Stokes trying to sell radio station

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.