The Imperial Valley’s oldest LGBTQ+ resource center has been paralyzed after three board members voted to fire their founder and executive director, Rosa Diaz, earlier this month and accused her of attempting to seize control of the organization’s finances.
In an email last week to the Imperial County Board of Supervisors and a dozen other county officials, three members of the Donnelly Community Service Center’s nonprofit board of directors said Diaz had locked them out of accessing over $700,000 in organizational funds.
Diaz’s alleged action came after the center’s board put her on paid administrative leave on July 2. On July 9, the three board members voted to fire Diaz, according to their email to the county.
“This action was taken due to significant legal concerns,” wrote board members Carmen Zamora, Edward Gain and Shozo Hasegawa in the email obtained by KPBS. “Despite this leadership transition, the organization remains stable, focused, and fully operational.”
The board members said they could not elaborate on why they voted to fire Diaz because of “the sensitive nature of ongoing proceedings.” They declined KPBS’ requests for on-the-record interviews.
In an interview Thursday with KPBS, Diaz called their decision a “hostile takeover.” She acknowledged that the board had placed her on administrative leave earlier this month but said the decision to fire her was not legitimate and took place without due process or formal documentation.
Diaz declined to say whether she had taken possession of the organization’s funds.
The struggle over the Donnelly Center’s finances comes at a delicate moment for the organization. Many San Diego and Imperial Valley LGBTQ+ advocates cut ties with the center earlier this year after Diaz became increasingly at odds with advocates for transgender rights.
LGBTQ+ groups nationwide are also facing a downpour of executive orders, state laws and court rulings under the second Trump administration that could strip away funding or force them to reduce services.
Other advocates are following the leadership struggle closely. Clara Olivas is the executive director of queercasa, another Imperial County-based advocacy group, and a former Donnelly Center board member. Olivas said the center was in a challenging position.
“I hope that, legally, things are being done so that the center can get back that money,” they said. “It doesn’t belong to any one person. It belongs to the community.”
Diaz has led the Donnelly Center since she founded it in 2015.
For years, the Center was the Valley’s only physical gathering place for the LGBTQ+ community. The organization also offered a wide range of other services, including rental assistance, counseling and support for people experiencing homelessness.
But more recently, Diaz has come under fire for her public statements about trans people and after a controversial rebranding effort that erased the organization’s previous name, the Imperial Valley LGBT Resource Center.
She openly criticized a new California law backed by trans rights groups that barred schools from sharing a student’s gender identity without their permission. Last month, she opposed the recognition of Pride Month at an El Centro school board meeting.
In March, KPBS also reported that Diaz had grown increasingly interested in the rhetoric of two organizations that spread false science about trans people.
The two groups are Genspect, a Palm Springs-based group, and Gays Against Groomers, a national, chapter-based organization. Both are classified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that tracks extremism in the US.
In their email to county officials, Zamora, Gain and Hasegawa said the $700,000 in organizational funds were being “improperly withheld under Ms. Diaz’s exclusive control.”
They said the funds in question had come from “grants, donations and program sources.” They also said they had not authorized Diaz to take control of the funds and that the organization no longer had access to any of them.
The three board members said the funds were meant for a range of services that the Donnelly Center provides, including court-appointed anger management and domestic violence programs and public health outreach work.
The Donnelly Center reported around $680,000 in total assets in 2023, according to their most recent IRS filings.
Diaz denied withdrawing the funds from the Donnelly Center’s bank account. She said the bank used by the center had made the decision to close their accounts after Zamora attempted to make changes to the account information.
She declined to comment on the whereabouts of the funds.
Both Diaz and the three board members said they had reached out to various law enforcement agencies, including the El Centro Police Department and the Imperial County District Attorney’s Office.
The board members shared with KPBS documents that appeared to be copies of police reports filed with El Centro police. One of the documents accused Diaz of committing check fraud. The other alleged that Diaz secretly recorded a conversation with an employee.
A police spokesperson declined to verify whether the reports were authentic.
The District Attorney’s Office said last week that they had not opened any investigation or received any criminal referrals from El Centro police related to the Donnelly Center.
Diaz adamantly denied committing any financial wrongdoing but declined to comment on whether she had secretly recorded conversations with staffers.
Olivas, the former Donnelly Center board member, said they were not surprised by the three current board members’ decision to fire Diaz.
“My first reaction was just, it's kind of caught up with her,” Olivas said. “The things that we've been pointing out that were not representative of the Imperial Valley LGBT community were finally kind of given light.”
Olivas said they had previously avoided working with the Donnelly Center because of Diaz’s comments about the trans community. But they said queercasa was available to listen and see where they might be able to assist the Donnelly Center’s board moving forward.
Olivas also suggested that the Donnelly Center’s namesake, retired Imperial County Superior Court Judge Donal Donnelly, could step in to provide additional financial support.
Donnelly, a longtime supporter of gay rights, has financially supported the center but is not involved in day-to-day operations.
In an email to KPBS last week, he said he had chosen not to engage with the conflict and that it was disheartening.
“I hope it resolves equitably,” he said.
