Pot Calling the Kettle Black in Santa Ana

A belated Happy Mother’s Day to our readers.  Blogsphere readers on Mother’s Day were treated to OCPoliticsBlog blogger Art Pedroza throwing yet another old friend under the bus with a post berating BoS candidate Todd Spitzer for hiring Orange Juice blogger Vern Nelson to play piano at a Spitzer holiday party last year.  Pedroza then reiterates old stories about Nelson’s past and takes Spitzer to task for campaign literature that calls our Deborah Pauly’s husband’s DUI (in which Pauly admitted to drinking as much as her husband who got into a crash to avoid a DUI checkpoint) and called Spitzer a hypocrite for hiring Nelson while criticizing Pauly.

An old post on that same blog was refreshed on Pedroza’s OC BoE district 1 opponent Ken Nguyen, reiterating Nguyen’s previous legal judgements against his business. The post also references Nguyen’s founding on a Vietnamese version of the Knights of Columbus and equates that group as anti-gay.  Nguyen has the endorsement of the Santa Ana City Council and is an opponent of Pedroza’s for OC BoE District 1.   The underlying message is Nguyen is a dishonest businessman and groups he starts are discriminatory.

Now Nelson will tell you, we’re friendly at best.  Friends…hmmm, casual ones if that since we worked out a couple of misunderstandings.  He’s a helluva piano player and musician.  He’s been hired not only by Spitzer, but by Supervisor Shawn Nelson and Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez to play piano at events.  We certainly don’t see eye to eye on everything.  But he, like me (and Chris Prevatt and Claudio Gallegos and Ryan Trabuco and Thomas Gordon and Phil Baccera and Terry Crowley and on and one and on…) was friends with Pedroza — emphasis on the “was” part.  It’s always telling when former friends sue you (with “you” meaning Art) and the ones that didn’t sue you cheer for them (the plaintiffs) and not you (the defendant).  I’m actually fascinated with Pedroza’s frequent use of the term “hypocrite.” A term that he fails to see within himself.

Let’s turn on the wayback machine to a party thrown by Pedroza for Nelson after Nelson had paid his debt to society — the party was at the Memphis the same night as our Drinking Liberally event.  Pedroza’s table had maybe five to seven people there.  The next day, Pedroza sent us email to complain that we treated Nelson badly when the only thing we did was ignore the section of the bar Art’s party was at.

Let’s turn to Nguyen’s story; Nguyen’s legal troubles against networking software company Novell date back to 2001 and Novell wrote about it in 2003.  Oddly enough, Pedroza makes references to large legal judgments against Nguyen.  He also suggests that Nguyen has a gambling problem and uses a Google documents as evidence when the document is really Nguyen informing the Westminster City Council about “the illegal public gambling being done by adults and children in numerous locations on Bolsa Avenue during the tet Parade Celebration.”  Pedroza wrote: “Nguyen appears to have problems with gambling.” Now that can be read two ways, but by lumping the past legal troubles with Novell with the statement on gambling, what sort of picture does this paint?  A dishonest one.  Pedroza claims that Nguyen “still owes Novell a ton on money” without offering any proof.

This post is titled the Pot calling the Kettle Black — here are some facts about OC BoE candidate Art Pedroza. If you click on the link, you can read his bankruptcy filings yourself.

1. Pedroza threw a welcome back party for, in his own words “a liberal felon with 4 DUIs” in a bar in Santa Ana. And while Mr. Nelson might still drink, he doesn’t drive.
2. Pedroza has two personal bankruptcies the most recent being in April 2011. He is hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
3. Pedroza’s bankruptcy documents reveal he is a tax scofflaw owning a considerable sum of money to the IRS and the State of California since 2008 that is being paid back in installments.
4. Pedroza failed to follow the order of a federal judge at least twice resulting in the court levying sanctions of more than $7200 against him for disobeying the order. He refused to follow the law and the orders of a federal judge — twice.
5. Pedroza threatened to commit suicide after losing the first of two lawsuits and berated us for calling the police on him.
6. If Pedroza can call up incidences against Mr. Nguyen that are 10 years old, I’ll cite these examples of Mr. Pedroza’s own anti-Gay statements made prior:
7. Not to minimize Mr. Nguyen’s judgment status with Novell, but Mr. Pedroza still owes this blog and some of our bloggers just under $55,000 in unpaid judgments.
8. And do we have to bring up that Pedroza’s reroutes of websites to Gay Porn and NAMBLA were parody as he claims. Again, if you’re a parent voting for a school board member, do you really want to cast a vote for someone who thinks its funny to link to a web page that advocates for legalized sex between adult men and young, underage boys?  What’s really troubling is that in spite of all these facts being known, Pedroza is on the board of directors for one of Santa Ana’s Little Leagues.  He is involved in the Boy Scouts of America.  And he has garnered the endorsement of two members of the Santa Ana city council, one city commissioner, and two canddiates for Congress, who surely must share his viewpoints on paying your debts, being fair and honest, and that gay porn and NAMBLA are parody.

If Pedroza weren’t a candidate for office, we wouldn’t write about him.  But since he craves attention, we’re happy to provide it.