At their February 25 meeting, the Westminster City Council discussed accusations that Councilmember Amy Phan West violated rules during the Tet parade the weekend prior by campaigning during her official remarks and passing out campaign materials.
Councilmember Carlos Manzo said that Phan West “used City-owned and City-sponsored property to give the announcement that she was running for Congress and that is a violation [of the California Government Code].” Manzo said Phan West also went over her allotted time, which then denied opportunities to event title sponsors to use the full duration of their promised speaking time. Manzo went on to say that Phan West “distributed campaign flyers to attendees during the parade route” despite the City Attorney sending out a memo “explaining these policies” and a text message “to make sure we received them and that we understood them.”
All the other councilmembers concurred that Phan West had clearly violated restrictions around campaigning with city resources during the parade.
Instead of accepting that she may have violated these rules, Phan West doubled down.
Phan West claimed she’s being “discriminated” against for her beliefs “as a Christian” – since she had happened to mention being a “Christian” during her remarks. She said that the Council should avoid embarrassing her talking about “this dirty laundry that you guys have” openly, and said they instead “should talk about this in the back, that’s what we should do as elected officials.” She called Mayor Chi Charlie Nguyen “Ho Chi Minh” for suggesting that she might need to be censured again.
She also argued that she did not violate the rules because she could not open an attachment the City Attorney previously sent reminding the Council about said rules.
Yes, you read that right: Amy Phan West ran for office several times and been forced to do at least two ethics trainings, yet she doesn’t know the basic rule that she cannot use government resources to campaign for office.
And she blamed Westminster city staff for her potential violation, saying it’s their fault for not printing out a copy of the City Attorney’s email attachment for her and that they allow other candidates to violate these rules. (City staff strongly denied Phan West’s claim and clarified that they make sure all parade participants know no campaigning is permitted and have even requested that people turn their campaign t-shirts inside-out.) On top of that, Phan West claimed she’s being “singled out” by city staff, all because they won’t let her off the hook for violating basic rules and expectations of ethics.
What’s sad is that Phan West truly never believes she could possibly be in the wrong. Even Councilmember NamQuan Nguyen, who is Phan West’s far-right ally, acknowledged that Phan West acted improperly. He elaborated: “We’re all going into our fourth years on the council, we’ve all got to know that there’s certain things we shouldn’t do. I remember 2-3 years ago, [Phan West] and I, we spoke out when the former city councilmember Kimberly Ho used some of the city resources to promote herself. And so I just remind you of that, that we all know that there’s some things we shouldn’t do.”
Luckily for Phan West (and maybe unluckily for the rest of us), she won’t be censured again. However, a majority of the Westminster City Council – Mayor Chi Charlie Nguyen, Vice Mayor Mark Nguyen, and Councilmember Carlos Manzo – opted to move forward with (1) releasing the aforementioned memo by the City Attorney and (2) prohibiting Phan West from speaking during City-sponsored ceremonial events.
Phan West has been a city councilmember for almost 4 years. She shouldn’t need constant reminders to comply with basic rules. But I guess she expects the entirety of City Hall to babysit her at all hours – or else she’ll accuse them all of being Ho Chi Minhs who are on a mission to tank her non-existent chance at winning her bid for Congress.
APW’s actions go beyond violating the city’s parade rules. Clear violation of Gov Code 8314 – illegal use of public resources for campaign purposes by an elected official which the City Attorney affirmed.
The City Attorney’s memo talked about violation of LAW, not just policy. APW is spinning the sanction claiming it’s about her religious comments, which were over the top, but are not the primary basis for the sanction for her to STFU at all future city-sponsored ceremonial events.
Now West is threatening litigation against the City over this! Never mind she already has two active court cases against her – criminal bribery of a parking control officer and the City suing for injunctive relief over her behavior at council meetings – like narrating over personal videos she films while council is in session.
Stay tuned, more to come about this topic!
Someone in Westminster should ask Spitzer to get involved in this if the city itself is not positioned to enforce the law. He (selectively, perhaps) went after someone for residency fraud, after all, so he’s willing to enforce the law against officials. This might put him in a tough spot given Pham’s ambitions, but it would also give him a change to publicly do the right thing. Come on, Westminster Dems and honest Republicans — this needs to happen!