Van Tran is bad – but Janet Nguyen is no better

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It was refreshing to see the O.C. Register’s Martin Wisckol finally rip GOP Assemblyman Van Tran in a recent Total Buzz blog post.  Wisckol wrote about how a writer named Vinh Nguyen, at a Viet blog called Little Saigon Insider, broke the story that Tran is no longer as popular as he once was, in the Viet community.

But Wisckol may have made a bit of a mistake.  I don’t think he sourced the guy that publishes Little Saigon Insider.

Back when I was friendly with O.C. Supervisor Janet Nguyen, before she stabbed me in the back by endorsing my opponent in last year’s Santa Ana City Council race, Republican Carlos Bustamante, she asked me to take on an anonymous blogger named “Little Saigon Insider.”  He blogged for me for a few weeks, then disappeared.

The next thing I knew, this new blog popped up, called “Little Saigon Insider,” and they constantly promote Nguyen and attack Tran.  Hmmm….

Now it could well be that Tran has pissed off a lot of folks with his constant attacks on Supervisor Nguyen, but one would think that it would make sense for Wisckol to get this from more sources. He does mention the Bolsavik blog, but that blog did not make the same claim, that Tran had burned all his bridges.

I do however agree with the premise that Tran has burned a lot of bridges – but so has Supervisor Nguyen.  She appears to be as ethically challenged as Tran himself.

One of the reasons I loathe Tran so much is that he has gotten his friends onto City Commissions and elected onto City Councils and School Boards – and they use this network to prey on their own people.  Some of them are “consultants” who take thousands of dollars to “advise” Viet business owners with business pending in cities in Orange County’s Little Saigon area.

As sick as all that is, Supervisor Nguyen appears to be doing the same damn thing.  She got her husband Tom Bonikowski appointed to the Garden Grove Planning Commission.  And she got her Chief of Staff, Andrew Do, elected to the Garden Grove City Council.  In her own way, Nguyen is building her own cabal, just as Tran did.

And don’t forget that Nguyen voted against the proposed restaurant ratings – but forget to tell us that her husband and her Chief of Staff are co-owners of a restaurant that has received multiple Orange County health violations.  And her husband works for a food service company that has also received violations.  And she has received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from owners of restaurants who have also received numerous violations.

So you see, Nguyen and Tran are more alike than they would care to admit. They used to be friends you know.  They had a falling out because Tran kept insisting that Nguyen hire his buddies to run her Council campaign.  But these two were once so close that they vacationed together, with their spouses.

Now Tran and Nguyen are both pursuing the same ends – collecting money and power.  And I believe they will both lose against State Senator Lou Correa and Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez.  I can hardly wait for that to happen!