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Westminster School Board won’t seek investigation of trustee
At a special meeting Friday night, Sept. 18, half of the four Westminster School District board members voted not to pursue an investigation of their president, Frances Nguyen, for potential voter fraud.
The tie vote put an end to the proposal, which needed a majority to move forward.
Nguyen did not recuse herself from weighing in. Trustee Khanh Nguyen joined her in voting no.
Originally, the agenda item asked for an internal investigation. Through her attorney, Frances Nguyen responded that she would not cooperate.
Instead, the board voted on a motion to ask the Orange County District Attorney’s office to conduct an investigation.
Trustees Jamison Power and colleague Jeremy Khalaf voted in favor of sending the district attorney a formal request.
The board lost a member in mid-August with the resignation of Xavier Nguyen, charged with three felony counts of voter fraud. District Attorney Todd Spitzer claimed that Xavier Nguyen used a false residential address to seek office.
Power and other Westminster residents have prodded Spitzer to investigate Frances Nguyen, as well, for alleged address fraud.
In 2018, the school district switched from at-large to by-area elections under threat of a lawsuit claiming violation of the California Voting Rights Act. Nguyen’s longtime home on Marquette Street sits in what is now delineated as “Area 1,” while Power resides in Area 4.
Power decided not to run for reelection after two terms. In late June, Nguyen registered to vote with an address on Pinehurst Circle near in Power’s precinct. Another candidate, David Johnson, had announced his candidacy for Area 1.
As it turned out, Nguyen’s newly registered address was actually just outside the Westminster district, within Ocean View School District boundaries.
On Aug. 4, three days before the deadline for candidates to get their names on the ballot, Nguyen filed another address with the Registrar’s office – this one in Area 4 on Pacheco Avenue. She used the Pinehurst house as her former address.
In a letter to Superintendent Cyndi Paik and Spitzer, Power claimed Nguyen vacated her seat the day she registered an address outside the school district.
But Nguyen’s attorney, Mark Rosen, argued that she never actually lived at the Pinehurst address so did not forfeit her position.
Rosen wrote district officials a letter dated Sept. 11 laying out the reasons Nguyen opposed an investigation.
When the school district was divided into five precincts, Rosen said, “this gave Mrs. Nguyen the option of choosing a district in which she could run in 2020.”
The precinct system is meant to provide residents a chance to represent their own neighborhoods.
Rosen said Nguyen needed to rent out rooms in her “spacious” Area 1 home due to business losses during the coronavirus crisis. She decided to look “for housing in the (precinct) that would be compatible with her reduced budgetary capacity,” Rosen wrote.
On Aug. 3, Rosen said, just as she was planning to move into the Pinehurst address, the Orange County Registrar of Voters office informed her that the house was not in the Westminster district.
“Mrs. Nguyen was shocked,” the letter reads. “Luckily, she had made plans for a backup room at an address on Pacheco.”
Power, who is an attorney, countered that Nguyen registered to vote “under penalty of perjury” using the Pinehurst address. “It’s asking for a current address, not a future address,” he said.
Power made the motion to write a letter to the DA’s office.
“How are we demonstrating to the community that we take this seriously?” Power said, pointing out that seven years prior, trustee Andrew Nguyen resigned under suspicion that he had used an incorrect address.
However, trustee Khanh Nguyen said that residents had already approached Spitzer about an investigation, so the district did not need to “spend resources” further pursuing the matter.