2 weeks Ago
Janet Nguyen is gearing up to trade her position as a state senator for the First District seat on the OC Board of Supervisors. With about 63% of the votes, Nguyen maintained a strong lead ahead of Cypress City Councilmember Frances Marquez in the race for the First District office, which represents all or parts of Cypress, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Seal Beach and Westminster. As of Thursday evening’s update, about 360,000 ballots remained to be counted in the county.
The five-member OC Board of Supervisors sets policy and direction for the county’s $9.5 billion budget, 18,000 employees and various departments including the county health care and social services agencies, animal care, public works, landfills and more. Marquez said in a statement posted on her Facebook page that she is “deeply grateful” for the support she has received for her campaign and she will find other ways to continue serving her community.
“Our community deserves leaders who will champion their well-being and ensure a high-quality delivery of services,” Marquez said. “I want to congratulate Supervisor-elect Janet Nguyen on this victory, and I wish her the best in her service.” Former Supervisor Andrew Do, who has now resigned after pleading guilty in federal court to a bribery charge for his role in a scheme involving the embezzlement of millions in COVID-relief funds, was termed out and unable to seek re-election.
In his guilty plea, Do admitted that beginning in 2020 he received bribes totaling more than $550,000 to vote in favor of and direct millions in federal dollars, much of it from the First District’s discretionary fund, to Viet America Society, which employed his daughter as a condition. Investigations continue at multiple levels and the county has an ongoing civil lawsuit against Viet America Society seeking the return of funds it alleges were embezzled. Nguyen said as supervisor, she will “clean house” and usher in better oversight and accountability of taxpayer dollars.
“Audit” will be her favorite word when she takes office, she said. “I also want to make sure that we create mandates prohibiting secret contracts,” Nguyen said. “Everything needs to be transparent.
Everything needs to be public. This is the taxpayers’ money. It’s not the Board of Supervisors’.
It doesn’t belong to the county either.” She would also like to see other county departments audited, she said, specifically pointing to contracts for homeless services and programs. “Orange County spends over $1 billion a year to so-called combat homelessness.
But yet, last year, the (homeless) numbers went up 28%,” Nguyen said, adding that she would like for all homelessness-related spending to be reviewed. If audits find that programs or services aren’t being provided or seeing results, “it’s time to move on and cut those programs and find other solutions because obviously the current solutions aren’t working,” she added. “The bottom line is the public needs to be able to have confidence in the board and the county,” Nguyen said.
“We need to restore public confidence.” Another priority for Nguyen is holding the OC Animal Care shelter to a higher standard, she said. She has long been vocal about the shelter’s policies.
In August, a bill authored by Nguyen passed making it best practice for shelter veterinarians to make notations on animal medical charts for injured and diseased animals along with euthanasia criteria. “These are the things that the county refused to do, and we had to force them to do so with a bill,” Nguyen said. “We need to look at what programs are available for the residents.
Neutering a dog is very expensive these days. Are we giving opportunities for residents to come in and work with the county? There are so many things, but I can’t answer these questions until we audit and see what the problem is.” Pointing to smash and grabs, home invasions and theft, Nguyen has said another top priority of hers is public safety.
“We need to make sure that our Sheriff’s Department, our public safety, has the tools they need to protect our residents and also to give the Sheriff’s Department an opportunity to work with local cities as well,” Nguyen said. Most of the cities in her district have their own police departments, so Nguyen said she would like to see more collaboration and partnership between local law enforcement agencies and the Sheriff’s Department. Nguyen served previously as a supervisor from 2007 to 2014.
Her past experience makes her prepared to get to hit the ground running when she gets into office, she said. “The good news is I don’t need to learn the inside information, what a county supervisor does or what the county does,” Nguyen said. “And I’ve been able to build staff throughout the years, including my current Senate staff, who the residents have trusted.
“It’s very humbling, and I’m extremely honored that the voters have chosen me to be able to tackle the corruption and to represent them at the county,” she added. Nguyen will need to resign from her state Senate seat, but give a date for when she plans to do that. At that point, Gov.
Gavin Newsom will need to call for a special election to fill the remainder of her term until 2026. Related Articles.
