ORANGE COUNTY IS MAKING HISTORY AS IT SWEARS IN ITS FIRST VIETNAMESE-AMERICAN TO THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS.


After paying a brief visit to her father's grave site, Janet Nguyen was sworn in Tuesday as the youngest member -- and the first Vietnamese-American member -- of the Orange County Board of Supervisors.



Nguyen, who also holds the distinction of winning the closest election in Orange County history with just a three-vote margin of victory, thanked her father for making sure that his family came to live "in a free country, especially a country like America..."

Her father died the night before her 2004 election to the Garden Grove City Council.

"Only in America can you find a 30-year-old Vietnamese woman given the opportunity to run for office and become an Orange County supervisor," she said.

The special election that landed Nguyen in the First District seat took place Feb. 6, but the wrangling over the result didn't end until Monday when a judge ruled that a recount had been properly conducted, despite claims of impropriety from losing candidate Trung Nguyen -- no relation to Janet.

"It is humbling and an honor to be here in front of you," Janet Nguyen said after taking the oath of office. "It's been a short election but a very, very, very long Election Day."

Nguyen, who is the first woman to represent the First District, acknowledged the help of members of her family -- including her brother, Robert, a U.S. Marine who held the Bible while she repeated the oath.

Nguyen also thanked her supporters, who helped get her through the "marathon" election, and also singled out her election opponent, Trung Nguyen, 49, who was initially certified the winner but lost by three votes after the recount.

"I believe that this is the time for us to put aside our differences," she said.

"We can work together," she said. "We ran for one purpose, that is to represent the people of the First District. Let's move forward ... I will work very hard to unite this district and unite this county."

"This marathon has been a little too long," she said.

After she took her seat, Orange County Supervisor Bill Campbell commented that Nguyen "immediately lowered the average age of this board."

Before the swearing-in ceremony, Westminster resident Darrell Nolta called the recount flawed because the Registrar of Voters had not counted the paper audit trail that was added to the electronic voting system as an accuracy backup.

Nolta said Orange County Superior Court Judge Michael Brenner "ruled that a full recount was done," but that the "intent" of advocates for a paper trail system was that a full recount would include counting "those pieces of paper."

Until that time, "the integrity of the vote is still in question," Nolta said, adding that he hoped Trung Nguyen's attorney, Michael Schroeder, would appeal Brenner's ruling.

"I want to see the backup paper," he said.

While praising her campaign team, Janet Nguyen held up three fingers, saying that with all the thousands of phone calls her team made, the victory came down to "three votes, that's what we're talking about."

Nguyen was sworn in by former Orange County Supervisor Bill Steiner, whose political science class she took at UC Irvine while a pre-med student and which changed the course of her life, she said. She interned in his office and worked in the office of former Supervisor Cynthia Coad.

She said the support of Steiner taught her "two valuable lessons."

"One is that the government works for the people," she said, and "two, it needs to be proactive, not just reactive."

Supervisors Chairman Chris Norby called the election "one of the longest, longest, most difficult, most controversial and certainly in terms of the percentage of votes cast, the closest election in the history of the Board of Supervisors."

In November 2004, Nguyen became the first woman to serve on the Garden Grove City Council in 35 years when she beat eight other candidates. At 28, she was also the council's youngest member ever.

"I love making history," Nguyen told reporters yesterday after the judge's ruling.

Nguyen arrived in California with her family in 1981, sailing from Vietnam on a 10-foot boat.

After pulling ahead on election night Feb. 6, Janet Nguyen saw her margin dwindle and Trung Nguyen was declared the winner by seven votes.

Janet Nguyen requested a recount, which led to her being declared the winner by a seven-vote margin. That margin shrank to three when the judge gave four contested ballots to Trung Nguyen.

Schroeder said he and Trung Nguyen would review the ruling before deciding whether to appeal.

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