A Defacto Influence

At the unfurling of Little Saigon banners last week, political pundits could see the who's who running for the election on November 4 and beyond.

There was the usual presence of Sunnyvale Councilmember Otto Lee and San Jose City Vice Mayor Dave Cortese. Of course they both are vying votes for the county supervisor race in District 3. Supervisor Pete McHugh was there with the announcement he is running for Milpitas city council. District 8 city council candidate Pat Waite was given a commendation by the Little Saigon Foundation for his monetary contribution and support of the Little Saigon cause. His opponent, Rose Herrera, wearing her Vietnamese traditional dress " Ao dai", was also given center stage. District 2 supervisor candidate Richard Hobbs was on hand to make sure that the people know his strong support of the Vietnamese-American community. His opponent George Shirakawa decided to take the stand against the community with Madison Nguyen. Milpitas Mayor Jose Esteve also made his usual appearance.

Mayor Chuck Reed sent out email to the foundation a week in advance and informed of his presence. Last minute phone call to Reed by his young Vietnamese-American aide, Khoa Nguyen, to warn him that the area was surrounded by recall banners and tables caused a change of heart. The story as told by Khoa Nguyen to the media was that Reed was halfway to the event and then he changed his mind because he did not want to be seen with the recall crowd.

Politics as Usual In San Jose

First it was the assistant city clerk, Dennis Hawkins, who made the comment while he was being interviewed by the press. The video tape appeared on the Internet video of Vietnam Daily newspaper. Hawkins declared as matter of fact: ".... the city is considering an all mail-in ballot for the Madison Nguyen recall initiative to save money..."

Then the city clerk, Lee Price herself, appeared onVietnam Liberty TV and reinterated the same position.

The community of course was very anxious and up in arm ready to protest against such voting limitation. The term disfranchisement was throwing around in the media and a civil rights lawyer was consulted. After all, more than 7,200 recall signatures were collected even thoug the community only submitted 5,181 signatures. They surely wanted to protect their civil rights granted by the constitution.

Madison Nguyen and Mayor Chuck Reed are well known for having political tin ear but not this time. Immediately they both appeared on Que Huong Radio and declared that they had heard unfơund rumors on the voting process. The city would not deny voters the right to go to the poll to vote.

It was a smart move for thus far a series of disastrous political miscalculations by Madison Nguyen. The fact is that the city has not been very fortunate when it comes to civil rigths matter. A recent civil rights lawsuit against the city in 2003 ended up costing the taxpayers $8.2 million in settlement and an embarrasing forced resignation of the city councilman of District 7. The irony here of course is that Madison Nguyen ended up as his replacement of District 7.

The whole community is waiting for the city to reach a decision on the supposedly Brown Act violation by Councilmembers Madison Nguyen and Forrest Williams. The city supposedly will submit to the judge on October 23 their response. The community meanwhile is pressing for a full trial.

Flag Raising on Vietnam's National Day

For the first time in the history of San Francisco City Hall, the official Vietnamese flag of a yellow star on a red background was hoisted in celebration of Vietnam's National Day of September 2.


The Consulate General Le quoc Hung and representatives of SF city government was on hand for the flag raising ceremony. There were about 3 dozen people present at the ceremony. At 9:30 AM, the flag was rasied from the second floor balcony looking down the main plaza. At the ceremony, Consulate General Hung was given a certificate of recognition from Mayor Newsom declaring September 2 is " Vietnamese National Heritage Day" in San Francisco.

On Thursday 9/28/2008, the general consulate had a reception at city hall to celebrate the National Day with Vietnamese-Americans in the Bay Area.

Now on the same day the flag was raised, a group of anti-communist Vietnamese-Americans found out about it and they formally demanded the removal of the flag with a protest letter. The meeting was held at 3:30 PM in the mayor's office and the flag was removed by 4:45 PM that afternoon.

The official city's policy only allows flag of another country to fly in front of city hall no more than 1 day, in this case as a courtesy of sister city friendship between Ho chi Minh City and San Francisco.

