Did receiver Robert Flanders wait too long to open concession talks with Central Falls’ unions and retirees?

That accusation was leveled in court Wednesday by Matthew McGowan, an attorney for the city’s retired firefighters. He called Flanders’ plan to slash his clients’ pensions “an eleventh-hour proposal” that they did not have enough time to review.

Central Falls’ attorney acknowledged separately how little time passed from the start of talks between the two sides and Monday’s bankruptcy filing.

Flanders was appointed in February, but he didn’t open negotiations with Council 94 until May 15; with the police and fire unions until July 1; and with retirees until July 5, less than a month before the bankruptcy filing, according to court documents filed this week by the attorney, Theodore Orson.

Flanders defended his handling of the situation on Wednesday, saying he waited three months to start negotiations because it took that long to figure out how much Central Falls needed in concessions to stave off bankruptcy.

“First we had to come up with an idea of what we were asking for,” he told WPRI.com. “It took a while to come up with that.”

But by the time talks began in earnest, Central Falls was already facing a severe cash crunch that was projected to leave the city unable to pay its bills this month, Flanders said. Without concessions or a bailout from the state, he said he was forced to file for Chapter 9 this week.

In effect, he said, the receiver’s office got “squeezed” between the time it took to get a handle on the problem once Flanders took office and the time when Central Falls’ cash was set to run short. Flanders’ predecessor as receiver, Mark Pfeiffer, was in charge of the city from July 2010 through last February.

McGowan took a different view in court. He told the judge it was incorrect to say there were “negotiations” between the receiver and the retirees, because they were presented with a proposal and told to take it or leave it, then weren’t given enough time to vet it before the bankruptcy filing.

McGowan suggested Flanders’ failure to formally negotiate with the retirees before filing for Chapter 9 could be a reason for the judge to dismiss the case and throw it out of court.

(photo: Associated Press/Stew Milne)

With less than a week to go before the auction of WLNE-TV, ABC has warned potential buyers there’s no guarantee the network will keep the station as an affiliate or let it continue branding itself as “ABC 6″ once their current deal expires at the end of this month.

“ABC has the right to approve, in its sole discretion, any operator of the station,” the Disney-owned network’s attorney wrote in a March 4 court filing obtained by WPRI.com. “The consent of ABC is required before anyone may operate the station as an ABC affiliate after March 31.”

ABC said WLNE can only use the name “ABC 6″ and the website “abc6.com” as long as it has an affiliation agreement with the network, which it is not promising to renew without knowing the identity of the new owner.

ABC did not say where it would air its programming in the Providence-New Bedford market if it ended its affiliation with Channel 6. WLNE has been an ABC affiliate since 1995, when it switched with WPRI following CBS’s purchase of this station. That reversed a previous affiliation swap they did in 1977. (WPRI is now owned by Providence-based LIN Media.)

In a separate filing this week, WLNE’s current owner, Kevin O’Brien, disclosed that the station’s gross sales last year totaled $8.47 million and argued its court-appointed receiver, Matthew McGowan, is asking far too little in exchange for Channel 6. He called on the judge to block the sale.

Citadel Communications Co. Ltd. has offered less than half that amount – $4 million – as the stalking-horse bidder for WLNE, CEO Phil Lombardo told WPRI.com last month. Another party will need to top that price to take over the station at auction next week.

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