During the 2021 noncommercial educational FM filing window, Texas-based Solid Rock Foundation filed an application for a construction permit for a new station in the town of Sunray, Tex., due north of Amarillo.
An informal objection was filed. Now, the Commission has denied that objection, allowing Solid Rock to move forward with building the station.
It’s a defeat for Triangle Access Broadcasting, which claimed Solid Rock’s application for the Sunray, Tex., CP and for a station in Stinnett, Tex., are inconsistent applications because, as originally filed, both could not be granted under section 73.509 of the Commission rules.
Triangle further argues that a violation of the Inconsistent Applications Rule cannot be cured by an amendment; Solid Rock filed minor technical amendments to the Sunray
Application and to the Stinnett Application on December 16, 2021, and January 28, 2022, to remove the applications from MX Group 195, where they had been found to be mutually exclusive. The Bureau granted the unopposed Stinnett Application on March 4, 2022. But the Sunray application was not, as Triangle argued the Bureau should have dismissed
the latter-filed Sunray Application, “thus eliminating the burden of processing an inconsistent application and creating delays in the processing of other valid applications.”
Al Shuldiner, Chief of the Media Bureau’s Audio Division, disagrees.
“Here, the Bureau staff did not review the Applications for technical and legal acceptability until each became a singleton as a result of the December 16, 2021, and January 28, 2022, amendments,” he ruled. “The Bureau, therefore, never expended time or resources reviewing an application that was not grantable. Additionally, the public interest would be frustrated by dismissing an application that the Bureau never warned was subject to
dismissal, and which the Bureau staff can ultimately grant. Accordingly, for these reasons, we waive the Inconsistent Applications Rule to the extent necessary, deny the Objection, and grant the Sunray Application.”
