Van, Phan West, Landau

CRIMINY! Nowadays we must break down all this OC political criming by office, gender, and section of the county, otherwise we’ll just be overwhelmed, and that won’t do! So today we’re just looking at recent political crimes committed by female councilmembers in the western end of Orange County. Shall we proceed?

1. Hong Alyce Van, Stanton.

Have you heard about Hong Alyce Van, who was a Stanton Councilwoman until she was defeated in November by Victor Barrios? Alyce is in a LOT of trouble right now, for getting a second home in a different district where she hadn’t been elected, spending most of her time in her new house while continuing to “represent” her old district, and then even running for re-election from her old home while swearing falsely that’s where she lived.

Matt Cunningham spent a lot of time last year trying to prove all that, and I mainly just wondered who was paying Matt to work so hard in a sliver of tiny Stanton (I think it was Mayor Shawver who wanted to get rid of this Councilwoman.) But apparently Matt was on to something, as Spitzer has charged poor Alyce with four felonies for a max sentence of six years – DAMN! (This should be very worrying right now to my friend Tammy Kim.)

But you’ve probably already heard about Alyce’s misadventures so let’s move on…

2. Amy Phan West, Westminster.

What about Amy Phan West, have you heard about her? One of the most stridently MAGA of Little Saigon politicians, this fiery Westminster Councilwoman (barely elected in 2022 by 21 votes) was censured by her colleagues last August for “over 30 different charges including… lying, disclosing confidential information, disparaging staff and publicly berating residents.” In response Amy called the Council “Chinese Communist dictators” running a “banana republic court,” and has continued all her disruptive behavior; now the Council is actually suing her to try to get her to stop interrupting meetings.

But none of that is the BIG trouble Amy is now in – last week she was charged with BRIBING a “parking control officer” not to tow her husband’s jeep. On one of TWENTY nuisance calls this couple’s lot got in the year ’23, parking control showed up to tow that jeep, but Amy was all, DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM, I’m on Council, I’m good friends with your Chief, I’m fixing to GET YOU GUYS RAISES so don’t tow me and let me just drive this jeep away! #BOOM. #BRIBE.

“ooo, that smell, can’t you smell that smell…”

But you read all THAT last week too, didn’t you?

Okay, well obviously you are somebody who keeps up with the news, your West OC Councilwoman Crime News. Well fine. Here’s something I bet you haven’t heard yet because WE ARE BREAKING IT:

***Meet Seal Beach Mayor Lisa Landau!***

The Orange Juice Blog has just recently come into possession of a packet of well-documented information accusing this drunken MAGA queen of Seal Beach – now their Mayor – of “residence fraud” and possible “voter fraud,” and there is sure a lot of smoke here which we shall share momentarily.

But it’s best to start two years ago when Landau was first running for Council, a race that had to go to a January runoff because she came in second in November and nobody got a majority. Our DA Todd Spitzer has only just recently begun to throw the book at candidates who pretend to live in a district they really don’t, so we don’t think Lisa Landau would have gotten away with what she pulled off in ’22 if she’d tried it in ’24. (Even as a Republican!)

And that is, filing to run from a house where she did not live, in District 3, so that she could run for Council in District 3, while she actually still lived in District 1 which was not having an election. And that house, the epicenter of so many Landau mysteries, is at:

1771 Crestview.

Every picture tells a story: Landau campaign sign at Crestview house getting its power installed, Jan. ’23.

Living and registered to vote at a rental unit at 138 6th St, in District 1, Lisa Landau switched her registration to the Crestview address on August 12, 2022, hours before the deadline to file to run from that address. The Crestview place was uninhabitable at the time, and nobody ever saw Lisa there till months later. But at the same time she was being evicted from the 6th St place, and counter-suing the owners there over alleged mold that was allegedly hurting her son Cody (not the first time Lisa had counter-sued property owners over alleged mold!), and as late as January 2023 she was still being served, and accepting service, at the 6th St address.

Soon after her January victory she held a celebration in the Crestview front yard – folding tables and chairs, grass not yet planted, nobody could use the bathrooms inside.

Water under the bridge now, with the statute of limitations – Lisa got away with running and being elected for district 3, and she does appear to actually live on Crestview now, with her son and a new boyfriend. But mysteries continue to swirl around Landau and Crestview. Especially, how could this single mom with no visible means of support, with a recent record of two evictions, her car towed for unpaid late-registration tickets, a woman who came to town asking for donated furniture, suddenly afford this $1.5 million home in ’22?

