County Orders Training Over Offensive E-Mail

Employees of a Monterey County government department at the center of widely circulated anti-immigrant cartoon will receive racial sensitivity training.

The cartoon, which was posted on the county’s internal e-mail system last Monday, featured a mock photo of a sombrero-wearing bandito on a “Mexifornia” driver’s license. It was traced to the radio shop in the Information Technology Department after one of an estimated 3,200 public employees who received it complained.

The two workers who distributed the cartoon will be disciplined for violating county policies dealing with discrimination and e-mail, although the nature of the punishment hasn’t been determined, said Virgil Schwab, the department’s director.