Phan Ngo Becomes Sunnyvale Police Chief

San Jose City Deputy Chief Phan Ngo, 50,  has been selected to be the new chief of Sunnyvale, a Bay Area city of about 150,000 people.   A police veteran for 27 years, he is the first Vietnamese-American to be head of any police department in California.   Phan Ngo is married with 2 children and came to the US when he was 8 years old.    A familiar face of the Vietnamese-American community in San Jose, he is well liked.  A year ago, there was talk of a movement by the community to ask Mayor Sam Liccardo to appoint him the next SJPD chief.

See link for more story:

http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/21/veteran-san-jose-commander-selected-as-new-sunnyvale-chief/

Jimmy Nguyen Asks for a Second Manual Recount

It is now official,  Jim Nguyen, candidate for San Jose City Council D8,  has asked for a second manual recount.  In the letter to ROV, he laid out his requests to first review all rejected vote-by-mail and provisional ballot envelopes, all defective or "spoiled" ballots which were remade by Registrar staff during the canvass.   He is also asking to audit all tally sheets to see if there are any discrepancies in the number of ballots.

This strategy is designed to first aim at the weakness of the ROV that was exposed during the recount of the City Council D4 election between Manh Nguyen and Lan Diep.

The cost of the recount is at $3,300 per day as charged by the ROV.   The recount will start 12/20.   For now, Jimmy Nguyen is official behind Sylvia Arenas by 97 votes.

In response, Sylvia Arenas has also asked for a recount.  This is just a legal maneuver to give her an option if she needs  (since the deadline to ask for any recount is today) and put on notice that she will challenge any unfavorable decision made by the ROV.

LSI thinks that this election will likely be dragged to court similar to what is happening with D4.

Christmas Toys Giving

Jimmy Nguyen Plans to Pay for A Second Recount

After the automatic manual recount,  Jimmy Nguyen is behind by 97 votes.  LSI  reported 77 votes last week but that was apparently not taken account to some newly found ballots, 147 more to be exact.    He plans to ask for a second recount in a number of  precincts that have high Hispanic voter turnout.   It will cost about $2,500 a day plus legal fee.  The second recount will not start until next week.

What a year for recount in San Jose!

Holiday Open House at Orange County

Andrew Do Wins Supervisor D1 Race

Andrew Do finally can declare himself the winner of the Supervisor D1 race against Michelle Martinez.   An unprecedented 151,623 ballots were cast and Do won by 657 votes.   There are now less than 50 votes left to be tallied for D1 and it is unlike that Martinez can catch up.

The tidal wave of Hispanic voter turn-out  in this presidential election has caused a number of notable races in Orange County to be Blue instead of  Red.   The biggest upset of the day is Ling- Ling Chang (R) lost to Josh Newman (D) and the California State Senate now has the super majority.   

After Recount, Sylvia Wins by 77 Votes

The recount for San Jose City Council D8 race is completed after two days and Sylvia Arenas won by 77 votes over Jimmy Nguyen.  It was an upset win for Arenas for Nguyen outspent her 2 to 1 and received the endorsements of most of the leaders in San Jose politics including Vice Mayor Rose Herrera, Former Mayor Chuck Reed, Mayor Sam Liccardo, Councilmembers Manh Nguyen and Tam Nguyen.

The final tally will be published next week as ROV is finalized the audit of all recounts to make sure that all ballots match up between manual tally and machine tally.