In August, community radio station KDHX settled a lawsuit filed by a group of station volunteers seeking representation on its board—with an agreement that allowed Kip Loui and Courtney Dowdall to take board seats. Last week, Loui and Dowdall attended their first meeting.

For Loui, it would also be his last. As soon as the public portion of the meeting wrapped up, Loui says he and Dowdall were informed that unspecified actions on their part had opened the board up to liability. They were suspended from the board, effectively immediately, and escorted from the building. 

That was October 28. The next day, Loui was told the board would schedule a meeting within 30 days to discuss a path forward, but in the meantime, he would no longer have access to board email or be included in board discussions. He offered his resignation on October 30. 

A 60-year-old special-education teacher and musician, Loui says he quickly realized that the station had made him a board member in name only. He couldn’t get the financial records that he felt were essential to guiding the station, and an email he wrote to his fellow board members prior to his suspension raising concerns about the finances he was privy to was met with total silence. The lack of transparency, he says, “made it virtually impossible for me to honor my fiduciary responsibilities to the station.” 

More than a year has passed since KDHX fired a dozen-plus volunteer DJs, alleging that they’d resisted the station’s “more inclusive” direction. (The DJs have strenuously denied that.) Station revenue, which had been in decline for years even before that, has dropped precipitously, tax returns show. The most recent showed KDHX had just $2,317 cash on hand in December 2023. Many staffers went unpaid for months this spring, and KDHX has consistently refused to comment on whether they’re currently being paid. The station’s recent audited financial statement shows $42,000 in credit card debt and other loans worth $120,000 and $60,000. It lists just $7,396 in assets that could be used to meet general expenditures.

In his email to board members, Loui wrote that the station is “now in financial peril, running on fumes and credit. … Support has dried up, financial and otherwise. Some of the facilities and physical assets would appear to be in need of costly repairs. But there’s no money to fix them.” 

Executive director Kelly Wells has been a target of many of the fired DJs and station critics, and Loui urged big changes at the top. 

“Even now, there is a 100 percent guaranteed way for money to rain down in buckets on KDHX: new leadership,” he wrote in his email to the board. “Even now, it is not too late to right this ship. But time is running out. To do nothing virtually guarantees that the station fails, and this board goes down in St. Louis history as the crew who sank the ship and caused the demise of a once great regional cultural institution.”

In a statement, Wells said, “While we continue to face financial challenges, our fall campaign engaged hundreds of first time donors in new ways. We are asking people to stand with KDHX and champion independent, authentic programming in St. Louis.” She told board members at the public portion of the Oct. 28 board meeting that KDHX had raised $62,000 in a summer fundraising drive, characterizing the sum as a success.

KDHX said it would have no comment on Loui’s resignation. Courtney Dowdall, who garnered a board seat as part of the same legal settlement, remains on the board, although also on suspension. She declined to comment.

Some KDHX critics have speculated that the station’s end game could involve selling its broadcast license and becoming a streaming website. A sale would both raise a significant amount of money and free it from the demands of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Asked directly about that option, the station issued a general statement that did not acknowledge the possibility or respond to the question. 

The station currently leases a radio tower in Jefferson County at a cost of $629 each month, a cost essential to reaching listeners through the airwaves. That lease expires on December 31, 2024.