Keith Khoa Nguyen and Scott Hung Pham both Resigned

In a strange coincidental set of circumstances, Keith Khoa Nguyen and Scott Hung Pham both resigned recently from their respective school boards.   Nguyen resigned last month from Franklin Mckinley School District while Pham did the same with Alum Rock Union School District in early August.  Both were elected in 2010.  

Betty Duong, a one time aide to former Assemblyman Joe Coto, was lobbying hard for the appointment but the board chose a Hispanic candidate instead  despite the fact that school district has 25% Vietnamese-American students.

Keith Khoa Nguyen also left his position as policy analyst for Mayor Chuck Reed earlier this year.  Nguyen decided to leave politics for now is a suprise since he had talked about running for District 7 city council  in 2014.

While the dust has not settled at all for the 2012 election cycle, the conventional wisdom has it that the policeman Tam Truong is planning his next political move in District 7 to replace his close friend Madison Nguyen in 2014.   It is widely expected that Madison Nguyen will be running for mayor against Dave Cortese and perhaps Sam Liccardo. 

Truong has the look and credential to be the next city councilmember.

Truong's plan is no comfort to Cam Van Le, trustee of East Side Unified School District.  Recently, she has aksed her friend and real estate agent, Amy Duong, to help her look for a house in District 7.   Le has been thinking aloud about her next political career move.   However, being quite cautious by nature,  Le has been asking everybody she could get a hold of about the latest rumors of who is running in District 7.  If there are more than two Vietnamese-American candidates running in District 7, she might set her sight for District 8 instead which is at least 4 years away. 

So where would somebody like Betty Duong fits in if she is thinking about a city council seat?   LSI would think District 4 is wide open for her since she does have the name recognition in the Vietnamese-American community as a lawyer as well as her charitable work.   

 

Agent Orange and Vietnam: 35 years later

http://youtu.be/kkbnFfldsOc

Jimmy Nguyen vs Rose Herrera according to Mercury News

Mercury News editorial: Attacks on Rose Herrera are scarier than crime in San Jose

Mercury News Editorial

Posted: 10/03/2012 04:48:21 PM PDT

It's tempting to dismiss the cutthroat campaign against San Jose Councilwoman Rose Herrera in District 8 as business-as-usual politics. But when misleading information is presented in a sensational fashion by police officers, it's different.

The police union has a right to get involved in politics. But actions that might be all right for other unions are troubling for officers who need the public's trust to do the job. If Herrera loses this election, Evergreen and San Jose will lose. Regardless, the police union is losing something in this campaign.

The police union hates Herrera. There's no other way to put it. We hope voters see through the scare tactics that imply she is single-handedly to blame for the uptick in crime, particularly burglaries, in San Jose. The fact that burglaries are up everywhere along the Highway 101 corridor -- even in Palo Alto -- has not yet been laid at Herrera's door, but give it time.

Herrera is flustered by the attacks, which say she "rolled out the red carpet for criminals," and she isn't always as clear as she should be when discussing statistics. She and a majority of council members are doing the right thing, even though, in her case, it may not be politically expedient. Herrera is a key vote for responsible budgets and public safety policies.

For example, if the city had not negotiated a 10 percent pay cut for police -- money the officers now want back -- the force would have been cut to 950 back in 2011. Today there are still 1,054 officers on the job, and the city is hiring to get back to the authorized level of 1,100. That's not enough, but prudent budgeting supported by Herrera has kept it from being worse.

A favorite theme of the police is hammering Herrera for voting against increased staffing in the police burglary unit. But police Chief Chris Moore and his assistant strongly opposed this, arguing that it would take officers off patrol and was not the best use of manpower. Evergreen and San Jose need a council member smart enough to know when to listen to the experts and strong enough to vote in the public interest even when she knows it will be used against her.

Perhaps most disingenuous, the officers are holding meetings in Evergreen ostensibly to help people guard against crime, when the sessions are part of their campaign strategy. One was scheduled the same night as a City Council study session on police staffing. They are also blocking Chief Chris Moore, who is retiring in January, from having civilian investigators do background checks on new recruits, which would free up 17 officers for patrol.

Herrera has been critical to the single most important step to balance the city budget and rebuild the police force: She has supported pension reform -- and so has District 8, where more than 70 percent of voters approved Measure B in June. The police budget is ballooning largely because of retirement costs, which shot up from $150 million to $245 million in just the past few years.

Voters who feel themselves swayed by those scary mailers need to look a little deeper.

Read the Full Article Here

Unofficial Poll for Jimmy Nguyen and Rose Herrera

LSI asked Asian American Poll Media, LLC to do an unofficial poll for the exciting  San Jose District 8 city council race.  

The conventional wisdom indicates that this will be a close race despite Jimmy Nguyen, a relatively unknown and inexperience candidate, running against an incumbent that is mostly staying out of trouble ever since she was elected 4 years ago. 

The reason is mostly personal vendetta from labor unions and Supervisor Dave Cortese against Rose Herrera for she is taking a pension reform position aligning with Mayor Chuck Reed.   Of course, Cortese and Reed are fierce political enemies since 2006 mayoral election.

The survey was done with 235 likely voters with an error of  +/-  4%.  Voters were selected across the diverse ethnic groups that made up the electorate of District 8.    According to poll taken for the week of Sept 25 - Sept 29,   50% will most likely vote for Herrera, 42% for Nguyen, and 8% undecided.

From the poll,  it will be a closely contested race with Jimmy Nguyen running against pension reform.  He changed his postion after the primary so that he could get the money and support from Labor.  Nguyen also enjoys an overwhelming support of the Vietnamese-American community, especially from Ly Tong and the anti-communist activists that caused such commotion with their Little Saigon fight a few years ago.  

Herrera on the other hand is enjoying the support of Reed and Chamber of Commerce with her staunch stand on pension reform and fiscal responsibility.  At the end of the day, will Herrera be defeated for she is vulnerable with her second rate temperament