Two of four City Council districts in Westminster are on the ballot this November, with incumbents facing multiple challengers.
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There are seven candidates between the races for District 1 and District 4, including incumbents Amy Phan West and NamQuan Nguyen.
The Westminster City Council includes four councilmembers who are elected by geographic district with staggered four-year terms and a mayor who is elected by all voters.
Westminster is one of the county’s most densely populated cities with some 88,000 residents living in 10 square miles. The city is probably best known as the central hub of Little Saigon — the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam — and for its stretch of Bolsa Avenue, where hundreds of small businesses line the corridor.
District 1
Voters in northwest Westminster will see on their ballot three names: Westminster School District Board President David Johnson, incumbent Phan West and Michael Fenton, who said he is no longer running for the seat because he has moved from the district.
The district is bisected by the 405 Freeway and represents mostly residential communities and several parks.
We asked the candidates questions about housing, city finances, transparency, and more, which you can read in our voter guide. Fenton declined to participate.
Johnson and Phan West raised similar issues, including addressing homelessness and boosting affordable housing, economic development and public safety.
Johnson, a former city commissioner and current OC Committee for School District Organization vice-chair, said, “I’m a critical thinker, enjoy diversity in our community, represent everyone’s needs, and am a consensus-driven collaborator.”
Johnson named three issues he’d prioritize addressing on the council: “Drugs, crime, blight.”
“These are all related, causing the continued doubling of homelessness in our city. We see it all over, in parks, on the streets, under the freeway,” he said, mentioning his involvement in several city initiatives to address homelessness, including a homeless task force leading to the Central Cities Navigation Center, a collaboration between Fountain Valley, Garden Grove and Westminster to deliver shared transitional housing hub to the cities.
“But for those who don’t want help because they want to keep that unhealthy lifestyle, we need to become the city of greater resistance. We need to create and enforce code that keeps them from stealing, from living in parks, from doing drugs in our streets,” Johnson said. “If we don’t become a city of greater resistance, more will come into our city with that unhealthy lifestyle. Help those who want help, but don’t make it easy to create more blight in our city. Safety for all must be an extremely high priority.”
Phan West, a business owner, said she’d “keep fighting for stronger public safety, further west-side revitalization, expanded homelessness solutions, relief from crushing regulations, and protection from rising costs so Westminster stays affordable for families.”
“For the last four years, I have worked on them and will continue to,” she said, suggesting a need for “compassionate solutions to homelessness that actually work” and streamlining permitting processes for new housing.
“The city must make sure its own policies and processes do not drive housing prices higher,” she said. “We also need to review permitting costs so they do not make new construction prohibitively expensive in Westminster. Faster, cheaper processes help meet state mandates and demand at lower price points while the city keeps local control over design, scale, and neighborhood character.”
District 4
Candidates Kelly Daniels, Khai Dao, Loan Nguyen and NamQuan Nguyen — a mixed pool of city hall veterans and newcomers — are asking to represent Westminster’s easternmost district, which includes the Asian Garden Mall and stretches of homes and businesses south of Bolsa Avenue.
Daniels said her local volunteer work and experience as a business owner “has strengthened me in working with different groups” and for serving the district’s “diverse communities.”
She said a need in the city is economic development, so Westminster is “increasing money that comes in from outside the city. More people spending in Westminster means more revenue.”
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Daniels suggested leveraging Westminster’s proximity to Los Angeles County, Disneyland and beaches to promote the city “as a regional destination for dining, retail, and Asian culture.”
“The more revenue we have, the better we can serve the community,” she said. “Having more money, we can use it for fixing lights, for the park innovation and street safety programs.”
Dao is owner and CEO of the Viet Youth Media and Viet Youth Forum, which uploads videos to YouTube centered on Little Saigon issues, and has served as a city parks and services commissioner.
Westminster’s biggest need, Dao said, is for “law and order, starting with the City Council members” and an end to “bickering, grandstanding, sandbagging, upstaging, sabotaging.”
Dao added a need for “ordinances specifically to address the homeless people disturbing peace and business in our city.”
When it comes to securing the city’s budget, Dao offered: “Innovations. Collaborations. Inspirations” and working collaboratively to find new revenue sources and attract economic development and also looking to community groups to take over events.
Loan Nguyen, a contracting accountant, said she got her start in local politics by attending City Council meetings and advocating for several issues, including for LGBTQ inclusion in the Tết Parade and to “keep the Rose Center Theater accessible to all residents.”
Community members packed Westminster’s council chambers in droves last year to oppose a change of management in the Rose Center Theater that would have seen the managing nonprofit evicted over the summer.
“In my opinion, the biggest need our city faces is homelessness,” Loan Nguyen also said.
“Serious drug crimes require appropriate enforcement and prosecution, while those suffering from mental health and substance abuse must be connected with effective treatment, not left on the street without meaningful intervention,” she said, proposing pursuing “county and state support” and expanding “youth services to keep young people safe and focused on building their futures, including community center activities and city-backed after-school partnerships.”
Incumbent NamQuan Nguyen said as “a Westminster councilmember, small-business owner, father, and longtime resident, I understand the everyday challenges facing our families and businesses.”
He criticized state mandates that “impose significant responsibilities on local governments without always providing adequate funding” and whose ripple effects touch “public safety, housing, infrastructure, and the preservation of our community’s character.”
“At the same time, we must strengthen our local economy and attract responsible development while the national and global economies remain uncertain. This requires careful financial planning, support for small businesses, and development that benefits residents without placing unnecessary burdens on taxpayers,” he said.
He said the council and city’s staff have worked together “constructively” to improve Westminster’s financial position. “My priority is to protect that progress, advocate for greater local control and adequate funding, and ensure that future growth supports public safety, financial stability, and the quality of life our residents value.”
Read more of the voter guide, including what the candidates said would make them good leaders and how they would represent the city’s diverse community at ocregister.com/voter-guide.
Ballots for the Nov. 3 election may be returned by mail, in the OC Registrar of Voters’ drop boxes around town now or cast in-person when vote centers start going live on Oct. 24.
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