Council Rejects Plan for 5 Radio Towers

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday unanimously rejected a Sacramento broadcaster’s plan to erect five transmission towers in Big Tujunga Wash to serve a proposed San Fernando Valley-based “talk-news” radio station.

Leading the fight against the project was Councilman Joel Wachs, who was backed by a solid lineup of northeast Valley homeowner leaders who complained that the 164-foot towers would ruin the ambience of the wash.

Wachs, who represents the area, called Big Tujunga Wash a “unique natural resource and ecologically important area.”

Project applicant Edward Stolz II later threatened in an interview to sue the city, contending that the council’s action abridges his First Amendment rights and denies Valley residents access to a diversity of media sources. “I feel there’s a constitutional issue here,” Stolz said.

The Federal Communications Commission granted Stolz a permit to construct a radio facility for a new Valley station on Oct. 23, 1984, said Sandy Bailey, Federal Communications Commission spokeswoman in Washington. Stolz said the FCC recognized that “the Valley was underserved by radio stations.”

Tests had found that Big Tujunga Wash was the only locale “from which radio signals could emanate and meet the FCC’s tight requirements,” Stolz said. In fact, the FCC operating license specifies that the radio towers be in the wash, he said.

Stolz had entered into an agreement with CalMat Co., a huge concrete company and major Big Tujunga Wash property owner, to lease a small parcel in the wash for the towers, a CalMat executive said Wednesday.

Stolz and his company, Royce International Broadcasting Co., own KWOD-FM in Sacramento, a Top 40 music station.