These five candidates want the District 1 OC Board of Supervisors seat

Orange County residents are guaranteed one new face on the OC Board of Supervisors, with First District Supervisor Andrew Do termed out and unable to seek reelection.

Five candidates, all with past experience in civic leadership, are looking to grab the First District seat, which represents Huntington Beach, Westminster, Fountain Valley and parts of Garden Grove on the board. Ballots in March’s primary election should start arriving in the mailboxes of registered voters this week.

Qualifying for the ballot are Westminster Councilmember Kimberly Ho; Cypress Councilmember Frances Marquez; state Sen. Janet Nguyen; Van Tran, who is currently serving as Do’s chief of staff; and business owner Michael Vo. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the top two proceed to a November runoff.

Read more: Follow the links on each candidate name to see how they responded to our 2024 voter guide questions, and check out the entire guide here. 

The five-member Board of Supervisors sets policy and direction and oversees the county’s $9.3 billion budget, 18,000 employees and various departments including animal care, landfills, public works, social services and public health.

The candidates have all said they want to prioritize issues around government transparency, homelessness and public safety, but they have different opinions on how exactly those should be addressed.

Vo said affordable housing is not being built at the rate Orange County families need it, and more housing is the start to ending homelessness.

“People have blatantly told me that, if you give homeless people a house, that doesn’t solve anything; there are people fixated on that. But I look at them and I tell them that obviously housing is not the answer – it is a start. We have to start somewhere,” said Vo, who has previously served on the Fountain Valley City Council. “A homeless person wants a roof over their head, and a key, and they can come and go anytime they want. They have a sense of security.”

And once they have that sense of security, he said support groups and programs can then “befriend them, get to know them and nurture them back into society.”

Ho has served on the Westminster City Council since 2016 and thinks of herself as a “problem solver,” saying she can see herself making a difference in the homelessness crisis by finding solutions at the county and city levels. She agrees with county spending on programs such as Be Well OC, which sends out street teams and is building wellness campuses with mental health and treatment services brought together in-house, but said she disagrees with the pressure put on cities to provide homeless shelter beds without financial support.

“We need funding and we need a fresh pair of eyes and experienced people to be on the Board of Supervisors in order to solve the problem,” she said. “Also, we need to give the local municipalities funds. I don’t know exactly what amount that would be to solve that problem, but it isn’t fair for cities to take out of their coffers to do that.”

Also, residents in Orange County don’t feel safe, Vo said. He wants to improve public safety by creating a task force dedicated to targeting smash-and-grab and home burglary crimes.

“A group of five, 10 people are just coming into an establishment and put things in their backpack and running away,” he said. “It’s come here to Orange County. It’s happened right here in Costa Mesa, in South Coast Plaza. And people are afraid, people feel insecure in their own county.

“By forming a task force, they are multi-agency, they can go into different cities, they can investigate without going through the red tape,” he said. “If anyone thinks of coming to Orange County and robbing our residents here, they will think twice because we will go after them with many measures that the county has, and we are willing to go all the way to bring safety to the public.”

Tran said he wants to give departments such as the District Attorney’s Office and OC Sheriff’s Department more tools and resources to improve public safety.

“Given what’s going on in Sacramento, legislation being passed and signed off by the governor has really increased the crime rate, both in terms of the release of these criminals or defendants from jail early and also the lesser, or the reduction, of sentencing and punishment on many of these types of crimes, that would allow or incentivize criminals to commit these crimes. We need to talk about that directly,” Tran said. “And law enforcement personnel must have the necessary resources to handle this.”

Tran, who also serves as a director with the Orange County Water District, said he would also like to see a stricter policy or agreement between the OC Sheriff’s Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, when it comes to the sharing of information regarding undocumented immigrants. Tran said although the Board of Supervisors does not have direct jurisdiction over this issue, he would would like to see the board engage more in the dialogue.

Transparency is another issue several candidates spoke to, and something Do has been criticized over in recent months.

There have been recent reports that Do voted with other supervisors in the last two years on subcontracts with a nonprofit for mental health services worth up to $3.1 million without publicly disclosing that his daughter was part of the organization’s leadership. He also directed an additional $6.2 million to the nonprofit from his district discretionary funds, which can be disbursed without a public meeting. County policy currently follows state policy in requiring disclosure when a minor child benefits, but an adult child is not mentioned. Do’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Tran said voters should not equate him with his employer.

