If one thing perplexes the Bolsavik, it’s why anyone would bother trying to recall San Jose Councilwoman Madison Nguyen. All politicians do something wrong and/or unpopular at one time or another, and only when they seriously piss someone off are they subject to recall (Gray Davis) or impeachment (Bill Clinton, unsuccessfully) or threat thereof (Richard Nixon).
So, was Madison’s opposition to the name “Little Saigon” that big of a deal that warrants a campaign to unseat her before her term is up?
Dr. Patrick Phu Le (Vietnamese: Lê Huu Phú) thinks so, and has said so on numerous occasions in newspaper columns. So on Sunday the Bolsavik contacted the man, who holds a Ph.D. from UC San Diego and is a realtor and owner and builder with Le Dynasty Construction, to really try to understand what the whole recall thing is all about.
According to Le (pictured standing, with Bryan Do also a recall proponent), the recall campaign has less to do with Madison’s opposition to the name Little Saigon, than with the reason behind that opposition. The opposition per se can be forgiven, the motivation cannot, said he to the Bolsavik by telephone.
Behind the whole thing, according to Le, is a man named Lap Tang. Tang owns the Grand Century Shopping Center on Story Road, right in the area of the naming controversy. He also owns a real estate development company creatively named Lap Tang Development Co. Many people in San Jose also call him “Mr. Trieu Thanh” because he also owns a newspaper named Trieu Thành.
According to Le, Tang had extraordinary access to the San Jose City Hall, as evidenced by city documents obtained through local FOIA laws showing numerous contacts between him and the city staff and the Redevelopment Agency. It was Tang’s influence that caused the City to initially propose to call the stretch of Story Road “Vietnamtown” (along the line of “Chinatown” and “Koreatown”).
That would have been a boon for Tang. He is the first named partner in TWN Investments (“T” for Tang, see) the developer of the 275,000 square-foot “Vietnam Town” mall on 915 Story Road, abutting Grand Century. The project is apparently in financial trouble, owing the general contractor more than $3.7 million, plus another $2 million to several subcontractor, one of whom took TWN to court seeking to foreclose on its mechanic’s lien, as reported in the San Jose Business Journal here.
Later, when faced with demands for the area to be named Little Saigon, Madison backed away from Vietnamtown and arrived at the new name “Saigon Business District,” purportedly as a compromise.
The help that Madison had provided to Tang appeared to her opponents to be so extraordinary that they suspected Madison was receiving benefits from Tang, said Dr. Le. “It is the impression of the community,” he said, “that Madison must have received something of value from Tang. In other words, it seemed to us that Tang probably bribed Madison.”
Bribery? That’s a pretty serious accusation. Any proof? “We’re not the police,” Le said, “we can’t do investigation, so we don’t have evidence, but our strong impression is that she must have taken bribes.”
“If there were hard evidence,” he continued, “Madison would have been in jail already. There wouldn’t be any need for recall.”
Dr. Patrick Phu Le also brought up an interesting point of strategy in the whole recall campaign: If the organizers can gather signatures of 12% of the registered voters (around 3,200 signatures), there will be a recall election.
When that happens, Le explained, the recall proponents count on other candidates to run as her replacement, and their supporters will vote “yes” on recall — “otherwise there would be no point in voting for the candidate now is there?” The strategy, therefore, is just to get the issue on the ballot and then the “yes” vote would just take care of itself.
That may be the ultimate reason why Madison’s detractors are trying for a recall rather than wait until her term is up in 2010. To defeat Madison in a regular election, they would have to run a candidate who gets more votes than her. To defeat Madison in a recall election, all they need to do is to attract enough interest from many candidates, whose collective support adds up to more than 50% regardless of how much support each candidate gets. Much easier.
Now, if the real reason for the recall is a suspicion or impression or whatever you call it that Madison is taking bribes, where does the whole “commie” thing come from? How is Madison a “commie”?
Ah, for that we have to go back to when Lap Tang couldn’t get the name he wanted, “Vietnamtown.”
Le told the Bolsavik, “Lap Tang has a lot of silent partners investing in his projects, including the Vallco Shopping Center in Cupertino. These investors are pro-communist, they think ‘Little Saigon’ is too anti-communist, so they told Lap Tang they wouldn’t put money in if the area is named Little Saigon.”