"Punch Them in the Face"

Little Saigon Inside received this in an email chain. It is a press release by South Bay Labor Council:

On Saturday, over 250 labor and community activists gathered at the South Bay Labor Council to hit the streets, letting residents of San Jose City Council District 7 know why the recall of Madison Nguyen should be rejected.

The volunteers knocked on thousands of doors, and discovered a simple fact: overwhelmingly, local residents think recalling Madison Nguyen is a bad idea. Emphasizing Nguyen's accomplishments in office, the volunteers covered every precinct in the Council District, talking to voters in English, Spanish and Vietnamese.

At the end of the day, well over 80% of respondents indicated they opposed a recall.

Labor Council Executive Officer Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins said: "To get so many volunteers out on a beautiful summer weekend demonstrates Madison's support in San Jose. And such a high percentage of opposition to the recall shows how deep her support is in the district she represents."

But the real buzz in the comunity was the quote from a woman who introduced herself as Mary, chief strategist for South Bay Labor (showed here in picture). When asked by the volunteers what to do when they come across the recall people, stragegist Mary replied without a blink:" You should punch them in the face."

There was a dead silence in the room. Noticing the Freudian slip, Lamkins took the microphone from Mary and tried to ease the tension: " She was just joking of course."

A Rendezvous with History

It was quite a week for politcs nationally and locally. Through their determinations, Obama and McCain have made remarkable history. Come February 2009, the country will have either a first African American president or a first woman vice president. Locally, in the same month, Madison Nguyen will either be the first elected Asian American in San Jose (if not California) to be recalled or to survive the recall.

Whatever the case may be, it is safe to say that democracy is healthy and well in the land of free and the home of the brave.

For Nguyen, it would be a bitter sweet ordeal. She is elected to serve the people and now the people have spoken demanding their lawful rights within the democratic process to ask her to step down. She has an army of high power consultants, the powerful Democratic Party, the ever vocal Labor, the mayor, city councilmembers and all the political machinery and lobbyist money to buy her case that she deserves to stay in office.

The people on the other hand are mostly blue collar and middle class voters who stronlgy feel through irrefutable evidences that she only represents the powerful status quo of lobbyists, developers and wealthy influential and powerful people of San Jose.

The people have the right to expect their elected officials to be honest and ethical. Nguyen lied to the people and violated Brown Act, the corner stone of ethical and fair government, to protect a behind the scene deal that she struck with a wealthy developer as a quid pro quo favor.

The people of San Jose deserve better than that. The San Jose voters have a proud history of speaking out with their votes against elected officials who are unethical and unfit for the job.

Fourteen years ago, Councilmember Kathy Coles was recalled for showing disrespect toward the Asian community. Appearantly, Nguyen doesn't recall much about history and heritage. She rhetorically asked the thousands of people supporting Little Saigon why they have so much free time on their hands vs. those that have real jobs.

She is about to have her rendezvous with history and the name Madison Nguyen will live forever in infamy, win or lose her recall election.

A Political Stunner

The Madison Nguyen Recall Team surprised everyone with their submission of 5181 signatures to the city clerk office this afternoon, two weeks before the deadline. This is 60% more than the required signatures to force a recall ballot iniative. City Clerk Lee Price officially accepted the signature packages on Friday 8/28/2008 at 1:52 PM.




The Recall Team said they actually gathered closer to 7,000 signatures. However, some of them could not be verified properly. With the team running on empty after a very long exhausting 10 weeks, they decided to have the cut off at 5181 signatures.

From her office looking down to the recall team as they were talking to the media, Madison Nguyen commented: "I don't believe these are real signatures. It is impossible for them to gather these many signatures. Many of them I bet are fake."


The County of Registrar Office will have 4 weeks to verify the signatures and if verified, city council will have to decide on when and what format to hold the recall election. The last recall ballot in San Jose was 14 years ago with Councilmember Kathy Coles removed from office by voters in District 8 for making an offensive comment to the Asian community.