Misha Houser’s Statement at DPOC Last Night

Misha Houser delivered a powerful statement to the DPOC last night.  Its unfortunate that the party did not take this as testimony to question Hoa Van Tran more rigorously.  I’m posting so voters can judge her statements for themselves.

“The only effective way to send a message that the DPOC repudiates and will not accept the actions and behavior of Hoa Van Tran and his campaign, is to rescind the party’s endorsement.

While I was working for the campaign, I urged Hoa to correct problems and irregularities related to his campaign finance record keeping.

I repeatedly reported incidents of harassment, intimidation, bullying, threats, and other unseemly behavior occurring within the campaign office. I urged Hoa to remove active gang members from the campaign. I warned him that not preventing a hostile work environment for women and young people could cause problems for his candidacy.

I told him that I did not feel safe. Hoa was made well aware of the presence of active, self-proclaimed gang members, and yet he did nothing. His tacit acceptance of horrendous behavior by his campaign manager and criminal elements working with him fostered and encouraged a hostile work environment.

I’m not the only person who suffered abuse. Indeed, Hoa did nothing to protect Vietnamese phone bankers from ill-treatment. One worker was humiliated and made fun of because she could not respond in English. She was accused of working for the “other side”, not unlike the abuse others who have criticized the campaign for its inability to file proper campaign reports have received.

Other unethical behavior, such as the use of pictures of electeds in campaign literature was largely ignored until I told them I absolutely wouldn’t do it. I was lied to in regards to the use of one officials picture, and was told that this official had given his permission. He had not. He wasn’t even asked until after the mailer had been printed.

I continued to work on the campaign, believing that I was protecting Hoa’s candidacy. I finally came to the conclusion that Hoa was not willing to protect me or any of the other women working on his campaign. He wasn’t going to clean up financial improprieties. Hoa wasn’t going to take control of his campaign. So I had to leave.

Hoa’s campaign, instead of correcting improprieties and the hostile work environment have chose instead to take retaliatory action against me for raising allegations of improper conduct, first to the candidate, and then, when working conditions became completely unbearable, to authorities.

Correcting the problems would have shown the qualities of good leadership.

Threatening the one person who was trying to do the right thing shows at best a lack of judgment. At worst, it shows a total disregard for the law and for common decency.

The specific targeting of women is especially troubling. Permitting active gang members within the campaign is beyond troubling. Threatening, bullying, intimidating, lying, slandering, libeling, is completely unacceptable.

Because Hoa Van Tran has been unwilling or unable to take firm action to control his campaign or its operatives he is unworthy of holding the party endorsement. If we do not as a party require endorsed candidates to conduct their campaigns in adherence with the principles of integrity and ethics, then the Party endorsement does not stand for any of those values.

I doubt if many of you know what it’s like for me, a woman to wake up every morning wondering if this is going to be the day that I will be harmed. I don’t even step outside of my home without making sure the coast is clear.

Everywhere I go, I’m constantly looking in my rear view mirror and scanning my surroundings to be sure I’m not being followed.

I’m even afraid to go to the DPOC headquarters because I don’t feel safe in the parking lot alone. When I go to public events I have to make sure that someone is there who can protect me if I’m suddenly threatened.

Tags: 1st District Supervisor, Democratic Party of Orange County, Election 2008, ethics, Gangs, Hoa Van Tran, Hypocrisy, Integrity, Orange County, Orange County Government, Orange County News, Paul Lucas

This entry was posted on May 28, 2008 and is filed under Orange County - Local. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.