East Portland Church Cited by FCC for Running an Illegal Radio Station

Eastside Free Methodist Church has been threatened with a $2.3 million fine after Federal Communications Commission agents discovered a radio station illegally operating out of a church building in Portland’s Hazelwood neighborhood.

Agents found that “radio signals on frequency 90.5 MHz were emanating from the property” in February, and the agency sent an official complaint letter on March 29.

By the time a WW reporter drove by the church last Saturday, the station appeared to have shut down. It’s not clear what kind of programming it broadcast. The frequency, jammed between a pair of community radio stations, was static.

The church had 10 business days, beginning March 29, to cease the “pirate radio activity,” FCC regional director, Lark Hadley, wrote in the complaint letter.

An unnamed church official told Vice on Wednesday that the church’s landlord had shut down the station.

“We are in dialogue with the FCC, and are looking forward to it being resolved,” a church spokeswoman, Kelly Cohoe, told WW today.

This is only the latest “pirate enforcement action” by the FCC. Recent legislation, backed up by $5 million allocated by Congress in 2022, has given the agency new teeth to go after illegally operating radio stations like this one.

The $2.3 million fine is the maximum possible. “In addition to tougher fines on violators, the law requires the FCC to conduct periodic enforcement sweeps and grants the ommission authority to take enforcement action against landlords and property owners that willfully and knowingly permit pirate radio broadcasting on their properties,” the agency said in a press release last month.