* City Council of Westminster

With Kermit Marsh not running, the path is clear for Assemblyman Van Tran‘s staffer Truong Diep to run for the open seat. Tammy Tran, Senator Lou Correa‘s district director, pulled papers, but did not file. It is expected that Diep will win this one.

* City Council of Garden Grove

There are two seats and nine are vying for it. Three Vietnamese are in the running: T. Linh Ho, Trung Nguyen and Andrew Do.

Ho is a former student activist, very well known among young Vietnamese-Americans, but is a new name outside that demographic. Trung Nguyen is currently on the Garden Grove School Board and has been drumming up support by protesting against anything he can find. Andrew Do is OC Supervisor Janet Nguyen‘s chief of staff. The rumors about Do’s war chest are awashed with numbers so high it’s not believable.

* City Council of Stanton

There’s a Viet among the five candidates running for two seats, including both incumbents. His name is Alex Lam.

* Westminster School District

The district has two incumbents, both running again. Four Viets are challenging the incumbents for the seats: Ethan Nguyen, Nghia Nguyen, Linh Nguyen and Frank Tran.

Frank Tran (web site here) ran in 2006 as a write-in candidate. Ethan Nguyen is a Golden West College student who just received an OCAPICA scholarship to attend UCLA next year.

Linh Nguyen has dropped out of this race, but his name will continue to be on the ballot.

Talking to the Bolsavik on the telephone, the former right-hand man for then-Assembly candidate Van Tran and current sales manager at Nguoi Viet Daily News explained why: “I just took this job at Nguoi Viet, and the project I’m in charge of – the Nguoi Viet yellow pages – will be coming to a peak at the same time as the elections, so I don’t think I will have the time to commit to both. The paper also thinks it would be a conflict of interest for me to run, so I’m dropping out.”

* Garden Grove School District

With Trung Nguyen not running, there’s an open seat in addition to the two incumbencies. Incumbent Dr. Kim-Oanh NguyenLam is running, and she’s expected to win. Also running is John Chuong Nguyen, a telecommunications engineer who also ran in 2006.

Back then, Lan Quoc Nguyen worked hard to help incumbent Bob Harden beat back John Chuong Nguyen’s challenge. This time, Lan is already campaigning on behalf of candidate George West, again trying to beat back John Chuong Nguyen. The Bolsavik has no idea what Lan has against John Chuong; John Chuong has nothing against the Trannies that the Bolsavik knows of.

* Rancho Santiago Community College District, Area 1

Nam M. Pham, a Santa Ana Library Board member, is running for 1 of 3 seats. Two of the incumbents are running, the third filed papers but withdrew.

* Mr. Two-Seater

Trannie Joseph Dovinh is running for two positions, both seemingly under the radar: Coast Community College District, Area 2; and Midway City Sanitary District.

In the Coast College District, though, Dovinh would be taking on Jerry Patterson, a former U.S. Congressman, predecessor of Bob Dornan. Maybe some seats are not as far under the radar as Dovinh thought.

* Taking a page from Long Pham and aiming for an elective office not a lot of people pay attention to, Trannie Joseph Dovinh is running for the Coast Community College District Board. In fact, he’s running for two such offices, concurrently campaigning for the Midway City Sanitary District. Dovinh is currently an editor of Viet Star, where Dina Nguyen is also a contributor-slash-editor.

Previously, Dovinh was best known as a writer for Viet Weekly (you know, the commie mag that incurred protests for a year) specializing in the paranormal such as haunted houses, haunted street corners, exorcism, feng shui, etc.

* In Westminster, incumbent Kermit Marsh is not running, choosing instead to concentrate on his judgeship race, which a lot of people don’t believe he’d win. It is believed that the Trannies encouraged this, as it leaves the door open for Van Tran‘s staff member Truong Diep to run for the open seat.

The coast, however, is not clear. Friday afternoon Tammy T. Tran and Phu Nguyen were was seen taking out papers for the Westminster City Council. They have until Wednesday to file them. (Phu was there but he didn’t pull papers.)

* Garden Grove School Board incumbent Mr. Let’s-Protest-Against-A-Macys-Belt-Buckle Trung Nguyen (pictured) is not running again, instead going for the Garden Grove City Council. Also running for that council seat is Andrew Do, the chief of staff for OC Supervisor Janet Nguyen.

In the June campaign, Trung and Andrew each spent considerable amount of time on the radio accusing the other’s boss of chumming with communists.

* In the Westminster School District, former write-in candidate Frank Tran is running again. Tran is a civil engineer with interest in special education. Last time, as a write-in candidate, Tran garnered 1612 votes, taking 3% in a field of 10.

* Linh Nguyen is running in that same school district. Linh is a former right-hand man for then-Assembly candidate Van Tran, and used to be seen all over town with Dina Nguyen. He’s involved in numerous community activities including Vietnamese-language schools and also is on the Board of OC Red Cross. Linh is currently Nguoi Viet Daily News’ sales manager.

BTW, Dina’s Vietnamese name is also Linh. ”Linh” is just one of a vast number of unisex Vietnamese first names.

Anyway, so let’s clarify this and avoid any confusion:

* Before meeting with Dina, the Bolsavik had heard from at least one person (and a few others who heard from that same person) blaming Linh Nguyen for the romance talk.

* Going into the interview, and given that background and who those people are, the Bolsavik already knew before asking Dina about Linh Nguyen, what her answer would be.

* But the Bolsavik doesn’t really care about any romance between Dina and Andy. They’re grown up. Neither’s married. They can have any kind of relationship they want, romantic or platonic. So the point was about the rumors (or rather, rumors about rumors, sort of meta-rumors) and the reactions to them, not about the relationship itself.

* Linh Nguyen said he did not start those rumors.

So there.

And the Bolsavik apologizes to Linh Nguyen for the potentially misleading sentence.

For a publication that’s supposedly marginalized and eliminated from the community, Viet Weekly seems to still have a lot of readers and sure can still make some strange waves….