Her decision to terminate McPhetres’ contract resulted in an outpouring of support for the instructor and criticism of her leadership.
Fernandez, who never explained why she terminated McPhetres, said she already sent a word to him that they should talk.
“I am open to meeting with him and to listen,” she told the Variety.
Senate President Pete P. Reyes, R-Saipan, yesterday said most lawmakers were not pleased with the non-renewal of McPhetres’s contract.
“Please look into it and resolve the problem, hopefully amicably,” Reyes told Charles V. Cepeda, whose re-appointment to the NMC board was confirmed by the senators yesterday.
Cepeda said McPhetres’s nonrenewal was highly unusual and he will look into the issue.
But, he added, “we respect the process and the president’s authority.”
McPhetres first came to the Pacific in the 1960s. He was a Peace Corps volunteer and later liaised for the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations.
In 2005, the House of Representatives conferred a plaque of recognition and appreciation to McPhetres for his many community contributions as a teacher, author, archivist, historian, observer and documenter of important political and historical developments in the Northern Marianas for the past three decades.