Ah well, now that makes sense. Secret communist silent partners. Why didn’t I figure it out, said the Bolsavik to himself as he slapped his own face silly.
Bolsavik,
Thanks for a good report. As I mentioned before, I oppose the recall of Madison Nguyen, even though I have some questions about the way she handled the whole controversy. However, I think there’s more to the story than what’s been reported on your blog (prior to this entry) and elsewhere, so there needs to be a journalistic, non-partisan investigation into the whole thing, just to clear things up. I would be surprised if this was the first time you know about this Lap Tang angle? I haven’t followed this story that closely, but a few related articles by Bui Van Phu on talawas have been helpful. You probably know of Bui Van Phu, who (I presume you’d agree with me) is no Ngo Ky. Here’s one of this articles which mentions Lap Tang:
http://www.talawas.org/talaDB/suche.php?res=12479&rb=0506
Accusation without evidence! This is exactly what Viet Cong have been doing. Wake up, this is USA, not Vietnam!
A holder of PhD in Chemistry from UCSD should be able to understand that rumors, impressions, suspicions, speculations, etc., should not be treated as facts! What a waste of mind!
We need to recall all the Trannies.
Bolsavik,
Your report makes sense to me. Let me ask Tien Huynh a question about whom is Madison represents for? If you say the Vietnamese people. So why she did not agree with them about the Little Saigon name instead of the Vietnamtown or SBD? Do attorneys always have evidence or just logical thinking to solve the case?
To me Madison is representing her special interest instead of the benefit of the Vietnamese community. Another the words she got her spot by the help of the SJ Vietnamese people, but she is representing the VC parties.
Don’t criticize the Chemistry PHD to understand your childes thinking. Even the 7 years old kid would suspecting the reason why the community trying to recall that bastard. Are you the decedent of the 5 C Tien Huynh ? What is 5 C? The answer is ” Con, Chau, Cac, Cu, Ca “. Feed yourself with more Bo Sua then go back to enlighten the VC parties how to be a better lobbyist party instead of the low class corruption party.
In order to claim something happened, a well educated person would try to find either direct evidence or circumstantial evidence to support his/her claim. But many moronic people would simply guess and then conveniently declare facts have been found. Unfortunately, those morons happen to speak Vietnamese and claim they are Vietnamese. They have been disgracing the Vietnamese communities from West to East, from North to South, all over the world. And there is a low life moron in this forum as circumstantially evidenced by his own lowly writing!
It’s a little fishy that Mr. Patrick Le works for a construction firm himself. What is his interest in this??? One has to ask…
One more thing, unless Madison is the grand-daughter of Joseph Stalin, lets refrain from calling her a Communist. Otherwise, it just becomes a political witch-hunt. I like to believe we Vietnamese are above that.
Madison Nguyen & Chuck Reed wasted san jose money.
They both need to recall
Madison is a itchBay! Recall the weakest S**t now…
Judgment day has comes for San Jose councilwoman Madison Nguyen.
for anyone who said to recall this woman, you are either one of these followings:
1) Uneducated – most likely, because someone who has been properly educated would actually see a bigger picture than a stupid mother fucking name for a shit shopping center that no one gives a shit in the first place.
2) Derranged – you should be put in a house where you are to be shunned from society, in fact, the right question to ask you waste of lives now is: Why are you still breathing? Because I don’t think you should
3) Ill-informed – Get down and do some research before you have the balls to call someone out, or make false accusation. And to you who only act on impulse and wave your “Yes on Recall” flag without a brain of your own, you are even worst than those that are illiterate, because that’s bottom line retardation.
4) Full of shit – If you think you can do this job she does, and has the brain capacity to think for the rest of the other monkeys, then speak up, if not, shut the fuck up. To all the Vietnamese Veterans, Self-Proclaimed all high and mighties who has nothing better to do, why don’t you just be like milk and expired. You are a waste of space and didn’t realized what you have done, even though now that she has won. There won’t be another Vietnamese Candidates to run on any political positions for other minorities and races are going to have to reconsider, if this is the thing with Vietnamese living in the US. Protest and having their thumbs up their ass.
Grow up. For those that are over 50+ and still can’t get your ass out of your head, You’re old, be glad to have another 10-20 years of breathing and fucking chill.