Radio KDNA board wants to end turmoil at station

GRANGER -- A day after Radio KDNA's beleaguered director departed, the station's board said it would work to end the controversy that has roiled the public Spanish-language station for more than a year.

The day after Maria Fernandez left, more than 65 people filed into a news conference to learn what direction the board of directors planned to take the station.

Reading from a prepared statement, board president Irma Jiminez-DePrieto all but promised to improve relations with the community, but wouldn't promise 11 fired workers they'd get their jobs back.

"I want to assure the community and our listeners that programs will continue," she said.

She introduced interim director Mirta Laura Contreras and promised that the station would work to strengthen its relationship with the community and work efficiently, and that the community center's "mission of empowerment and service to the community remains a compass that will lead the organization into the future."

Some in the crowd not only asked that those who were fired during the past year be rehired, but that a restraining order barring several people involved in a labor dispute with the station be lifted.

They even accused the board of working to give control of the station, known as the voice of the farm worker, to Heritage University in Toppenish.

Contreras said she'd let those issues make their way through the legal process. She has taken a leave of absence as lead attorney of Columbia Legal Services in Yakima to be interim director of the station for at least the next three months.

"I am not going to promise you anything," she told the crowd. "All I can tell you is that I will do my best to listen to you and bring Radio KDNA into a new chapter."

Fernandez sparked controversy with a series of firings and program changes not long after she took over the station in June 2008. As tensions escalated, the station sought restraining orders against several of its critics.

Her departure from the station was announced Thursday. The station's board of directors said Friday that she left as part of a mutual decision, and they said a report in Friday's edition of the Herald-Republic that she'd been fired was wrong.

However, Tony Sando-val, a community activist who said he's close friends with Fernandez, said she was fired and surprised by it.

"She's hurt," he said.

Fernandez did not return phone calls Friday.

KDNA board member Len Black said the board and Fernandez decided it was best if she parted ways with the station.

He said the controversy was too much of a distrac-tion for her.

During Friday's news conference, several people noted that two board mem-bers work for Heritage University, which they fear is trying to gain control of the station.

Both Jiminez-DePrieto and Black work for the university, and both of their supervisors were at the news conference supporting the board.

"The university as far as I know has no interest in the management, direction or ownership of KDNA," Black said.

Officers from the local Teamsters union, which represents nine of the fired workers, asked the board and interim director to make solving the labor dispute a priority.

"We should be inclu-ded," said the union's principal officer, John Parker. "We're more than happy to partner with you to move this thing forward."

Several of the labor disputes are headed for arbitration.

Among those at the conference was longtime farm worker advocate Tomás Villanueva, who said if anything, the ordeal has reminded people how important the station is to the community.

"It brings a strong mess-
age to the community to
stick together," he said. "It's
too bad that it had to hap-pen this way. I don't think anyone has ill feelings toward Fernandez."

* Phil Ferolito can be reached at 509-577-7749 or pferolito@yakimaherald.com.