“I find trying to tie me with Supervisor Do very offensive. I came into the office to basically change and help the office operate better, at many levels,” said Tran, who became Do’s chief of staff in August 2022. He has been endorsed by Do. “Many of the issues that his opponents are bringing up or accusing him of are beyond my times, nor do I have any knowledge of.”

If elected, Tran said he would want to work with other members of the board to revisit transparency and accountability policies – supervisors have split on recent proposals to broaden the conflict of interest disclosure policy and make changes in the discretionary fund system. In terms of how his office would work to be more transparent, Tran said accessibility is key.

“There is a community service center, Orange County Community Service Center in the city of Westminster… It’s centrally located and it’s very accessible by all residents within the district. I’d like to spend a little time every week there to meet with constituents and residents who have issues and problems,” Tran said. “Accessibility goes a long way, not only as a person or as an elected official or policy maker, but also accessibility in terms of policy, policy issues and explaining what we are doing as a county.”

Nguyen, who previously served as a supervisor between 2007 and 2014 and in the past was considered a mentor to Do, said he has strayed far away from the public official she knew him to be. She said she is “deeply disturbed” by the “reports of self-dealing” and lack of transparency from his office.

“Andrew Do was once a member of my staff, but he changed once he was elected and he and I parted ways years ago,” Nguyen said, adding that on Day 1 she wants to ask for a complete audit of county spending.

“I have experience from the state, from city, county, state. With that experience, I can restore good governance back to the county. The county isn’t upholding its duty to our taxpayers. And so, we need to get back on track to helping and improving the quality of life, ensuring effective county services,” Nguyen said. “When you have someone who is a former supervisor, I can come in there on day one and get to work. I don’t have to learn. I don’t have to introduce myself and understand each department. I’ve been there, I’ve done it.”

Marquez was elected to the Cypress City Council in 2020 and is an associate professor of government at Gallaudet University. When tackling the question of transparency, she said she wants to create guidelines that will help rebuild the public’s trust in their local government.

“I want to recommend that the Board of Supervisors have an Office of Contract Compliance with a contract compliance officer, and this person will be tasked with vetting nonprofits and businesses applying for funding from the county,” Marquez said. “I want the board members to sign conflict of interest forms as well. And any nonprofit or contractor doing business with the county and anyone in a position to evaluate, approve or vote on any contracts should also be required to sign a conflict of interest form.”

Nguyen has expressed frustrations with the current board when it comes to how the OC Animal Care shelter in Tustin has been overseen – there has been a campaign by some rescue groups and advocates for more unrestricted access to animals in the shelter’s kennels and complaints with policies over when cats are taken in and how animal behavior is judged.

“The animal shelter has been shut down since COVID, and there’s been a grand jury report that came out that seriously showed the issues at the shelter,” Nguyen said, adding that seeing animals rescued should be a top priority. “We have a high rate of euthanasia. Our adoption rate is very low. Our return rate of adoption, I was told, is 40% at minimum. The board needs to be interested in all the departments. There needs to be oversight of every aspect, in every department. And that’s not what you see at the animal shelter.”

Nguyen said she wants to look at how other shelters operate, such as the San Clemente/Dana Point Animal Shelter for example, where she said adoption rates are high and there is a no-euthanasia policy.

Marquez also wants to look at other shelters for better ways the county facility may be able to run, resulting in better care and adoption outcomes for animals, she said. Like Nguyen, she would like to see more public hours, but also wants to see a “consumer-focused” approach, meaning more advertisements and public outreach to get animals adopted.

Ho pointed to the Westminster Adoption Group and Services, or WAGS, group the city of Westminster uses for shelter and adoption services, where she said city officials have dedicated funds to ensure that all pets are well taken care of. The shelter tries to avoid euthanasia at all cost, according to its website.

“We need to advertise, let it be known. I think we just need to let the community know and inform them that there are pets to be adopted before they go to purchase a pet,” Ho said. “I do not want to see pets get put down, especially ones that people maybe just don’t know of.”

The Registrar of Voters is mailing ballots out to registered voters this week. The first vote centers will open on Feb. 24 and more will open as election day on March 5 draws nearer. For more information visit ocvote.gov.