Rather than directly investing in the proposed National Airlines IPO, Martino says he loaned McDonald $50,000, receiving a promissory note in return. (McDonald counters by claiming that Martino's agreement is indeed part of the National Airlines deal and not a personal loan.) Martino adds that the entire transaction took place at Channel 31 headquarters and was so out in the open that upper management should have seen what was happening and taken steps to squelch it. "McDonald typed up the note, printed it out in his office and carried it out to me. Later I found out that blank promissory notes turned up around the assignment desks, which really pissed me off. Here's this guy who's working for a respectable company, and he's doing this stuff every single day, and nothing is done about it until it's too late."
Once the transaction was completed, Martino says McDonald gave him some breathing room -- but then, in December 2000, National Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Martino responded by asking McDonald to pay off the note, which was set to expire December 31. But he says he received only reassurances and platitudes that were followed the next month by calls to sink additional money into another IPO, this one revolving around Verizon Wireless, which delayed a projected sale of public stock last October and now hopes to determine the feasibility of such an offer sometime this summer. The final straw for Martino took place in February: "This guy calls me at home on a Saturday morning, wakes me up and says he needs me to Fed Ex a check for $20,000 to his uncle, and he'll pay me back in three days. I said, 'That doesn't sound like a business deal. I want your uncle's name and phone number.' He told me he'd get back to me, but he never did."
Fred Harper
Related Content
More About
Even more heated was a conversation Martino had with McDonald on the day of McDonald's resignation. "I said, 'You're a liar and a fraud. You pay me back or I'll sue you and get a judgment that you can't go bankrupt on, because fraud can't be dismissed in bankruptcy -- and I will haunt you the rest of my life." McDonald responded, according to Martino, by swearing he would return the money in two weeks. But that didn't reassure the Troubleshooter. "I make a living busting ripoffs, liars and cheats. I've heard it before."
To date, Martino hasn't received any reimbursement, and even insiders don't know how many others like him there might be. (A handful of Channel 31 personalities, identified as investors by several sources, did not return calls or declined comment.) But McDonald vows to put everything right within the next few days.
"I'm going above and beyond my own individual requirements in these deals to satisfy friendships and personal relationships -- and frankly, it's disappointing to me that these deals have been cast in a negative light," declares McDonald, who says he wants to remain in Denver. "But unfortunately, television is a rumor business. And once a rumor is started, it never stops."
Up in the air: Since 1992, Al Verley, the helicopter pilot and traffic reporter for Clear Channel-owned KOA, has guided innumerable Denverites through traffic jams, construction nightmares and weather of every description with efficiency and affability. But unless things change soon (and that seems unlikely), locals will have to get along without him. Verley recently told Clear Channel that he'll be moving on; his last day of scheduled flying is May 15.
Verley confirms that "maintenance was not being handled as quickly as I would have liked" on the Bell 407 airship he handles. But he says the primary basis for his decision to leave is his salary. "We just couldn't come to a contract agreement," he says. "We differ as far as the pay scale -- and the price has to be right."
Despite these differences, Verley doesn't skimp on compliments for "the Clear Channel family," and Lee Larsen, vice president and general manager for Clear Channel-Denver, returns the favor. But Larsen believes that, deep down, Verley is looking for a lifestyle change. "He's been flying early in the morning and late in the afternoon and is on call other times, too, which is hard on family life. We did make him an offer that wasn't good enough for him, but what he seemed to be saying was, 'I'm really tired of doing this job, it's really messing with my life, but if you double my pay, I'll stay.' That told me the real issue is that Al wants to do something else."
Larsen plans to replace Verley with two people: a full-time pilot and a reporter charged with voicing traffic updates. He hopes to have both of these hires on board around the time Verley splits, which also roughly corresponds with the return of KOA's helicopter, now in St. Louis receiving its 2,500-hour maintenance check and a new wiring job intended to correct problems with one of two radios used to communicate with air traffic controllers -- the difficulty that most troubled Verley. "Safety is the number-one issue for us," Larsen says, "and we've never had an incident in the fifteen or sixteen years that we've been flying. We want to have the safest bird in the sky."
As for Verley, he says, "I'm not planning to say anything about leaving on the air. I want to go out with class. But I do want to say how much I've loved flying in Denver."
The feeling is mutual. Many of us would have been lost without him.
