About your future Supervisor

Dion Bourdase was born in Clovis in 1985.   He has an older and a younger brother.   His father passed in 2013.   His mother, siblings, and their families still reside in Fresno County.   

He recently became a father to a baby girl, Saia, on 3/13/23 along with his partner Skye Adams who also has 3 children ranging from 8 to 12 years old.   They have lived in a 2-Bedroom apartment in Clovis since 2019.

In 1961 his grandfather, Edmund Bourdase, moved the family to Fresno after being invited to join the professional bowling team; The Fresno Bombers.  

His father, Mark, was a carpenter and draftsman who took pride in being a part of building huge tracts of Fresno’s homes, including his own home in Clovis in 1981.   His mother, Jennice, spent her career as a Special Education Teacher for Fresno Unified for 30+ years helping to raise countless deaf and disabled individuals of our community.

He had the privilege of learning many important lessons from his parents.  The meaning of community service and the golden rule were often shown by their example.

In a lot of ways you could say Dion is a product of District 2.   He has lived within its borders the entirety of his life but for a couple years when he lived just outside of it.   He is a product of our school system and graduated from Buchanan High school in 2003.   He went on to study at Willow International and Fresno City College before graduating with a B.A. in Psychology from Fresno State in 2012.

He is an advocate for lifelong learning and since graduating he has taken more classes at Fresno City and attended San Joaquin College of Law for a year until Covid-19 changed the world around us.

Dion began working at 9 years old running a paper route for the Fresno Bee until he was almost 16.   In his life he has had the opportunity to experience many things professionally, including fast food, labor, customer service, sales, and government.  

Since 2014 Dion has only been employed by Fresno County.   In early 2015 he became a Community Mental Health Specialist with the County, was then recognized by his superiors, and was assigned a unique position based on his ability to connect with people quickly.     It was here he found his calling: to help make his community a better place.

In 2017 Dion was finally promoted to Social Worker after applying several times and being at the very top of the interview lists generated under Fresno County Personnel Rules.   Unfortunately, this where he also began to discover the systemic disregard for transparency and the lengths to which Fresno County goes to be unaccountable to its employees and residents.     

Since 2014 Dion has applied for dozens of positions within Fresno County and interviewed over 300 times based on those applications.    This has given him a unique perspective into county services.   Dion has found, and informed, Fresno County of explicit evidence that discrimination is occurring within its hiring process and irrefutable proof Fresno County Personnel Rules are being violated almost rule for rule.

Dion had tried numerous times to address grievances within Fresno County employment and found a lack of transparency in its actions.   Most recently in 2023 Dion submitted a 100+ page document illustrating Public Service violations to the Civil Service Commission, which is intended to provide oversight for Fresno County.   This was completely ignored and when it was discovered that the Commission was made up of several ineligible members (term limits expired) he attempted to have this addressed.   The response, in effect they can do what they want.

Fresno County employs 7,000+ employees and is the foundation of our community.   Currently the county’s turnover rate is in double digits and for some positions they have stopped even doing interviews and just hire unqualified individuals.   Yet they bleed experienced workers because they refuse to pay them a livable wage equal to the amount of value their employment provides to our community.

Fresno County will say they have things under control and there is no issue.  Yet in September of this year 3,500 households lost their Medi-Cal coverage, not because they didn’t qualify but because Fresno doesn’t have the employees to process their paperwork.    We have calls regarding abuse and neglect of our children that can’t be investigated timely for lack of Social Workers.    There was even a man who attempted to light himself on fire at the Clovis Office in protest, stopped by Security guards who start at $16 an hour.    This, and many other examples like it, occur because Fresno County refuses to be transparent in any of its actions.     

We ask questions, but we don’t get answers.   It is time to change that.    There has to be an option, an answer to the question; can Fresno do better?   Yes, we can.   For better days, Vote Bourdase.