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KWRD EAS Fine Stands

The FCC rejected Jerry Russell’s appeal of fines involving his Texas station’s EAS system.

The FCC rejected Jerry Russell’s appeal of fines involving his Texas station’s EAS system.

The Enforcement Bureau issued the ruling in the case of The Russell Company, licensee of KWRD(AM) in Henderson, Texas.

The station had been fined $8,000 for “willful and repeated violation” of EAS rules based on an inspection by the Dallas FCC office in 2006. Russell had signed an agreement allowing a broker to use the station’s facilities.

The fine had been upheld earlier; the FCC now says a petition for reconsideration was not filed within the necessary time. But it said that the petition would have been denied anyway.

“It is … irrelevant that Mr. Russell employed someone to monitor the station on a daily basis, who failed to notify him of the problems with the EAS,” the bureau wrote, “because the ‘Commission has long held that licensees and other Commission regulatees are responsible for the acts and omissions of their employees and independent contractors,’ and the Commission has ‘consistently refused to excuse licensees from forfeiture penalties where actions of employees or independent contractors have resulted in violations.’”

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