Well, without further ado, this is what the blog received last week; we’ve added in some links to documents, some illustrations, and some bold:

It is likely that a local elected official, Seal Beach Mayor Lisa Landau, is using the name of her ex-husband, Christopher Paul Elder, in ongoing real estate and voter fraud that should be investigated for possible felony prosecution. A summary of the facts follows:

• Landau and Elder were divorced in San Diego County on February 27, 2004. A search of California marriage records shows no public record indicating they remarried in California, nor any other indication, save a voter registration, that Elder has ever lived in Seal Beach. 

• (A search of public records suggests that Lisa Landau’s ex-husband Christopher Paul Elder is most likely a man with the same full name and date of birth who lives in the state of Washington.)

• On April 5, 2022, a Joint Tenancy Interspousal Transfer for the property at 1771 Crestview Ave, Seal Beach CA was filed with the County of Orange. The document attested that Christopher Paul Elder and Lisa Landau were a married couple who lived together at the Crestview property. This allowed Landau to join the deed on the $1.5 mil home without incurring federal gift tax liabilities estimated between $200,000 and $500,000.

• While the interspousal transfer document said that Landau and Elder were a husband and wife who lived together at the Crestview property, Landau has never mentioned Elder and has, in numerous public speaking and written communications, described herself as a single mother.  

• Landau changed her voter registration to the Crestview property on August 12, 2022, coinciding with her declaration to run for a District 3 city council seat.

• The only known public records suggesting that Christopher Paul Elder ever lived in Seal Beach are the interspousal transfer document and Elder’s voter file, which says that he first registered to vote in Seal Beach on October 15, 2020. The registration lists his voting address as 138 6th St. This is the exact address where Landau was registered to vote at the time. It remained Landau’s voting address till she changed it in August 2022 to the Crestview property.  

• While the interspousal transfer document described Landau and Elder as a married couple living together at the Crestview property, Elder did not change his address to the Crestview property (which means that he was unable to vote for Landau when she stood for election in November 2022 or the runoff election on January 31, 2023.) 

• Elder, or a person using his name, has voted from the 6th Street address in three elections: the November 2020 general election, the March 2024 primary, and, most recently, the November 2024 general election. The voter file shows that the two 2024 ballots were cast by mail, with the November ballot being received on November 8. three days after the election. The voter file also shows that the 2020 ballot was submitted at a polling location which OC Registrar of Voters staff says could have been delivered by someone other than Elder; poll workers only verify that dropped ballots are signed and sealed. They do not do any other ID checks except to match the registration signature against the signature on the ballot. 

• Though Elder’s voter file still lists 138 6th Street as his voting address, at some point, a change was made so that his mailing address – where his most recent ballots and other voting materials would have been delivered – is now 1198 Pacific Coast Hwy Suite D, Seal Beach. That address is a UPS Store.

• Landau has used the same UPS Store address – 1198 Pacific Coast Hwy Ste D – Seal Beach, CA – as a business address. 

• Landau’s financial history and personal associations raise further questions. It is unclear what sources of income Landau and the shadowy Elder have that could support and service a mortgage on the Crestview property. Landau has faced eviction twice and was $30,000 behind on property taxes for the Crestview house in the Fall of 2022. In 2023, shortly after being sworn in as the Council Member for District 3, the back taxes on the Crestview property were paid, presumably out of the disclosed personal loan she received from Bob Griffith, a District 3 constituent and prominent Seal Beach real estate and business owner who has business concerns that regularly come before the city’s government.

The facts listed indicate that Landau, a public official, has likely been involved in significant and ongoing wrongdoing. An unbiased inquiry by an impartial investigator is an important step toward restoring public faith in a transparent and responsible government.

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Vern back, I’ve got a lot of other material about this Lisa Landau character, really colorful stuff. But this is what we wanted to get out in a timely manner this week. Keep coming back for the West OC Councilwoman Crime Docket, same time same place!

Coming soon: Meet Lisa’s good friend Frank Ryan, the former gay porn star who runs the All-Trump store “Beachin Seal Beach,” and was the Tip of the Spear trying to keep “drag queens” out of the 2023 Seal Beach Pride Festival. It gets weirder.