Janet Nguyen Awards Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars to Group That has Barely Ever Managed Five Figures

• Ltpar, Exactly. Seven more County workers were laid off the week before the Supervisors, at Janet's behest, voted to waste this money. All the other Supervisors gave back their discretionary funds to the County, to keep workers working. Except Chairman Janet.

• Forget what group is getting the money, or even how much it is. The issue here is; with the financial black hole the county faces, all spending should be prioritized with only critical need programs being funded. Frankly, as a dumb taxpayer, I would think that Parks and Recreation come pretty close to the bottom of the list, much less some cultural historical monument. Wonder where the screems of anguish are on this one from the Orange County Employees Association?

• Gustavo said "erect". Aaaaahuh, huh, huh, huh...

• Gustavo, Youre wasting your breath. Chris Prevatt will never say a critical word about Janet save for the limp wet noodles he calls "criticism" of janet nguyen. Alomost every instance is a blanket of the whole board and never calling our janet nguyen alone. Remember the welfare office janet opened up under the guise of a Satelite Constituent Services Office? How about the office redecoration by janet and the rest of the board. And lets not forget that she got her Caroet bagging chief of staff elected to the Garden Grove City Council who was recently caught red handed living outside of the city in a lemon heights mansion. Any word from Prevatt? Nope! Oh except for the self serving article Janet Nguyen pushed to have published in the Garden Grove Journal on the Brown Act Tempest in a teapot. You can see my new post on OJ where I post the legal opinion of the GGUSD general Counsel on that topic which prevatt is conveniently neglecting.

• Again Gustavo, You missed my point. I have stated numerous times that the spending of these funds at this time is wrong. However, the decision to allocate these funds to OC Parks for use in the Roger Stanton park in Midway city was made months ago. It was supported by all five board members. Gustavo, you know my history. You know that I have been a strong advocate for appropriate and accountable monitoring of county contracts given to small organizations, specifically those with brief track records. I happen to be the person who blew the whistle on the failure of the Health Care Agency to do so with HIV/AIDS funding. This was not an award that went out to bid. These funds are expended by the individual bopard members for their individual districts. While they decide where the money goes, and who it goes to, the full board does vote to approve or reject those recommendations. Once that approval is given, the administrators in OC Parks takeover, execute the appropriate agreements, and monitor the performance of those agreements. Because this particular agreement will make a major "improvement" to a county park, OC Parks is not likely to allow funds to be expended inappropriately. The county has funded, successfully, small non-profits to manage and implement community projects. There is nothing unusual about this project or how the funds have been awarded. All Board offices turned over a significant portion of their future 130 park funds to the general fund towards the end of 2008. The board at that time decided to allow the First and Fourth districts to hold their unspent funds to be awarded at a later date. You are ask me whay I am not criticizing Janet and Janet alone. That answer is an easy one. Janet is one of five Supervisors. She has done nothing unusual, dishonest in this case. Show me that she has done something that warrants the level of faux criticism that is being whipped up here and I will be critical. No one has written a blank check to anyone here. And that is more than can be said for the blank check that all Supervisors other than Nguyen awarded to an out of state law firm to appeal a lawsuit that was thrown out of court for lack of merit. That blank check has cost the OC taxpayers more than $2 million and was written at the urging of John Moorlach. Gustavo, where was your "outrage" over that wastefull spending? I would ask why you spun an excuse and failed to criticize Moorlach or the rest of the Board but frankly, I cannot seem to find that you said a word about it. It seems to me that this is more a race to pile on Janet Nguyen rather than advocating a legitimate point. When ther is a legitimate point I am usually one of the first to "pile on." When there is one, I'll join you on the pile.

• Chris: Why keep bringing up Latino non-profits? The Delhi Center has been around since the late 1960s, so it wasn't exactly an unknown player. And they also deserve scrutiny. I won't go as far as what Marc said, but why the continued spinning and failure to criticize Janet and Janet alone?

• Chris Prevatt, You really ought to take a bow on this one. Its already painfully obvious and has been for a very long time that you have sold your soul to Janet Nguyen. I al wondering what you are getting in return for being her shill. You should just shut up and not comment when it comes to janet Nguyen or just admit you are her mouth piece. This charade you keep playing isnt fooling anyone anymore.

• Gustavo, I did read Bolsavik's story. I even referenced it in my post on the topic. The funding for this project is being managed by OC Parks. There is a contract and there are specific things that need to be done. One possible reason for the "ball head" not responding is that he wasn't prepared to. Not everyone is experienced at responding to the media. Finally, I'm not offering excuses or trying to change the subject. I'm simply pointing out that there really isn't much of a problem here. The issues Bolsavik raised can be addressed, and I am certain they will be. My point about Rosie's Garage was to demonstrate that small organizations can do good work. The County has invested in capacity building of Latino community based organizations to provide HIV/AIDS services in Orange County. The main beneficiary of these efforts was Delhi Community Center in Santa Ana. If it wasn't for the County funding hundreds of thousands of dollars in services in the 90's the impact of the AIDS epidemic in the OC Latino/a community would have been far worse. Delhi Center did not have a record of managing such large grants as they initially received. Are you suggesting that the County should not have invested those resources because Delhi didn't have a strong record of managing that amount of funding? Investment in the community and in community groups is how the capacity of our diverse OC communities is developed. Midway City does not have a City government. Stanton Park is a County park. The County is contracting with a small community organization to manage improvements to a community park. There is nothing wrong, or even unusual about that. Since November of 2008, Chris Norby's expenditure of Fourth District Fund 130 parks funding has totaled about $708,000. Supervisor Nguyen's expenditures of First District Fund 130 parks funds has been just over $395,000. Supervisor Moorlach never said a thing about any of Norby's expenditures. He even voted for $45,000 of Supervisor Nguyen's expenditures. It is only now, he suddenly gets a conscience? I wonder why that is?

