LOCAL RADIO
Fire Dept. Says They've Caught KOOP Arsonist

By Thom White
CITIZINEmag.com

AUSTIN -- KOOP Radio (91.7 FM) was knocked off the air for almost three weeks this January after a fire damaged expensive audio equipment at their studios at 3823 Airport Blvd. On January 28th, Austin Fire Department Battalion Chief Greg Nye said the AFD now accuses ex-KOOP volunteer Paul W. Feinstein of starting the fire on purpose by pouring gasoline on studio equipment.

According to KVUE News’s Clara Tuma, “Arson investigators say Feinstein started two separate fires after using a key he copied to let himself into the office after hours …” The AFD’s Greg Nye said, “He certainly confessed to us that he intended to take the radio station off the air … he knew where he poured it, it would do the maximum interruption to the radio station, so I don’t think he thought much beyond that, what the consequences were of his actions.”

AFD investigators are charging Mr. Feinstein with arson, a second-degree felony punishable by a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The Austin American-Statesman reported (1/29/08), “Feinstein told investigators during a six-hour interview Friday [1/25/08] that he was ‘very unhappy’ that the music he had picked for the internet program overnight -- when the station is off the air -- had been changed, Nye said. Feinstein, a graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio, had no previous criminal record …”

The fire happened overnight between January 5-6, and for weeks after the incident, the AFD urged citizens to call the toll-free Texas State Arson Hotline, offering a $5,000 reward to track down the arsonist. KOOP returned to the air on January 25th, using a temporary facility donated by radio corporation Entercom Communications, which owns Mix 94.7, MAJIC 95.5, and Talk Radio 1370 AM.

The Statesman reported that fire investigators first determined this latest KOOP fire was set intentionally when Pearl the arson dog sniffed out the scent of gasoline on the burned equipment, and alerted fireman Lt. Brooks Frederick. Later lab tests confirmed Pearl the arson dog’s suspicions: the fire had been started with gasoline.

KOOP personnel are shocked that Mr. Feinstein is accused of torching the audio equipment, according to the Statesman:

Andrew Dickens, the president of KOOP, said the dispute that Feinstein had with another volunteer was over what kind of music should be put into a digital library for the Internet program. … Feinstein liked jazz, and his program for the Internet was called “Mellow Down Easy,” Dickens said. He said he was not sure whether the dispute was over that program. Dickens said Feinstein had another job as an editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co. The company did not return a call Monday. An attorney for Feinstein also could not be reached for comment. Feinstein was a volunteer at the radio station for about a year, and he came highly recommended by the general manager at Trinity, where he had worked as a student, Dickens said. … After the fire, Feinstein tried to get the Trinity radio station to donate equipment so KOOP could get back on the air, Dickens said.

Fire is nothing new for KOOP Radio, although previous infernos were always ruled “accidental.” On January 6, 2006, there was an “accidental” fire at KOOP’s original studio in downtown. Because the damage was limited, after a brief interruption, they renewed their broadcasts from the studio. Then, less than a month after this first fire, a new, greater catastrophe struck. On February 4, 2006, a fire engulfed the entire building, burning up the whole KOOP studio. In a piece entitled “KOOP was here, 1995-2006,” the Austin Chronicle’s Christopher Gray gave a vivid account of the conflagration that incinerated what remained of the KOOP studio:

It’s deja vu all over again, only much worse. In the early hours of Saturday morning, a four-alarm fire broke out just off Sixth Street at Taste nightclub and quickly spread to the adjacent buildings, with 67 firefighters eventually needed to douse the blaze. … One of those structures, 304 E. Fifth, housed Sweatbox Studios and KOOP Radio and was previously damaged Jan. 6 in a fire. … KOOP continued broadcasting from the building and was completely wiped out. “It looks like we’re going to have to replace all of our studio equipment and our music library,” station manager Amy Wright said Monday. “I don’t think anything is going to be salvageable.” KOOP was insured, and Wright said they hope to get back on the air this week by sharing another station’s facilities, but it will take at least six weeks for KOOP, which had planned to move after the previous fire, to find a permanent home.

After this unprecedented disaster, KOOP was knocked off the air for a full two weeks. Public radio classical station KMFA (89.5 FM) graciously allowed KOOP to broadcast from their facilities off Lamar Blvd. for months on end during 2006 before the station found a new permanent home on Airport Blvd that December.
During each of these broadcast interruptions over the years, KOOP airtime has been commandeered by KVRX, the University of Texas’s student-run radio which shares the 91.7 FM frequency with KOOP.

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