Janet's Little Saigon Office: Come get your Housing Application

Janet Nguyen's Community Service Center, or "Welfare Center" as some folks like to call it, officially opened for business today with a grand opening ceremony that took place at 3:00 PM.  Without factoring in employees' salaries, it will cost county taxpayers $5000 a month to sustain this office.  Housed next to a Vietnamese restaurant named Saigon Bistro and a laundry mat, Janet's satellite office is conveniently located within Westminster, a city where she underperformed in the February '07 Special Election.

A friend of mine attended the event and took a few amateur pictures for Red County/OC Blog.  He said about 200 guests showed up for the grand opening ceremony, including Chriss Street, Mark Rosen, and representatives from Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. John Campbell, but no other City Councilmembers from the three cities (Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Westminster) in the 1st District was cited.  The other four supervisors was also a no-show.

He was told that this morning, county employees helped a lot of people, mostly Vietnamese senior citizens who needed to take applications for housing benefit with the City of Santa Ana.  Housing is the most popular government hand-out in the 1st Supervisorial District.  The first obvious question readers might want an answer to is: Why is a county office promoting a housing program that the City of Santa Ana is responsible for?  At any rate, kudos to Janet for doing it as she will surely earn valuable credits with the Vietnamese.

Aside from housing benefit, residents in the area also came in to get help with the 2007 Home Owner and Renter Assistance program and other government-run social services.  This is definitely a good political move for Janet with her base but I wonder how the Hispanic and Caucasian voters will react to such an office.

Comments

[Janet lost my vote]

Why only Vietnamese get the special treatment? This is reverse racism and preferences of one group over another. It's even worse for using my tax dollars to do this.

As a First District voter, she lost my vote. I will also encourage 8 other family members, some of whom also voted for her in the special election, not to support her this time.

[Net Four]

I’m not Vietnamese but I think any efforts to better connect with any part of the 1st district is a good thing. I live in Santa Ana and I did not for Janet in the special and none of my 12 family members did either but we will all vote for Janet now because she is being proactive in reaching out to her constituents. She has been at lots of Santa Ana neighborhood events and we see her as much or more often than former Supervisor Correa whom I believe may have even lived in Santa Ana. Thank you Janet!

[get a life]

Tomahawk - was this post an official policy statement from Van Tran?

Net Four?

Are you joking?

[Johnny Slash]

Did Tomahawk's "friend" the amatuer photographer forget to tell him that district director Dave Everett and fellow staffer Troung Diep arrived at the event to deliver a nice certificate signed by Assemblyman Van Tran?

With the sharpness of this post one has to wonder what axe does Tomahawk have to grind?

[Keeping an eye on Janet]

I keep hearing a persistent rumor that Supervisor Janet Nguyen made a large commitment to a charity drive in the district, but they have yet to receive her check weeks after their event.
Failing to follow up on these pledges quickly turns good will to a bad reputation.

[Unhappy Latino]

Net Four,

You must be kidding, right? Are we talking about the same Janet Nguyen who bashed the Latinos, most of whom lived in Santa Ana, during the Special. And now this with the Little Saigon office.

You sound like you are on Janet Nguyen's payroll. You and your 12 family members. We're supposed to believe that too. BTW, how much does this thing cost in rent and staffing?

[Patricia]

This is the first and probably the last day that anyone notices what goes on there. Many of your tax dollars will disappear there. Tammany Hall redux!

[Lam Pho]

"Why is a county office promoting a housing program that the City of Santa Ana is responsible for?"

Good point. Tomahawk, use your connection and ask around, you'll find that every single staff in Santa Ana hates Janet Nguyen. They despise her for using their program for her own personal political gain.

[Remember1974]

To: "Janet lost my vote,"

I think it is an erroneous comment to say that "Vietnamese gets all the special treatement." According to my resource, Janest's community service center is open to the general public regardless of race. I am not rebutting your comment because I am a Janet's supporter. Au contraire, I did not vote for Janet nor shall I ever do so. My rebuttal is in fairness of the Vietnamese people. Although I believe that the center is good for the community, nevertheless, it should not be costing taxpayers' monies ($5,000.00 per month as reported in the article). If Janet is truly working for the community and doing it from the heart, selflessly, she should be putting the monies out of her own pocket like the Van's team has with the Little Saigon Outreach Center/Headquarter. Maybe this where ingenuousness comes into play.

[new campaign address]

I wonder how long it will take for Janet to use that address for her campaign mailers. And we all know that once caught she will claim that she did not know that she was violating campaign law. Janet must think that no one is on to her little game with this new office. Guess what Janet, we are, and the voters will prove that to you in the next election! Keep it up Janet - we need the help with the negative mailers against you.

[I remember 1974]

Here's the problem with your argument -- how many Hispanic news outlets were there to help spread the information on the welfare center in the large Latino community? No one's fooled. This is a center pandered to one ethnic group over the preference of the others.

If you want to pander and cater, that's fine. But you should not do it on the taxpayers' dime. Use your own money.

Janet Nguyen made the taxpapers pay for this welfare center, then she we'll have to pay back to the taxpayers come next year with a large loss of votes.

[Janet pays later]

As taxpayers, we pay now for Janet Nguyen's vanity in opening a government funded welfare center, but that's okay. She'll pay later come June next year.

The line between vanity and foolishness is so thin. Janet Nguyen, you are too dim to see the difference.

[Observer]

From the LA Time: "On Monday, dozens of people gathered around Andrew Do, Nguyen's chief of staff, as he explained how to fill out the form for subsidized housing. He told the crowd to pay attention to instructions and urged them to come back to the center if they had questions regarding Medicare or food stamps."

I think this should help people figure out what kind of office this is and what type of service Janet will be providing.

[Free money anyone?]

Hey Observer,

It's a freakin self-promoted welfare office at taxpaeyrs' expense. Let's call it for what it is!

[name the abuser]

Is it County's Community Service Center or Janet's?

According to a public announcement on Viet Bao daily news (perhaps fed by Janet or her team), it's HER office (see below).

I'll help translate the first 2 sentences:

* SUPERVISOR OFFICE

The Little Saigon office of Supervisor Janet Nguyen will .....

http://www.vietbao.com/?ppid=45&pid=5
* VĂN PHÒNG GIÁM SÁT

Văn phòng Little Saigon của Giám Sát Viên Janet Nguyễn sẽ cung cấp các thông tin liên quan đến việc làm, sức khoẻ, thuế vụ, kế hoạch gia đình, giáo dục v.v... Giúp nộp đơn trợ cấp gia cư housing. Địa chỉ: 15460 Magnolia Street, Westminster, CA 92683 (cạnh Saigon Bistro, và võ đường Đặng Huy Đức). Phone: (714) 834-3110.

can you translate the rest of that for us since the Viet Boa won't?

[Free translator]

Literal translation from Viet-language Viet Bao Daily:

SUPERVISOR'S OFFICE

Little Saigon Office of Supervisor Janet Nguyen will provide information related to jobs, health, tax, family planning, education, etc. Will help submit applications for housing assistance. Address and phone numbers ....

[Abortion Alert!!!]

Abortion Alert!!!

Did I get it right after reading the translated excerpt that Janet Nguyen's welfare office also provide free "family planning services"? This is a euphemism for abortion services, or killing babies!!

I