The Sentiment Against Madison Nguyen

To really understand Madison Nguyen and the sentiment of the people in District 7, one must go back to late 2006 where there was a huge banner in front of the American GI Forum headquarters on Story Road declaring " Recall Madison Nguyen. She does not represent the Mexican-American Community".

The American GI Forum has been an important instution of the Mexican-Americans in San jose for the last 45 years advocating for Mexican-American war veterans and their families. In voting against AGI's request for rezoning to allow for entertainment use their assembly hall to generate more revenue, Nguyen forced AGI almost into bankruptcy. They were forced to sell their facility in order to pay off debts. Abel Cota, the former executive diretor of AGI Forum said:"I don't know if this is a pay- back for me supporting her opponent, Linda Nguyen, or not but it was bad governance for somebody who just got elected and really did not understand the issue and basically bankrupted a nonprofit foundation."

But what made the story more interesting was from the buyer of the AGI 's assembly hall, Loannie Lam. A week before closing, she received an unsolicited call from Nguyen. The councilwoman asked her tersely:"Why are you buying the property? This is overprice. You should look at Vietnam Town." Vividly upset, Loannie told Madison Nguyen:" I don't know you and it is none of your business."

Now after spending almost $100,000 to fend off the signature drive for her recall, her consolation price is 8 verified signatures out of the 147 signatures submitted by her campaign to the City Clerk to oppose the recall. The recall team meanwhile spent half the money and gathered over 7,000 signatures and submitted 5,181. Out of that less than 4% were rejected.

Madison Nguyen simply does not get it. It is not only the Vietnamese-American voters, the same voters that brought her into office but also the Hispanics and Whites that could not stand her. If she had walked the precinct, she could see that 6 out of 10 people wanted her to step down to save the city the embarrassment.

She represents so far in the last 3 years the interest of the wealthy and politically powerful people like Tang Lap, a very rich and yet very thrifty real estate developer.

It was her decision to exclude the community from the naming process and had a behind the scene deal with Tang Lap to name the strip according to his wish that got her into trouble. But what made the matter worse, instead of owning up to it, she denied and lied and then stonewalled the whole process.

At a recent two day fund raising event for the Recall of Madison Nguyen, there were over 1,000 people attended. Her well publicized fund raising event on December 17 at the one start Motif Night Club, 50 people attended and they all were from the press, city staff and city council members.

Her tired argument against the recall process is that it is very very costly so we should not go forward with it. Well, Madison Nguyen in case you have not heard, the people have spoken. The recall ballot is on because the people have exercised their democratic right. This election is about Madison Nguyen's ethics or lack of and about her representation of not the people of District 7 but only to the powerful and wealthy lobbyists, developers and Labor Union.

Her argument of touting how she has created thousands of jobs and build thousands of homes for the people of District 7 are laughable since all programs are part of San Jose Redevelopment Ageny plan as well as state and county plans before she took office.

The record that she does not want to emphasize right now is rising crime rate in her district for the last 3 years.

What is so sad for Madison Nguyen and a lot of people do feel sorry for her at the moment for this is classic case of the " Empress wears no cloth". Behind her back, the vice mayor to be Judy Chirco, councilmembers Nancy Pyle, Sam Liccardo and Ash Karla are shaking their heads and could not fanthom the arrogance and self delusion Madison Nguyen has of herself.

Her supporters are on radio 24/7 attacking the recall team mercilessly. They questioned the 5,000 signatures by claiming that only 1,000 signatures were from the Vietnamese-American community. The point Nguyen's campaign trying to make is why bringing outsiders into the community to bring down the community.

The Recall Team purposedly is making a point against Nguyen's claim of the "silent majority". Half of the signatures are from non Vietnamese-Americans. It is not that they could not get 5,000 Vietnamese-American signatures or more, they just wanted to see how the other communities see the issue and their sentiment toward Madison Nguyen.

The unequivocally sentiment is "RECALL MADISON NGUYEN" because "DISTRICT 7 WANTS AN ETHICAL REPRESENTATIVE THAT REPRESENTS THE PEOPLE AND NOT SPECIAL INTERESTS"