She’s back… Career politician Janet Nguyen has announced an interest in switching from the California State Senate back to the O.C. Board of Supervisors. She previously served as a County Supervisor back in 2012.
Nguyen’s Achilles heel over the years has been her campaign shenanigans. In fact one of her supporters, Son Truong Nguyen, of Fountain Valley, pleaded guilty to 10 misdemeanor counts of unlawful contribution and was immediately sentenced to three years of informal probation after he illegally reimbursed campaign contributors for Janet Nguyen’s 2012 Orange County Board of Supervisors election on at least 10 different occasions.
The OC Grand Jury also nailed Nguyen in a report back in 2013 that criticized her heavy-handed role at CalOptima which saw a huge exodus of executives after she joined the CalOptima board. CalOptima is the county’s public health plan for low-income residents but Nguyen’s main interest appeared to be raising campaign funds form doctors and hospitals.
Nguyen’s campaign issues appear to still be happening as one of her top donors in 2022 was Dzung Pham. Isn’t that the guy who was busted for prescribing opioids to ‘patients’ that he knew were drug addicts?
Nguyen was also the key vote on the OC Board of Supervisors against assigning letter-health grade to restaurants. She did not mention at the time that her own husband was co-owner of a restaurant that had received many health violations. Nor did she mention that she had received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from other restaurant owners of facilities with poor health records.
In summation when it comes to Janet Nguyen what matters most to her is raising campaign money. The needs of her constituents are an afterthought.
Nguyen will be running against several candidates for the First Supervisorial District including Cypress City Councilmember Frances Marquez, former Assemblymember Van Tran and Westminster Councilmember Kimberly Ho. The incumbent, Andrew Do, hired Tran and will be backing him for the seat.
Tran once mentored Nguyen but predictably she turned on him. Now he has a chance to beat his former protege.
Nguyen lost a previous bid for the 34th State Senate District when Tom Umberg soundly beat her back in 2018.
Back in the day Nguyen worked for notorious OC Supervisor Cynthia Coad who was booted off the Board by the voters after she backed building a public airport at the former El Toro Marine base.
Nguyen is a lifelong registered Republican.
The First District includes part of the cities of: Cypress, Huntington Beach, Los Alamitos, Westminster, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, La Palma, Midway, Rossmoor and Seal Beach.
