Elected to the city council on the same election that voted out John Tran, 33 (pictured), was another Viet, Steven Ly, 24.

Tran’s frequent adversary on the city council is former Mayor Margaret Clark. Steven Ly (like the Bolsavik a Bruin) is an ally of Clark’s and campaigned pretty much on her slate.

On election night March 3, with three seats available, Tran found himself in fourth place, behind by 30 votes. Ly was second. The third place finisher ahead of Tran was Sandra Armenta.

Tran paid for a hand recount and gained 25 votes.

He then went to court to seek to count 112 absentee ballots that had been disqualified because the signatures on the ballot were different from the signatures on file. Tran was represented by the same lawyer who worked the OC Supervisor recount. More on this later.

After the recount and while the lawsuit was pending, the council seated Clark, Ly and Armenta. The same day the new councilmembers were sworn in, they voted to halt all approvals of mixed-used development – a key Tran initiative as councilmember.

And then, in an action worthy of any good Hong Kong flick, they fired the City Manager.

The judge eventually decided to review 31 of the 112 ballots.

Upon review the judge counted 4 of them. All 4 went for Tran, but that still left him 1 vote short.

Tran then conceded. “I didn’t want to drag this out,” Tran told the L.A. Times. “If I continued pursuing this, I would further divide the city. I did the best I could.”

Tran was swept into office in 2005 on an anti-Wal-Mart platform, promising to rescind the City Council’s development agreement with Wal-Mart to open a 24-hour Supercenter in Rosemead.

Tran and his allies were able to collect enough signature to force the council to either rescind the joint development agreement with Wal-Mart, or put it on the ballot.

The measure’s wording, however, did not call for an outright cancellation of the project.

Wal-Mart jumped on the loop-hole and asked the City Council to repeal the agreement, which they did and which actually allowed the company to speed up construction, unencumbered by the terms of the development agreement, reports the L.A. Times here.

The Wal-Mart 24-hour Supercenter was eventually built on Walnut Grove Avenue. Clark, Armenta and Ly (pictured center, with Clark) are all supporters of the Wal-Mart project.

Councilman John Nunez, who had been elected with Tran on the anti-Wal-Mart platform, also lost his seat.

In the L.A. Times interview, Tran said he has a large base of support in the Asian immigrant community. “They tend to forget to vote or think it doesn’t matter,” Tran said. “I talked to a lot of people who said, ‘I thought you had it in the bag.’ ”

Oh come on! Don’t blame the voters! Where was Tran’s GOTV efforts? Or did someone think he had it in the bag too and did not spend resources on getting out the vote?

This is at least the second recount fight that Tran’s lawyer lost. Previously, Steve Baric had represented Trung Nguyen in his recount fight in the Orange County Supervisorial election and lost that one too.