At its meeting Tuesday, several supervisors said they have already received resumes after prominent Valley grower and Republican Mark Borba stepped down. Borba was reportedly forced to resign following an email he sent where he used a racially insensitive statement about the President.
"We do have an opening on the Community Medical Center Board of Trustees that we had a recent resignation," said Supervisor Henry Perea.
In a brief discussion at the Hall of Records in Downtown Fresno, Fresno County Supervisors agreed to move quickly to replace Borba. The decision was made after Borba used a derogatory term to describe the President's race in a heated email to farmers about the federal water policy.
"I received notification yesterday of an applicant that submitted their application and resume for consideration of this appointment as well," said another Supervisor.
In the email obtained by Action News, Borba also used expletives to describe other politicians in Washington.
According to one of the recipients, Borba has since apologized for his comments, but only after the email was shared with powerful members of the agricultural community and reached several offices of federal lawmakers.
In a statement from the organization that overseas three hospitals and about 6,000 employees in the Fresno area, Community Medical Center writes: "We can verify that last month Community's Board of Trustees decided to change its leadership and that Mark Borba is no longer chair and is no longer on the board."
Borba did not return our calls for comment, but according to the date on the email, it was sent March first to Westlands Water District Manager Tom Birmingham as well as several growers. It included opinions about water allocations on Fresno County's Westside and was laced with profanity.
In the message, Borba criticized the Obama administration for not securing enough water for Valley farmers and demanded Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein confront the President.
Borba's seat is one of four selected by the County of Fresno because the organization uses public dollars to serve the poor and uninsured.
The Board of Supervisors didn't discuss the email exchange at the meeting. Instead, said announced it would accept applications until April 23rd and would appoint a committee to make recommendations to CMC. The board at Community Medical Centers will have the final decision on who it will appoint.
