoria who listen to Bradley University’s NPR station WCBU, which brands itself as Peoria Public Radio. It is said to have 30,000 listeners to its two High Definition stations, one with classical music 24 hours a day, the other with a variety of great national news and talk shows and local news coverage.
Underwriters and listeners throughout WCBU’s large listening region have spent millions over the last 49 years to support Peoria Public Radio. They were very upset to learn that Bradley University decided to develop a “partnership” e,g, merge WCBU with ISU’s NPR station WGLT.
Bradley is demolishing Jobst Hall where the WCBU studio is located to make way for a new science and engineering building, but somehow decided there would be no room for a new studio. Bradley officials cited the high costs of relocating the station, and so contacted WGLT to work out a merger or partnership deal.
To keep everything as secret as possible, station staff members were threatened with termination if they spoke out about the station, and they were, oddly, forbidden to conduct a capital campaign to raise extra money to save the station.
After they became aware of the distress of the listeners, Bradley officials vaguely promised that the two Peoria Public Radio stations will continue as they are. But as we all know, it’s not against the law to lie to the public or the press, and there is little or no accountability for such lies.
The Peoria City Council passed a resolution urging Peoria Public Radio to stay in Peoria. Some of us organized a public meeting that attracted over 120 people, and we set up a Facebook page Save Peoria Public Radio. I invite you to check it out. In addition some very generous large donors have promised to keep their checkbooks shut if the station goes away or changes drastically.
While nothing has persuaded Bradley U. to change its mind on this issue, yet it has refused to surrender the station’s FCC license, which expires in Dec. 2020. That license can be challenged, but that’s a tough undertaking making even the lawyers in our group wary.
So we are asking you, Trustees of a public university, to insist on voting on the proposed merger/partnership agreement, which I have been told is not completed yet. That way it is a public document that we in Peoria can see for ourselves, and evaluate, in advance of your vote.
You should not leave it up to ISU staff to develop then approve this important document.
You are the checks and balances, the license holders of WGLT, just as the Bradley Trustees, who meet in secret in Chicago, hold the WCBU license. We don’t know what they will do, and they don’t have to tell us. But you do, and we beg you to do the right thing on this proposed agreement, to be sure it protects Peoria Public Radio.
If we don’t like it, we will be back to tell you.
Thanks for listening.
Elaine Hopkins
1825 E Maple Ridge, Peoria, IL 61614
309-231-5758 ehopkins7@prodigy.net
Facebook: SavePeoriaPublicRadio
Attached is a copy of the resolution passed without changes by the Peoria City Council last month.
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