• Gustavo, My comments come from my "Little Sheriff" which could help but make an inappropriate observation. I have been to this park and is a shithole like many "urban" oc spaces. I find it disgusting and irresponsible to even consider this. Do you think the Mom, who wants a splinter free bench to sit on while watching her kid play gives a shit about a statue. NO. But, nobody except the same five do nothings say anything, so I thought commenting on her big ass might break things up a bit.

• and thats why i didnt vote for this person! impeach the woman! wish margie rice was the oc supervisor. she is a much better candidate than janet.

• Everyone, Let's not jump to conclusion about what you think is political corruption until you have facts to back it up. I agree, this will a tremendous undertaking and it will be carefully monitored. We have to be supportive and united toward any hopes of a community group that would put their efforts into increasing cultural awareness. I am positive that the grant will utilize wisely, not like the case of the the proposed $700,000+ office renovation for a LA County supervisor. Now, that's ridiculous. To put it in perspective, that grant money didn't just come from anywhere. Hundreds of businesses surrounding Midway City have raised local revenue by their taxes. Properties around these communities have retain their values and thus higher property taxes. Let's do our research before we assume that a decision to give a grant to a community group is of corruption, especially if it goes through different levels of reviews and voting with other Board of Supervisor Members.

• It's typical to see all theses political puppets play there games. Having worked for the city of Santa Ana. It's all a butt kissing competition to make it to the OC board of Supervisors. It's all politcal and all corrupt. Hell, we can't get out our mayor who has held his seat longest in California State History. Welcome to the West Coast Chicago political machine. I live in Santa Ana city of the jails, homeless, drug addictes and gangs. The Heart of Orange County.

• Paul and Henry: I have no idea where your comments come from. Chris: Please. Go dig and tell me if Rosie's Garage got county money so early in its life. And did you even read the Bolsavik's reporting? Awarding hundreds of thousands of dollars to a group who were so on the ball the head couldn't even talk about it? Why you're offering excuses and trying to shift the conversations is perplexing...

• Chris Prevatt: There a big diference between tutoring children after school (Rose Espinosa's project), and some kind of a historical monument in Midway City. How will a monument in a nondescript county island benefit the community? Midway City has something of historical significance? Will it be worth $350,000 handed out of taxpayer money without a bid?

• Now I understand why the LOC boys love her so much! Look at her hips, they are wide and thick. She looks Mexican. HOW HOT IS THAT AN ASIAN with a chunky figure. I don't know about you but I am disgusted with the trend of giving implants to seniors at Westminister and GG High Schools. Certainly the parents realize and aknowledge you not only need a MATH degree to succeed in America but also Nice TITS!! Janet takes this to a new level with that lower half, claudia and friends don't stand a chance!

• Gustavo, The issue should be that the Board shouldn�t be spending these funds at all. That said, the size or prior experience of an organization in managing a large projects is not necessarily an indication of the ability of an organization to complete a project. It is indeed a factor that is considered in a competitive bidding process, but this grant was not competitively bid out. The fact that the group has little political influence in the community actually counters any appearance of trying to buy favor with an influential group. In my digging, I found that the grant will be closely monitored by OC Parks and that the project is subject to cancellation at any time if the recipient fails to perform up to expectations. You can find that information as well by reading the contract that Boalsvik pointed his readers to. If properly monitored the project can be successful. A small non-profit can only gain experience by getting experience. It really isn't fair to conclude they cannot handle such a project absent other evidence. It is also really unfair for you to say, in the caption to the picture in your post, that the organization is now "filthy rich." Being awarded a contract does not make the organization filthy rich. That implies dishonesty and graft without any evidence. I seem to recall a Latina from La Habra who started a small non-profit out of her garage to provide a safe place to reach and motivate at risk and underprivileged children. That project is Rosie�s Garage, founded and directed by La Habra Councilwoman Rose Espinoza. Would you say that the support Rose received to run her project when she started up was poorly spent? Would you say that the previous amounts of funding she had in the beginning would have been a good measure of her likely success? No doubt, this is a huge undertaking for a small community group. But it is not impossible to accomplish. Be annoyed at Supervisor Nguyen all you want to over the wisdom of recommending spending scarce resources on this project at this time. But don�t take it out on the recipient of the funding. That�s just wrong.

• If OC Supervisor Janet Nguyen is a clone of Assemblyman Van Tran, those that are affected by the decisions of both elected government officials are in BIG TROUBLE!!!! All one has to do is check out Van Tran's legislative history to date and it will be evident that Van Tran is nothing more than a POLITICAL puppet.... willing to serve the highest donor and/or political power that will assist him at the snap of his fingers. If Janet Nguyen is headed down this path, GOOD LUCK TO THE CITIZENS OF ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.

• Gustavo, Glad to see you are finally starting to call out janet for what she is; The New Van Tran; But you better wacth out because dan C from the Fib OC might start taking you to task with endless red herrings and straw men to deflect the light you are shining on his bf chris prevatts jannyism. "Seems like she wants to continue the corruption that exists in Little Saigon Politics" Richard Martinez, what did you expect?

• Seems like she wants to continue the corruption that exists in Little Saigon Politics

• What a way for Janet to begin her term as Chairman of the OC Board of Supervisors...

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