Friday, January 16, 2015

Andrew Do for OC Supervisor

With 10 days before the election,  the supervisorial race for Orange County D1 is getting some actions.   The Democratic Party and labor unions have spent over $1 million in support of former State Senator Lou Correa (D).  Half of that money is in Little Saigon itself. 

His major opponent is Attorney Andrew Do (R) who is also a former Garden Grove City councilmember and deputy district attorney for OC.   Andrew Do is well known in Little Saigon for his community service.  His wife is a superior court judge.


 He receives the support of the OC Republican Party and some of the major elected officials, including State Senator Janet Nguyen, OC Supervisor Michelle Steel, Congressman Ed Royce and Congresswoman Mimi Walters.  There are two other Vietnamese-American candidates who are also running with the intention to split the Vietnamese votes against Andrew Do.

As a last minute bombshell strategy that is often used by the Democrats,  the Voice of OC Blog reported that two county social workers were recently fire for allegedly helping Andrew Do with his campaign.  The blog went on trying to prove that this incident shows that Andrew Do is "corrupt".  However, when county officials were asked, no reason was giving for their dismissal except that these individuals were contract workers,  not permanent employees,  and they had been with the county for seven years.

The Voice of OC Blog is known to be the voice of the labor unions after records show that they received $1 million financing from OCEA (Orange County Employees Association).   In the past election, it attacked Janet Nguyen constantly with sensationalized stories of "alleged corruption".    The political fodder points were disguised as "investigative report" and quite dramatic to a fault in its double speak language during the recent state senatorial race as the blog tried to steer the voters to  former State Assemblyman Jose Solorio.   The result is Solorio still lost by 20 points   in the election despite the fact that he outspent Janet Nguyen 3 to 1. 

Voice of OC reporting is so unethical and inaccurate that the Orange County District Attorney had to release a statement late last year -

http://ocpoliticsblog.com/2014/09/05/ocda-complains-about-unethical-and-inaccurate-reporting-by-the-voice-of-oc/#more-23231

The main statement of the press release from OCDA is:

"........Any publication that quotes any future stories from the Voice of OC should proceed with extreme caution and verify its accuracy.  If anyone would like the details of the Voice of OC’s pattern of misconduct and unethical behavior, they should contact me directly.  Meanwhile, the OCDA is contemplating all remedies available on future contacts with the Voice of OC..."


This  will be a very close election and whoever can get out their base will have an advantage.  The Democratic Party is determined not to lose the election and they are willing to throw the kitchen sink at Andrew Do if they could.   If the Vietnamese-American turnout is high, Andrew Do will have a good chance.  Right now, there are 20,340 absentee ballots returned already.  LSI is not expecting the turn out to be more than in the 2007 special election where there were about 48,000 ballots casted. 

Tet Festival in San Jose


     For 39 years ever since the Vietnamese refugees came to San Jose, there has always a Tet festival to celebrate the Lunar New Year in the city.   In most years, there are more than one festival and for this Year of The Goat, there will be three galas organized by different community groups.  

      What makes this particular Tet gala quite special is the fact that it will be organized by a group of people that either were born or  their whole life raised in the US.  The main organizers are professional folks in their late 20's and early 30's.  

      In the past, the festival is put together by their parents or their grandparents and the events are mostly aimed at their own community.    However, the upcoming festival in History Park is catered for a city wide audience of all ages to come and share the Vietnamese New Year's traditions and culture.  So come and enjoy the Lunar New Year with Vietnamese food, carnival games, all kind of contests and performances by local artists.    The organizers hope that this gala will be the first of many for years to come to show off the diversity and unique multiculture city that San Jose is. 

Happy Tet! 


Footnote: Tet means New Year in Vietnamese 
 

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Chris Phan and Van Tran's Gang of Seven

The special supervisorial election in Orange County is two weeks away and the community is gearing up for a battle between Chris Phan's supporters and Andrew Do's supporters. 

Over the weekend,  Chris Phan organized a meet and greet event to rally his supporters.  Phan is mainly being supported by the same folks that were ardent supporters of Van Tran, the former state assemblyman.    Van has been calling on these folks to support Chris Phan.  Thus it was not surprise to see  some members or what left of Van Tran's Gang of Seven showed up and spoke enthusiastically in support of Phan.

Attorney Lan Nguyen,  a Garden Groves Unified School District trustee, and Van's original Gang of Seven member, declared loudly into the microphone: "Chris Phan is the only qualified candidate and deserve the community votes."   Tyler Diep,  a Westminster City councilmember, was also there to show his support.  He spoke highly of Phan and turned the table on Andrew Do by throwing some softball questions at Phan on  "how he felt about Andrew's supporters attacking Phan's record so far as a politician."  Diep  also went to Phan's campaign headquarters couple weeks ago to help Phan opening his campaign. 


Andrew Do meanwhile is taking full advantage of the anti-Van Tran's Gang of Seven supporters.   These are also the voters that helped Janet Nguyen won her election.

So you have it, a community divides again by the ghost of Van Tran and his cohorts.    Van  has politically  disappeared from the community after his bitter defeat in 2010 against Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez.   And the community still has a sour taste of the  all out war he waged against Janet Nguyen a few years back.  Yet he is still trying and  stubbornly insists to be the Godfather of Little Saigon.   Van is a family man with kids so he probably has heard of the famous song " Let It Go!"



 

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