Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley on Aug. 26 called on fellow Supervisor Andrew Do to resign his seat, while also calling on the Attorney General’s Office to remove him from office if he won’t step down amid allegations his daughter was involved in COVID-19 relief funds fraud.
Meanwhile, Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said he would consider directing staff at Tuesday’s meeting to look into a potential censure of Do, whose home was raided by the FBI last week as part of a search warrant. Earlier this month, the county sued Viet America Society President Peter Pham, alleging misappropriation of millions of dollars of pandemic relief earmarked for delivery of meals to needy residents.
“There’s nothing we can do to force him [Do] to be removed from office,” Sarmiento told City News Service. “The only thing we can do is move to censure him, which is a public condemnation of his actions, and also maybe stripping him of his board assignments, which carry stipends and per diems.”
Sarmiento had previously asked for ethics reform amid criticism of Do for not disclosing that his daughter, Rhiannon Do, volunteered and then worked for Viet America Society when the nonprofit was subcontracted to provide meals to the needy during the pandemic. Do said he was not required to disclose the relationship since Viet America Society was not a main contractor.
Do declined to comment Monday.
Last week’s FBI searches targeted the Garden Grove home of Pham and the Tustin home of Rhiannon Do as well as the Perfume River restaurant in Westminster, where meals were prepared for the delivery services.
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“I don’t care about censuring,” Foley told City News Service Monday. “What does that do? Nothing. If he’s unwilling to resign we need to initiate the proceeding quo warranto to have the Attorney General remove him from office.”
Do, who is termed out this year, should also be removed from office so “he’s not able to come to the meetings,” Foley said.
“It’s a disruption of all of our county departments,” she added.
“We can’t even do our job because there’s no mechanism for us to prevent him from participating in closed sessions and decisions that relate to his involvement in this because he’s not named as a party [in the lawsuit]. He can still give direction to county staff.”
Foley and Sarmiento expressed some concern about Do having input in the hiring of a new county CEO.
“You can’t help but question and be suspicious of any decisions coming out of that office,” “It is important to call for his immediate resignation.”
Orange County Board Chairman Don Wagner disagreed.
“My concern is that the residents of the First District need representation,” Wagner said. “And we’re so close to an election where he’s going to be gone anyway, and we know a legal process is underway. I don’t want to be piling on and calling for things like investigations that are already happening.”
Wagner said of Foley’s criticisms, “Should the First District not have anyone on it to talk about its transportation issues, its water issues? It seems wrong. There are many, many issues besides how to spend COVID money.”
Wagner also noted, “Nobody yet has said Andrew knew these dollars were not being spent appropriately. … Andrew has been consistent through this that they provided the meals. The best case scenario here is people got fed and that’s what the money was for.”
Supervisor Doug Chaffee told City News Service he has nothing planned in terms of addressing Do’s continued presence on the board.
“As a lawyer, I want to see it played out and justice to be done, but I haven’t seen any proof to prove the allegations out there,” Chaffee said.
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