Supervisor John Moorlach has elaborated on why he did not vote to select Supervisor Janet Nguyen as Chair of the Orange County Board of Supervisors in 2010. Here is the email he sent to his supporters explaining his vote:
I usually do not provide you with Blog postings. If I did, then I would never have time to do my job.
But, I believe I owe it to you to explain this entry that was posted during the Board of Supervisors meeting yesterday.
Item 62 was moved to the front of the calendar. It had two actions. The first was to waive the requirement that the Board elect its Chair at the first Tuesday of January after the first Monday after January 1, supposedly in order to give the incoming Chair time to be prepared by the Clerk of the Board for his or her new duties. This would be January 12. The second action was to vote for Chair and Vice Chair.
I voted against the waiver. If you need three extra weeks, you probably need three extra months. As far as I can tell, we have never strayed from following Rule 8 of the Board’s Rules of Procedure. Indeed, my experience was that the Clerk of the Board does a stellar job preparing the incoming Chair, and it doesn’t take that much time to do so. Therefore, seeing no pressing need to do it now, I voted in opposition.
After I proposed to my wife, Trina, twenty-nine years ago we decided to take a two-week honeymoon. My then-fiancé notified me that her boss would only give her one week off. Traveling, returning, moving her in, opening wedding presents, preparing thank you cards, and all of the rest and two weeks wouldn’t be enough.
After we took our two honeymoon I returned from my first day back to the office finding my bride’s face puffed up as if she had been weeping. “What’s wrong, honey?” “My boss yelled at me for taking two weeks off.” “He ‘yelled’ at you?” “Yes.”
“Well, you tell the good Doctor the next time he ‘yells’ at you whether he wants one week notice or two weeks.”
The next night I came home and Trina was still distraught. “How did your day go?” “He yelled at me, again.”
Just to clarify, my wife was the office manager of a rather successful practice.
“Did he want one week or two week’s notice?” “Two.”
Over the next fourteen days my wife explained how her boss was sorry, that he apologized profusely and wanted her to stay.
“Would it be alright if we changed our minds?”
“No. My wife will not work for a ‘yeller.’ End of story. I don’t need to come home to the repercussions and stress of that management style.”
All this to say that Supervisor Nguyen’s management style is to bite people’s heads off. The list of recipients is quite long, thank you. The CEO, department heads, heads of related organizations. If she doesn’t get her way, then she’ll excoriate you.
I did not explain this during the Board meeting as this item was pushed through in a rather hasty manner. I didn’t get a chance to speak until I had to cast my vote.
But, Supervisor Nguyen made the point for me. At the conclusion of the meeting she bit my head off. Thank you, Supervisor Nguyen.
Supervisor Nguyen has a history of demanding that executive managers hire people she demands, and then becoming angry when they do not. Supervisor Nguyen has a history of being unprepared at Board meetings, repeatedly claiming that she never received information from our County staff, when every other office received and reviewed the information, and, if needed, discussed it with the CEO at his weekly pre-Board meeting briefing of each Board office. But, since Supervisor Nguyen cancels her weekly pre-Board meeting briefing more often than not, she misses another opportunity to be educated, and then yells at County staff in public, claiming they haven’t responded to her concerns.
The cornerstone of the County’s management philosophy is the concept of “servant leadership.” Indeed, our management and Board consider this concept so central that we send our managers to a ten-week course at Chapman University, called the Orange County Leadership Academy, where they are inculcated in the culture of servant leadership. This concept stresses that good leaders should first strive to be good servants—that we are there to serve others, not to have others serve us. Janet Nguyen’s management style of yelling, being unprepared, and demanding the hiring of her friends, is the antithesis of servant leadership.
The issue now is how vindictive and true to form will she be?
She could have said, “Supervisor Moorlach, I will prove you wrong in 2010 and show you that I am up to the task.” Instead, she chose to characterize my restrained concern as “petty politics,” and to characterize my year as Chair of the Board as one characterized by “a lack of courtesy and decorum.”
I have waited the majority of my three years on this Board for Supervisor Nguyen to mature in this role. It just hasn’t happened.
And no one takes her to task. Not even reporters, with the exception of OC Weekly’s Nick Schou piece in January of 2008 (http://www.ocweekly.com/2008-01-17/features/dammit-janet/).
The question is not “Why did Supervisor Moorlach vote against Supervisor Nguyen?”
Rotating the chairs through each District is fine. But, if it jeopardizes the management team and we lose key executives, then rotating the chairs is not fine.
I’ll provide one anecdotal story. Dean Gialamas, Director of the Sheriff’s Department’s Forensic Science Services, (his resume can be found at http://ag.ca.gov/meetings/tf/pdf/TF_GIALAMAS.pdf) came to our office to brief us on their Unisys mainframe concerns. He stood before the Board to review the matter. Supervisor Nguyen bit his head off. He came back last week with a reasonable alternative. Supervisor Nguyen bit his head off, again. A day or two later, Mr. Gialamas notified his department that he had accepted the position of Director of Forensic Science Services for the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department.
I take the time to elaborate because it will provide you with the color of how I fear that 2010 will go.
