The Orange County Board of Supervisors faces major challenges the next several years, especially on homelessness and fiscal matters.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s January budget proposal for fiscal year 2024-25, which begins on July 1, statewide would cut $1.2 billion from homeless programs and $2.9 billion from climate programs, among other reductions and delays. The board will be wrestling with other counties to get its fair share of these and other funds.
We believe Janet Nguyen is the best candidate to put on the board. Currently a state senator who previously served on the board and in the Assembly, she is well-suited to lead the county through these and other challenges. Most importantly, she brings to the table substantive ideas on how to best govern the county.
At the outset, Nguyen vows to push for greater transparency on county spending, including opening up for audit and review past county spending, with more information readily available to the public so they can determine the appropriateness of how county supervisors are spending their money.
She called for a tighter watch on how money intended to address homelessness is spent, always with the aim of ensuring the goal of effectively getting people off the streets and on the right track is achieved. “With all due respect to the nonprofits, and they do a phenomenal job, but we’re not here to keep them afloat,” she said. “We’re here to solve problems.”
She also has been a major force in pushing Orange County Animal Care to allow visitors to the kennels unescorted to search for lost pets. The policy was instituted during the pandemic and should have been rescinded long ago. On Jan. 1 the Register published an op-ed by her condemning the way the county has done things, calling the shelter a “disaster.” Her op-ed was widely read and spurred much discussion. The shelter relented and began allowing visits on Jan. 17.
Among Nguyen’s opponents in this race is Van Tran, who previously served in the Assembly. A big concern of ours is his current position as chief-of-staff to Andrew Do, the current District 1 supervisor, who is leaving due to term limits. Do’s ethical problems, including failing to disclose he voted to give millions to a nonprofit headed by his daughter, led us to call for him to resign. More than once, actually.
“Andrew and I, actually, don’t even work together,” Tran explained to us. “And we’re actually in opposition with each other politically.” Yes, if that explanation sounds odd to you, it sounds odd to us, too. He added, “But I can tell you personally, throughout my public life, there has never been an issue or complaint about me.”
That may be true, but the dark cloud around Andrew Do obviously lingers around his chief-of-staff too. Separately, we are not impressed with Tran’s top campaign issue on his website being immigration and a vow to “prioritize securing the border,” which he acknowledged he can’t actually do as a county supervisor. This might be red meat for conservative voters, but highlighting it in a supervisor race comes across as cheap pandering.
Also running is Frances Marquez, a Cypress councilmember, associate professor of government and former legislative director for now-retired Rep. Alan Lowenthal. Although this is a nonpartisan post, she is a Democrat, while Nguyen and Tran are Republicans. While we appreciate Marquez’s vow to root out corruption in county government, beyond that issue she gave us little reason to think she’d be a particularly effective county supervisor.
When asked multiple times in our interview about how she proposed to pay for her proposals, her go-to answer was that she’d ask the federal government for money. Other times, she said she didn’t know exactly what she’d do until she got elected.
Given the options, it’s not a difficult decision to make. Elect Janet Nguyen to serve as First District supervisor.
