Chairman Janet Nguyen has some explaining to do…
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UPDATE: The OC Weekly has now jumped on board this scandal, with this post. Here’s an excerpt, “Records obtained by the Weekly show that, in the period from 2004 through 2008 (records were unavailable for 2009), Hùng Sử Việt (the organization Nguyen gave $350K to)raised a total of $44,278–only 13 percent of the proposed $350,000 Nguyen wants to give them. Never in that time did the group top $11,000 for one year.”
Janet Nguyen, the new Chair of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, had this to say on Tuesday, “We stand together, ready to make the difficult decisions that are necessary to maintain the financial integrity of the county so that we may preserve our core public safety, infrastructure and safety net services for the citizens of Orange County,” according to the O.C. Register.
Then she voted to spend a third of a million dollars on a proposed Vietnam Memorial, to be located at the Roger Stanton mini-park in tiny Midway City. The only Supervisor who was ethical and prudent enough to oppose her was John Moorlach.
Seven Orange County workers were laid off just last week. Nguyen could have given her discretionary funds back to the County of Orange, which is what Moorlach and the other Supervisors did. Instead, she gave all that money to a non-profit that has zero experience in erecting memorials.
Even worse, the memorial is ringed by other such memorials. One of them is only 1.6 miles away, in Westminster.
The story has become quite a scandal, akin to the public outcry when Nguyen supported spending hundreds of thousands of dollars remodeling the Supervisors’ lobby and buying expensive new furniture, just after she was elected. Click here to see all the blog posts that have resulted from the public reaction to this incredible faux pas by Chairman Nguyen.
Nguyen is no stranger to media blowups. When she voted against letter grade restaurant health ratings, and didn’t tell us that her husband and her Chief of Staff own a Lee’s Sandwiches in Stanton that has had multiple serious health violations, the mess landed on the AP wire.
Most media outlets and blogs in the O.C. have gone after Nguyen for this latest example of government waste. However, the local red blog has ignored the story and one of the blue blogs in town inexplicably chose to rip Moorlach instead of Nguyen. But the Bolsavik blog did a great job of explaining just how bad Nguyen’s latest move really was.
So what do you think? Be sure to vote in the poll above – and tell your friends!
Anyway we can get this
one of a kind, in a category by itself, o.g in and of itself-special portrait on an AP Wire??? 😉 LOL
Aside from Nguyen’s extremely bad judgment in wasting this money, we have to wonder what the other three were thinking as well. I’ll bet money the phrase “it’s her money” passed somebody’s lips at some point. Bates, Norby and Campbell should be ashamed as well, and one of them ought to revisit this and call it off. Especially, Norby should’ve known better, but he’s obviously copping a short-timer attitude.
I have some deep insight into this scandal. You see, when I was walking down the one day, I ws suffering from hemorrhoids for quite some time, and the cremes and over the counter stuff just didn’t give relief. I heard about Hem-ease while researching natural hemorrhoid remedies, and decided to give it a try. Janet endorses these potions, I have heard. Further, it is a desirable to build the much needed memorial and also totrim the fat from County payrolls. Let us not employ people for the sake of giving them jobs. We are a robust, diverse, relatively wealthy County (my new home). Let us keep it that way.
Can this project be scuttled stil? Or is it a done deal? I for one would love to see an uprisisng from the pepolpe to stop this waste. Can anyone get in touch with John n Ken?
Hello every one we are the four morons that voted to waste 350k to erect a memorial. Janet has to pay for her political career somehow. That is why its going to take ten years to fix homelessness in Orange County. See, we have these little favors we have to pay back for. We know this comes at the cost of homeless people having to wait in line for ten years and also we might have to lay off more employees but 350k is a small price to pay especially when you aren’t the homeless ones. Hey you have a roof over your house and we get tax payer paid benefits to make idiotic decisions. Maybe we will take away healthcare for kids next time we need a monument. Actually Janet was hungover from the previous night can’t you tell by the picture??? Sorry tax payers….we have to do what you paid us for and that comes at a cost. We dare anyone of you to do anything about it.