Regretfully, with our current economy, the shape of the State of California, a vacant Fourth District office for at least five months and a boatload of other issues, we do not need a yeller as our Chair. We need someone who wants to serve, not someone who demands to be served.
You’ll see what I mean from the Register’s Blog posting below.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the real Supervisor Nguyen.
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Click here to read the Register posting Moorlach referred to.
And here is the excerpt he referenced:
Nguyen responded to what she called “Moorlach’s petty political agenda” during public comments at the end of today’s meeting. Nguyen called Moorlach’s criticism is “ironic in the least,” saying that when he was chairman, Moorlach demonstrated “a lack of courtesy and decorum.”
Thank you John Moorlach for letting the public see the true face of Janet Nguyen.
Having Janet Nguyen as Chairman of the Board of Supes is quite embarassing. If you want to see what the future holds just go back a review the Santa Ana City Council meetings run by Carlos Bustamante when he was Mayor Pro Tem.
Janet is not well spoken and comes across as being quite uneducated. This is what the face of our county will be. Congrats to the BOS for making our county look more pathetic than ever.
Even though I place Moorlach in a “what’ve you done for us lately” category, he does write well and I believe this as being honestly portrayed. I’ll even give him some credit for having published it as it took some courage.
Having dealt with Nguyen myself, I’ve found her an empty suit, without the intellectual capacity for her job. When questioned or asked for an accommodation, she’ll waffle and obfuscate the matter. Nothing seems evaluated for its value, except where it might benefit her and her aspirations directly. I believe she’ll be vulnerable in her next election, especially if Van Tran beats Loretta Sanchez in a congressional district that overlaps Nguyen’s as he’ll surely endorse and support someone for her job. When that happens, Schroeder gets involved and he has the brains and resources to hammer her even more than he has in the past (and especially if his team recovers on the Adams Recall as it appears they might).
As all us political geeks know, Janet’s just made it in this job by the skin of her teeth — by sheer luck rather than any inherent or learned skill or via any acquired experience. She’s surrounded herself with a collection of major losers for staff, and seeks advice from those better to run sandwich businesses than important political operations. Learning her craft at the knee of the ineffective Ken Maddox means nothing on her resume, and her experience with the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce is even less impressive — all Chambers I’ve ever dealt with are social organizations and otherwise completely worthless. Janet’s got really weak resume and won’t likely progress beyond this current job as she appears to not be building much of a base.
So, kudos to Moorlach for the straight poop.
I just called Supervisor Moorlach’s office to thank him for letting the public know the truth about Janet Nguyen. It is about time that folks other than the Orange Juice start exposing her for what she is.
I urge everyone to call him at 714-834-3220 or email him at district2@ocgov.com and thank him for publicly telling the truth about Janet.
Janet’s always reminded me of the petulant girl in grade school who would remind the teacher if she forgot to give out a homework assignment.
My exposure to Nguyen has been to see her in pubilc board sessions a few times, and on the cable coverage of the Board meetings a dozen or so times. I have had the impression that this lady is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Couple that with a penchant most electeds suffer from – a “everyone is entitled to my opinion” on multiple agenda items – and she does not come accross well (to me at least.) Mr. Moorlach’s candid comments portray an even worse situation than I had suspected. Good for Moorlach. If one wonders why department heads and other county managers might deserve the pay and benefits they receive, re-read Moorlach’s post. Imagine having to take that crap in public and private from her as though she is some kind of an expert. Amazing. Way to go John!
I agree with been around awhile she using her position to demand respect while she does not seem to want to earn it.
What does this tell of us of the other Supervisors who seemed impressed enough by her abilities to nominate her as the Chairperson.
As an example of how much attention Janet Nguyen is paying to the dire situation we are in. Santa Ana is buiding an unneeded and unnecessary clay court to the tune of $117,000 at Cabrillo Park. Money given to Miguel Pulido by Janet from the County’s deep pockets. It’s well known that Miguel plays tennis most morning’s at Cabrillo. Honestly, wasn’t their a greater need anywhere in the county. How cheaply we sell our soul.
Do you guys think that the jannies in the DPOC and the Viet Community is beginning to realize that janet Nguyen is the New van Tran yet?
The County pours millions into the Beach cities for pet projects. Why can’t Santa Ana have clay courts? These are near Tustin.
Janet is the ugliest asian woman around! Not only she is ugly she can’t even speak english!
She needs to learned how to speak english and stop reading script that are writting by her chief of staff. I think Andrew Do is the Supervisor for first District and not Janet Nguyen!!
I can’t wait to see her lose her next election and be unemployed!!!
One of the traits of a leader is to embrace and share a set of values, and then walk the talk – deomonstrate that you are committed to those values. Moorlach’s description of Nguyen equates to a lack of leadership qualities and abilities. We need leadership, not distatorial management by demeaning and threat as few will follow such a person, and many will resist. She should be replaced, the sooner the better.
No disagreement with Moorlach – but it is a good thing that Nguyen is not a dem.
I can easily imagine the dem outrage against Moorlach’s “misogyny” and the cries of “racist.”