Blair Feulner has challenged the board of Park City public radio KPCW to a game of chicken.

Feulner, "voice" of KPCW who has been in salary negotiations, startled the board last week by giving himself a "sabbatical" leave. The Park City Record quotes Feulner from an email:

I am hopeful that an agreement will be reached that will mean I'll be behind the microphone and back on the air doing news six months from now.

The board reportedly had cut Feulner's unusually high general manager's salary and was unreceptive to his requests that regular sabbatical leaves be part of his contract.

Feulner, founded the station, but his decisions in the last couple years have brought financial reversals to its Salt Lake City sibling KCPW, which the board was forced to put on the block.

Joe Wrona, a Community Wireless executive committee member, told the Record that as "an employee of Community Wireless, [Feulner] does not have the authority to write his own ticket."

In a comment that should trouble KPCW supporters, Wrona added that the board "consists of people who were handpicked by Blair Feulner because of their friendship and loyalty to Mr. Feulner." Normally, non-profit boards recruit and select their own members, keeping the station manager's involvement to a minimum for obvious reasons.

We have obviously been placed in a very difficult dilemma by Mr. Feulner's statements and actions, and we are struggling to try to make decisions that are in the best interest of Community Wireless, and that do not constitute a betrayal of the trust that Community Wireless listeners, donors and employees have placed in the board of trustees."

In 2004, the handpicked board gave Feulner and his wife Susan an additional $895,000 one-time payment for handling the buying and selling of a Coalville radio license.

Photo above: Listeners rallied in the spring to separate Feulner from troubled SLC public station KCPW.