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<center>Letters to the Editor</center>

Queries GCRY train's night moves

For 10 years we have put up with the excessive noise of the Grand Canyon Railway train, more in the evening. (It is only two hours in the morning) but for up to five hours after it comes back from the canyon. We do not understand why it sits in the middle of town wasting fuel, fouling the air with diesel fumes and running back and forth ringing that bell — sometimes until early hours of the morning.

We have asked several employees of the railroad for an explanation and never received a satisfactory answer. What can they possibly accomplish by driving the train back and forth for 10 hours per day? We also notice they do not drive up and down in front of the Fray Marcos Hotel. Can anyone enlighten us?

Kris and Eric Malanowski

Willliams

Clarifies KRTE's

reason for moving

I would like to take exception to and correct some information reported in your Rule of Thumb column (in the Aug. 15 edition of the Williams-Grand Canyon News.) You attempted to portray KRTE as going begging to the Williams-Grand Canyon Chamber of Commerce for $250 a month. The implication is that we were seeking money on a charity basis (thus, your excellent choice of the word stipend).

In point of fact, KRTE was seeking money from the advertising budget of the chamber to support work the chamber was requesting of us, i.e. live coverage of community events, advertising local events and programs, etc. Our request was not in the form of a, “Please help us,” but a request for continuing support for the efforts we were providing in advertising Williams for the chamber of the commerce and the community — in a manner not unlike that of the payments made by the chamber to the Williams-Grand Canyon News, the Arizona AAA Magazine and radio stations in the Flagstaff market that can barely be heard in the Williams area.

As you stated, it takes deep pockets to open a business in Williams, and KRTE went into this project with a quarter of a million dollar investment in equipment alone and the decision to bring to Williams a quality broadcast product that would serve the community and all of north central Arizona. I feel that we stuck to our end of that commitment, but due to behind-the-scenes machinations and, as you pointed out, local politics, we did not receive the support necessary to make KRTE a self-sustaining operation in the Williams market.

It is a sad commentary when our chamber of commerce will spend thousands with a broadcast entity outside of the local community while ignoring one of the most powerful stations in northern Arizona with a reach that covers not only thousands of square miles, but has a potential audience of over 50,000 persons a day traveling Interstate 40 and State Routes 64 and 89.

We have gone out of our way to promote Williams, and each time the chamber has come to us we were there. Live remote broadcasts of the Rendezvous Day parade, the July Fourth parade and fireworks (unfortunately rained out for the live broadcast) and the Great Race — an effort for which Williams was awarded $5,000 for the library, due in part to the efforts of KRTE and for which we received no thanks from the chamber. But the free ride is over. KRTE is a business, and we are moving to areas that recognize the viability of broadcast media and are offering us the necessary support dollars to remain in business, and Williams will be the loser, once again.

As a parting thought, I would like to thank the businesses and individual supporting partners who felt it was important to strengthen a local business, and I hope to continue what can only be a win-win situation for all of us. KRTE is not leaving the air, simply the town of Williams.

Bob Moore, KRTE

operations manager


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