Community Health System board chair Farid Assemi steps down. New chair lives out of state
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Community Health System board chair Farid Assemi has stepped down from the hospital board and has handed over the chair role to a person who lives out of state.
Assemi, a prominent local developer and farmer, is “ending his trustee service and transitioning the chairman role to Roger Sturdevant,” who was serving as the chair elect, according to an updated biographical description that appeared on the hospital board’s online page.
The message doesn’t say what prompted Assemi to step down or when exactly that decision was made. But Sturdevant, according to the message, assumed his role as chairman beginning on April 12 — the same day The Bee had given the hospital to respond by the end of the day to questions for a story about its board.
CHS, formerly known as Community Medical Centers, is the region’s largest healthcare provider and operates four Fresno-area medical facilities: Fresno Heart and Surgical Hospital, Community Behavioral Health Center, Clovis Community Medical Center and Community Regional Medical Center in downtown Fresno.
Sturdevant, a retired Bank of the West executive, doesn’t live in the community CHS serves. He registered to vote in Chippewa County, Michigan, in May 2018, according to online records. His voting registration is currently active in Chippewa County. Other public records show that he owns a home in Chippewa County and another one in Clovis. For the November 2022 elections, Sturdevant voted in Michigan, public records show.
“While we thank Mr. Assemi for his service, it is alarming that the future of our community’s flagship hospital is in the hands of an out-of-state retired banker,” Fresno city councilmember Miguel Arias told The Bee. “This action continues a troubling pattern of excluding local community stewards from the board’s critical oversight role, increasing the distance — literally and figuratively — between the leadership of our publicly-funded hospital and the people it serves.”
Sturdevant hasn’t responded to inquiries by The Bee seeking comment. Sturdevant’s residency was among a series of questions The Bee provided to CHS and its board that focused more broadly on the board’s makeup during Assemi’s tenure as chairman.
Michelle Von Tersch, a spokeswoman for CHS, said “neither bylaws or IRS rules require trustees to be full-time residents of Fresno County.”
Assemi was at the center of Care & Conflict, an investigation by The Fresno Bee that found CHS used federal and state funding generated by the downtown Fresno hospital for treating Medi-Cal and underinsured patients to fund a massive expansion of its suburban Clovis campus. Less than a mile away from the Clovis hospital sits California Health Sciences University — a for-profit medical school owned by Assemi and Flo Dunn, another longtime CHS board member who continues to sit in on board meetings as a guest.
For several years, CHS had plans to build two new patient towers at its downtown hospital in order to bring its aging facilities into compliance with earthquake standards. But those towers were never built there.
The new patient towers were built at the Clovis campus as part of the explosive expansion. Meanwhile, the downtown Fresno hospital now risks losing 90% of its acute care beds if its deteriorating buildings don’t see major upgrades by 2030.
Assemi had served on CHS board since 2009
Dunn recruited Assemi to join a CHS board committee around 2006, and he subsequently became a full board member in 2009. Dunn is Assemi’s friend and former banker. She also serves as president of the for-profit medical school she owns with Assemi.
In January 2020, Assemi became board chair.
CHS officials have said that board members serve on the board for three, three-year terms, but can be reappointed for up to four consecutive terms, meaning 12 years. However, when CHS last year was asked by The Bee why Assemi was continuing to serve on the board if his 12 years had ended in 2021, Von Tersch said his term had been extended.
“Per Community’s corporate bylaws, board chairs can serve for five, three-year terms if their fourth term concludes while serving as board chair,” she said in April 2022.
This story was originally published April 18, 2023 at 12:51 PM.
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