Flamboyant radio station owner John Stokes is trying to sell KGEZ, the Missoulian and Missoula Independent newspapers recently reported.
However, Stokes refused to talk to the Daily Inter Lake on Tuesday about the sale.
The Independent wrote that Stokes is asking for $4 million for the 6.65-acre site on U.S. 93 South.
That is a significant drop from a $10.9 million asking price that Stokes cited to the Inter Lake earlier this year.
Stokes borrowed $665,000 from Questa Resources Inc. in 2000 to buy KGEZ a few years after he moved to the Flathead area from Washington state.
He missed a mortgage payment in 2003, prompting Questa to file a lawsuit against Stokes. That litigation was settled in 2006 with Stokes agreeing to pay $825,583 through monthly payments to Questa by April 2009, court records said.
Also in 2006, Stokes had a bitter falling-out with his longtime attorney Wade Dahood of Anaconda. In court filings and in an early 2007 interview, Dahood contended that Stokes was solely interested in the strategically located KGEZ site as a real estate venture.
A few years ago, the Montana Department of Transportation wanted to buy a 7-foot right-of-way on the KGEZ site to widen U.S. 93. Stokes refused the state's financial offers. Litigation resulted.
During the litigation, the state and other parties offered $2.2 million for the site in 2003. Stokes refused that offer, seeking $4.7 million instead.
The state paid Stokes a $750,000 advance on whatever the final right-of-way price would be - which turned out to be $400,000. That meant Stokes owed $350,000 back to the state.
Part of the $750,000 went to Questa, part went to Dahood's legal bills, and part went to Stokes. Interest and other legal costs raised that amount to $450,000, which Stokes repaid to the state last March.
Meanwhile, Stokes increased his asking price to $10.9 million - a figure he stuck to a few months ago.
A major factor in the $10.9 million price was Stokes' claim that KGEZ had a easement covering all of a neighboring 160-acre site where the station's two broadcast towers are located. But the land's owners - Doug Anderson and Davar and Todd Gardner - countered that the easement covered only the 32 acres that the towers occupy.
Six years of litigation and three appeals to Montana's Supreme Court ultimately led to Anderson and the Gardners winning in court in July.
Part of that litigation addressed Stokes' longtime refusal to bury his power and transmission cables between the towers and his station - as required by the easement contract. He lost that argument as well on July 17, when Flathead County District Judge Stewart Stadler gave Stokes 60 days to bury the cables.
The cables were buried last week, Davar Gardner said Tuesday.
KingsKid
It is great to see people held accountable for their choices. Kudos to the justice system.
mtboat
My comment was removed and it did not violate any of the rules. Anyone want to explain themselves? Can't handle the truth? Touch a nerve?
mtboat
My bad. my comment just came back. I guess that shows a defensiveness in me, that I need to look at.
ml
ironically mtboat - the very point you make in your earlier posting- What I hate is people that use propaganda. To try and minimize and demean what someone is saying with misleading talking points and inaccurate descriptors. -is exactly how i would categorize mr. stokes. he is a hateful man. he routinely has categorized people to somehow make what they think or feel less viable or meaningless. mr stokes is all about propaganda and inciting hate in others. he is far from measured or balanced in his approach. it is not that he chooses to discuss difficult issues, but how he chooses to do so and in the process attack people. by the way my head is far out of the sand and this is my very own personal opinion formed first hand by living in the flathead and being exposed to mr stokes' radio programs. the last word any person who knows me would call me is a sheep or an ostrich. i guess since my opinion differs from yours it is convenient for you to do so as to demean my opinion into something more meaningless - hmmmm kind of sounds like what mr stokes would do.
mtboat
ml you are a thinker and raise some great points, which i will now consider. I agree that Mr. Stokes is not sweet or agreeable. I doubt that he hates as a way of life. I know I don't. And I was really only responding to a comment you made. You used the words Hate monger. I find that offensive and I wrote back to try and make a point. That point is: Don't miss the message, because you don't like the messenger. I pointed out another source for the information that I think is worth looking at. Looking back at my post, I wish I had composed it completly different. Sometimes people use the term hatespeech or something like it, when they don't like the information. It occurs to me maybe, your issue is with Mr. Stokes and his way of communicating the information. However the very words hate monger is minimizing and demeaning, something you seem to be against. I guess it's your opinion. And I gave a little bit of mine.I suppose since Mr. Stokes opinion or maybe mine differed with yours you also had to slam someone. What pity I ever bothered. But to salvage this
mtboat
to salvage this waste of time: in the words of Captain Jack Sparrow," I wash my hands of this weirdness"