After swearing in Wendy McCaw, the proprietor of the bankrupt Santa Barbara Information-Press, the trustee accountable for the chapter proceedings and his legal professional requested a collection of questions over the phone on Thursday afternoon in an try to seek out out the place all the corporate’s cash may be, or any property which may pay the lots of of collectors that the paper’s failure has left in its wake. McCaw’s solutions had been largely “I don’t know,” giving the impression she’d been hands-off in most sensible issues of the each day operations, if not in inflicting the failure of the 150-year-old each day.
McCaw purchased the Information-Press from the New York Occasions Firm in 2000, paying an estimated $110 million for Santa Barbara’s solely each day in pre-digital instances. Twenty-three years later, with subscriptions dropping from 45,000 when she purchased the paper to fewer than 800, she threw within the towel, submitting for Chapter 7 chapter on July 21, a date she needed to ask others to supply for her through the collectors assembly.
When McCaw precipitated a newsroom revolt after favoring a buddy, actor Rob Lowe, and chastising a reporter and editors for working the handle of a Montecito property he was creating, greater than half of the subscribers to one of many oldest newspapers within the nation canceled in a protest and to point out their assist for the workers. Reporters, editors, and columnists had stop in disgust and over the moral compromise they had been positioned in; others had been fired for his or her union actions.
Among the many property the chapter trustee, legal professional Jerry Namba of Santa Maria, had looked for had been artworks listed within the preliminary chapter paperwork with a worth of $26,000. McCaw acknowledged a valuation had been executed in 2003 and that maybe 50 artworks existed, a few of them moved from the downtown Santa Barbara constructing to the printing press plant in Goleta. When Namba mentioned they’d discovered three drawings by Western artist Ed Borein, McCaw mentioned she thought there might need been 5 – 6. Among the artwork was affixed to the partitions of the downtown constructing, she mentioned.
An arguably priceless asset could be the gathering of newspapers from the Information-Press’s historical past. McCaw didn’t know the place they had been, in the event that they had been protected in any manner past their binding, or if anybody had been just lately accountable for the archive. Requested the place pictures may be, McCaw replied, “I’m certain the pictures have to be someplace. I don’t know the place. I assume they’re there someplace.” Nor did she have any thought of who may know, since “the picture division wasn’t there after a sure level.”
Former workers who may know solutions to the questions requested by the trustee’s legal professional, Michael D’Alba of Danning Gill in Los Angeles, may not reply, mentioned McCaw’s legal professional Anthony Friedman. They’d tried to succeed in Yolanda Apodaca, whom McCaw indicated may know concerning the transfer, payroll, contracts, or information, however the e-mail had bounced again. Friedman added that Apodaca was more likely to file an administrative wages declare, as she, too, didn’t obtain her final paycheck.
McCaw appeared unbothered to confess that she knew few details concerning the paper’s operation, resembling workers’ names or why they may be owed lots of of 1000’s of {dollars}, if the paper was on social media, or who her print clients had been, except the Montecito Journal. She did acknowledge the title American Journey Media, which is owed $390,000 in wages. The company is Arthur von Wiesenberger, she mentioned, an worker. Von Wiesenberger, additionally recognized by his nickname Nipper, was co-publisher with McCaw and can be her longtime fiancé.
Concerning the true property downtown and in Goleta, McCaw knew Ampersand Publishing paid no cash or different compensation to her to be used of the buildings or the parking zone. Requested if she knew what the debtor — Ampersand Publishing LLC — had paid the New York Occasions Firm in 2000, McCaw acknowledged, “The buildings, the printing plant, the printers, it was all a part of an enormous, um, buy.” After that non-answer, D’Alba started asking concerning the switch of title on the 2 properties in 2014 to 2 restricted legal responsibility corporations wholly owned by McCaw. She answered “no” to questions asking whether or not she remembered what was paid for the workplace, the parking zone, or if any consideration was given in any respect. Her legal professional objected, asking what relevance a 10-year-old change in title might need on this case; D’Alba quickly concluded his questions.
Among the many collectors on the cellphone on September 7 was an legal professional for the Nationwide Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which had discovered towards McCaw for bargaining in dangerous religion together with her workers’ union. Her publishing firm, Ampersand Publications, owes them practically $3.5 million for the reason that 2017 judgment was entered for McCaw’s bargaining unfairly, refusing to present raises, and hiring temps to fill in for reporters. Questions from the NLRB legal professional about Ampersand’s relationship with Stanford Farms Belief and Georgetown Aviation had been the one questions that McCaw was unequivocal about: “I’m not going to reply that as a result of I don’t know.”
The newspaper’s subscription record is an asset that the trustee was making an attempt to realize entry to, as was a purchaser apparently within the historic document of 45,000 subscribers. They concluded it was on a server that workers may know the password to, and the trustee added that to the lengthy record of questions that stay to be answered.
A second collectors assembly was set for October 19 at 1 p.m. Trustee Namba acknowledged collectors might contact his workplace a number of days beforehand to obtain assembly info.
