Church Contacts : Californians Among Root’s License Clients

SAN FRANCISCO —  Thomas Root, the Washington lawyer whose light plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean while he sat at the controls apparently unconscious last week, has dozens of California clients who have invested money in applications for radio station licenses.

Root, an attorney for Sonrise Management Services Inc., of Georgia, represents limited partners seeking FM band licenses in 16 outlying population centers in Northern and Central California. All Sonrise’s license applications are now under investigation by the Federal Communications Commission. Both Root and Sonrise have denied wrongdoing.

Booker T. McClanahan Jr., hoping to become general manager of a 3,000-watt radio station on the Monterey Peninsula, started to become discouraged about the license application handled by Root and Sonrise when some of those who had invested in the application pulled their money out earlier this year.

Problems With Root

Then, a month ago, the former disc jockey and radio advertising salesman received a letter from Sonrise saying that there were problems with Root and suggesting that he find a new lawyer.

“Mr. Root was telling us he was really good at getting the stations,” McClanahan said in a phone interview, reached at an Assembly of God church in Seaside where he volunteers his time.

” . . . I thought he was a pretty prominent attorney around Washington, and I thought he had put a lot of people on the air.”

McClanahan, who has worked in advertising sales and on the air at various San Francisco and Monterey-area stations, still holds out hope that he can get the station he has always wanted.

“Three-thousand watts is pretty big in the Carmel-Monterey area,” he said. “That would have been pretty powerful. It would have got us over to Santa Cruz, and that’s an hour drive.”

Root and Sonrise found investors in California through church contacts. They also tapped people with broadcast backgrounds who aspired to run their own stations. One said that he had heard of the investment from his financial adviser.

Buy Into Dream

Investors could buy into the dream of winning an FCC license for slightly more than $3,000. They could profit if the station, once licensed, became a success.

Charles Walker, a retired Missionary Baptist preacher in Pine Bluff, Ark., invested in partnerships seeking licenses in Ohio and Kansas. Walker said that although there was “no religious connection” to the investment, he knew that the Sonrise principals were Christians.

“I felt better about it when I found out they were Christian,” he said. He felt so confident that he told his niece, Kathleen Manning, a television producer in Bakersfield, about Sonrise, who also became involved.

The day Root’s plane went into the Atlantic, Manning received a letter from Sonrise, telling her that she should consider changing lawyers because of problems with Root.

“I was a little bit concerned,” said Manning, a Bakersfield television producer who also is listed on the application as the intended general manager for a new FM radio station in Kern County.

Manning invested no money in the project, but allowed Sonrise to use her name as general manager. She said one reason that Sonrise wanted to list her as the general manager was because she is a woman. The FCC has encouraged women and minorities to seek ownership of new stations.