Gwendolyn May is trying to get her low-power television station construction permit re-instated. She’s been working at it since the beginning of the decade.
May is the former permittee of deleted low power television station DK15CC, San
Antonio, Texas. The FCC considered her CP expired since she failed to build the station by October 24, 1989 and automatically forfeited it as of that date.
May appealed, saying her CP was extended, and that was not referenced in the FCC’s electronic database.
The commission said its database “automatically populates such information when an electronic copy of a license authorization is requested,” but that doesn’t mean the permit is authentic. The Video Division also said at the time May should have filed for another extension 30 days before her permit was to expire, but didn’t.
Instead May filed applications to modify the CP and assign the allocation to Faith Pleases God Church Corporation. The Media Bureau said all those applications were void.
May appealed the Video Division decision in 2006 to the full commission. Now the agency says May failed to show the video division was wrong, that she failed to build the station within the allotted three years and because her permit was forfeited, had no permit to assign.
But in the meantime, she did close on the assignment of her expired permit before the division granted the assignment application.
The full commission now says it granted the assignment of the license to Louis Martinez in error because the agency relied on her word that she had a valid CP. Her decision to assign the license to him in 1990 before his appeal was finalized the by agency “was a business risk that she chose to assume” says the FCC, which has now denied her appeal and will not reinstate the calls.
