Hoa Van Tran was one of 3 candidates, all Vietnamese-American, fighting for the seat of OC Supervisor, 1st district, in 2008. The other two are the incumbent Janet Nguyen and Garden Grove Council Member Dina Nguyen.

The treasurer for Tran’s campaign is his boss at his day job, lawyer Phu Do Nguyen. Both Tran and Phu Do Nguyen may be subject to a $2000 fine by the Fair Political Practices Commission when they meet next week on May 13.

Reached at Phu Do Nguyen’s law office, where he works, Tran told Nguoi Viet reporter (the Bolsavik in his day job): “There’s nothing to comment, really, it’s just a mistake in the paperwork.”

The unreported campaign expenditures consist of 13 items, totaling $18,012 and amounting to 94% of the spending in the period of January 1 to March 17, 2008.

The Bolsavik has said it before, and will now say it again: Just as you shouldn’t date where you work, you also shouldn’t let your boss at work be a staff member on your campaign.

The three-way race ended with Janet Nguyen getting reelected with 55.4% of the vote, Dina Nguyen 28.2%, and Hoa Van Tran 16.2%.

A Democrat, Tran had planned to force a runoff provided that the two Nguyens would split the GOP vote.

Former OC supervisorial candidate Hoa Van Tran‘s financial disclosures sill have not figured out that there’s a problem with all the money and noncash contributions they get from VHN-TV.

Let’s go through this one slowly.

VHN-TV is also known as Viet Hai Ngoai TV. (“Hai Ngoai” means abroad, and there’s also a “Viet Abroad TV” but that’s not the same one.)

In Hoa’s reports for the period March 18 to May 17 — both the original and the amended — VHN is shown to have contributed a total of $2,600:

On page 5 (of the amended report here), there’s a monetary contribution of $1,000, received on May 7, 2008, from “Viet Hai Ngoai-Television, Corp.” (May 3 was the fundraiser for Hoa targeting Vietnamese, co-sponsored by Bruce Tran, the CEO of VHN-TV)

On page 19, there’s a non-monetary contribution of $1,600, received on March 31, 2008, from “VHN-TV.”

So, that’s a total of $2,600, a thousand above the legal limit.

In the latest disclosure here, covering the period from May 18 to June 30, VHN contributed again.

On page 9, there’s a non-monetary contribution from “Viet Hai Ngoai-Television, Corp” of $600, received on May 18, 2008.

So now the total is $3,200.

Everybody knows that calling the same entity by two different names doesn’t change the facts, right?

August 1 was the time to file. The reports by Janet Nguyen and Dina Nguyen are now online. Here and here. Hoa Van Tran‘s isn’t yet. The latest filing available for Hoa is a late contribution report dated June 2, 2008. <The Bolsavik’s mistake — the limit is $1,600 not $1,500.>

Dina showed no new contributions and some outstanding balance. Janet raked in another $10k after the last filing. The advantage of winning, probably.

But there’s something funny (funny funny, not funny hah-hah) in Janet’s filing.

On page 15, there’s a $162.61 payment to JohnsonClark Associates for “postage.”

Well, the funny part is, JCA is Dina‘s campaign consultant.

So the Bolsavik called Janet and asked.

Turns out, the treasurer that Janet has had since 2004 rents an office in JCA’s suite. He uses JCA’s mail room, so this is reimbursement to JCA for the postage cost.

California GOP politics is such a small world…

The TRO against Edgardo Reynoso (pictured) resulted from an accusation that he tried to run former campaign staffer Courtney Rychel off the freeway (read here).

It had been set to expire at the hearing on a preliminary injunction this morning. However, Rychel asked for more time to hire a lawyer, and the court granted it.

As Misha Houser recounted to the Bolsavik, the attorney for Reynoso attempted to have the extension shortened. Thuy Nguyen of the law offices of Phu Do Nguyen (former campaign treasurer for Hoa) asked the court to shorten the extension because she would be on vacation on the first proposed date.

Instead, Commissioner Jane Myers asked Thuy Nguyen when she would be back from vacation, and lengthened the extension to after the attorney returned.

Houser is also a former campaign staffer who was quoted extensively in a Register story here about gang members in Hoa’s campaign office. She was then sued by Hoa for alleged breach of contract. After Rychel filed for the TRO, both Houser and Rychel were sued by Reynoso for defamation.

Now would be a really good time for Dina Nguyen and Hoa Van Tran to issue public statements congratulating Supervisor Janet Nguyen (pictured) for her well-earned electoral victory, and that Dina and Hoa are both open to help Janet with any issue that benefits the people of the First District.

And right after that would also be a good time for Janet Nguyen to issue a statement praising Dina and Hoa for being very tough and worthy adversaries and that Janet is looking forward to working with Dina and Hoa to make the First District a better place.

And then everyone should say this: “You know what, I didn’t mean it about you being a communist.”

Kumbaya.

This young man, whose name the Bolsavik failed to get (sorry!), showed off his athletic skills while watching the returns at Hoa Van Tran‘s campaign office on election night.

His enthusiasm does not reflect the low number Hoa was getting. The candidate was garnering around 15% of the votes and wasn’t even in the office when the Bolsavik got there, and neither was his boss Phu Do Nguyen. His campaign consultants Edgardo Reynoso and Kimchi Nguyen were there, though, as were a lot of supporters milling about on the balcony. Paul Lucas, a former Democratic candidate for Assembly and now a controversial figure among Democrats, was heading out just as the Bolsavik pulled in to the parking lot.

Things were a little livelier at Dina Nguyen‘s (pictured right) campaign headquarters, across the street from the Asian Garden Mall (“Phuoc Loc Tho”).

They had set up a wide screen in the hallway, and the results from the Registrar of Voters’ web site were projected from a laptop onto it. In the picture left, the person manning the laptop is the Trannies’ designated McCarthyite-in-chief Hung Phuong Nguyen.

The incumbent Supervisor Janet Nguyen, whose Garden Grove campaign office is way too small to hold any party, had her election night celebration at the Azteca restaurant across Main Street, as she had done for all previous elections.

Somebody brought some Vietnamese food, too. Many local politicians were at Janet’s party, and one Baron Night, RPOC central committee member and candidate for mayor of Buena Park, took the opportunity to work the room. Janet was enjoying a strong 57.2% lead (later reduced to 56.6%) and relief showed on her face.

In the picture below, that’s Janet Nguyen at the food table with Scott Weimer, her landlord and a member of the Downtown Business Association — the group battling the above-mentioned Hung Phuong Nguyen and other protesters against Viet Weekly for destroying their livelihood.

It’s easy to have fun when you’re winning, and Janet’s gathering was the only one that had any semblance of a party.

One Viet voter there, upon finding who the Bolsavik was, gave him a frank but polite criticism of his decision to print the controversial foot-spa picture. The man also said that he supported Janet Nguyen because he’s incensed at the way other candidates shaded the facts to falsely accuse other Vietnamese-Americans of being communists. Anti-communism, he said (ok, not in so many words, but the Bolsavik is paraphrasing), is serious business and shouldn’t be used for petty purposes.

Now, one of the women, Courtney Rychel, already has a lawsuit arising out of the same facts pending before the same court. So why didn’t Reynoso just file a cross-complaint in that lawsuit instead of filing a separate one? Who knows.

Rychel was a staff member in Hoa Tran’s campaign and is currently an intern in the offices of the Democratic Party of Orange County. The other defendant, Misha Houser, has accused Reynoso of various forms of harassment and physical threats.

Pedroza posted the PDF of the 13-page summons and complaint here. You can skip all the procedural stuff at the beginning and scroll to page 10 to read the claim.

Essentially Reynoso says he didn’t try to run Rychel off the freeway. He claims at that time he was in Hoa’s office making a phone call. Witnesses consist of his partner Kimchi Nguyen, the candidate Hoa Tran, and a third person. And presumably the other person on the line.

Reynoso’s lawsuit doesn’t invoke other statements made by Houser, viz. the gang members, the threats, the harassment, the firing of the Vietnamese campaign workers, etc.

Query: Assume Reynoso wins, when it comes time to calculate his damages, how will he separate out the damages caused by Rychel’s accusation, as opposed from damages to his reputation done by, well, himself? Recruiting gang members, making up statements by Santa Ana councilman, majorly screwing up financial disclosures, preventing the candidate from talking to the press, etc.?

Whatever happens, the several lawsuits will keep Reynoso’s boss — no, not Hoa Tran; Phu Do Nguyen, Esq. — occupied after the primary’s over.

Hoa Van Tran (above, with staffer Kimchi Nguyen to his left) got off scot-free tonight when the Democratic Part of Orange County’s central committee voted not to rescind its endorsement of the only Democratic supervisorial candidate.

The meeting took place at a union hall in Orange, and who sat in the corner of the parking lot checking people who enter it, but two policemen in a squad car. No doubt related to the temporary restraining order against Hoa’s campaign manager Edgardo Reynoso for trying to run a woman off the freeway.

The decision was arrived at after three votes on three alternative motions. The first motion sought to take the whole thing off agenda, and was voted down after a tie-break by the chair Frank Barbaro.

That the DPOC narrowly tried to stick its head in the sand reflected the difficult political position it found itself in, and was a good predictor of the votes that came next.

The second motion, an alternative made by Gila Jones, called for the endorsement to be rescinded. A number of people spoke pro and con, including Misha Houser the staffer accused (probably falsely, considering all the evidence) by former treasurer Phu Do Nguyen (he of the erroneous financial reporting, pictured with Hoa and Frank Barbaro) of various wrongdoings.

Hoa spoke too, but ran a wide circle around the issues at hand and merely repeated his campaign platform. He also demonstrated a love of the verb “to embrace” when he repeated several times, “I embrace everyone in my campaign,” “I embrace people of all races,” “I embrace immigrants,” etc.

On a direct question from the audience, Hoa disputed that he knowingly hired gang members, claiming that he wouldn’t know what the “young activists” that he brought in would do after they left the campaign office.

Asked what if anything Hoa Van Tran did after Misha Houser brought the harassment to his attention, Hoa refused to discuss personnel matter, but Phu took the podium and pretty much stated to everyone that he’s the boss, and that he didn’t believe Misha Houser.

However, the argument that apparently carried the day was that it would harm the Democratic Party if it was seen to be eating its own, especially a Vietnamese-American.

The motion to rescind the endorsement failed on a 28-17 vote.

From there, the DPOC central committee went to the original motion by Steve Young (pictured), candidate for U.S. Congress facing John Campbell in the Fall. That motion would not rescind the endorsement, but would require Hoa to demonstrate 4 items: (i) accurately and timely file financial reports; (ii) create unhostile environment and protect workers; (iii) not affiliate with known gang members; (iv) assert control of his campaign.

That soft-pedal motion was then further watered down by amendment, that would require those same 4 items of all candidates. Which means zip, zero, no action by DPOC addressed to Hoa Van Tran.

All in all a successful evening for Hoa. Now if he would take care of the problems with his financial disclosures.

How did this happen you may ask? Imagine yourself as the DPOC, five or ten years from now. Which question do you think is easier to answer, between ”Why did you not disassociate yourself from Hoa Van Tran” and “Why did you dump a Vietnamese candidate”?

It was a politically well-calculated move, that the DPOC just made.