Tran on Way to Assembly Win

Van Tran, a Garden Grove city councilman who received political support from around the nation, held a commanding lead Tuesday night in his bid to become the nation’s first Vietnamese American elected to a state legislature.

In election returns for the 68th Assembly District, Tran, a Republican, was well ahead of his Democratic challenger, Al Snook, a businessman and perennial candidate who raised about $2,650 in donations. In contrast, Tran collected more than $800,000 in contributions, some of it coming from as far as Virginia and Pennsylvania.

“My numbers look really healthy,” said Tran, who was under police escort Tuesday night at the Sutton Place Hotel in Newport Beach after communist dissidents reportedly threatened his life.

Tran held the lead on an election day that brought voters out in record numbers across the county. The heavy turnout delayed ballot counts by an hour as some polls stayed open well past the 8 p.m. deadline to accommodate voters.

In a tight race for Orange County supervisor, Assemblyman Lou Correa was slightly ahead of Garden Grove Mayor Bruce Broadwater. Irvine Mayor Larry Agran also held a narrow lead in a City Council race, despite a political controversy that threatened his long tenure in local politics.

In Laguna Beach, an incumbent councilman was trailing after a political attack partly funded by supporters of a possible expansion of a controversial seaside resort.

Tran’s showing at the polls -- and his broad support -- is an indication of the growing economic and political strength of Vietnamese Americans, many of whom came to the United States at the end of the Vietnam War.

Tran, an attorney who emigrated from Saigon as a 10-year-old in 1975, will probably replace termed-out Assemblyman Ken Maddox (R-Garden Grove). The district includes part of Little Saigon, a business and residential district with the largest concentration of Vietnamese outside Vietnam.

In contrast to Tran’s ample margin, Correa held a slight lead over Broadwater in the race for the 1st Supervisorial District, which includes Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Westminster.

Both candidates are Democrats, meaning the board will get its first taste of partisan diversity since Supervisor Ralph B. Clark retired in 1987.

Broadwater, 65, who boasted of restoring his city’s financial health without raising taxes, campaigned on the issue of fiscal discipline. Correa, 46, stressed support for public education, health care, safe streets, jobs and transportation, including the controversial CenterLine light-rail project.

“We worked hard. We had a lot of support. We did what we had to do,” Correa said Tuesday night. “Now it’s up to the voters.”

In Laguna Beach, City Councilman Wayne Baglin trailed two other council candidates in the wake of a direct-mail and advertising campaign by a political committee that received $15,000 from Ohana Holdings, an investor in the Montage Resort & Spa.

Running against Baglin for two open council seats are Jane Egly and incumbent Mayor Cheryl Kinsman. The top two vote-getters will be elected.

The Montage is quietly exploring the possibility of building an 18-hole golf course in Aliso & Wood Canyons Wilderness Park. The effort is related to the resort’s recent acquisition of the Aliso Creek Inn and Golf Course.

Baglin and Egly have opposed expansion of the resort and, if reelected, could make it difficult for Montage to push forward with such a plan.

In the race for three open Placentia City Council seats, retired Police Chief Russell Rice and incumbents Constance Underhill and Scott P. Brady held early leads.

The main issue was OnTrac, a $450-million project to lower five miles of railroad track into a concrete trench and build 11 underpasses and overpasses along the city’s busy rail corridor.

Facing high costs and considerable uncertainty over government funding, the project has plunged the small city into debt and triggered an investigation by the Orange County district attorney’s office.

Six of eight candidates, including Underhill and Rice, opposed the project and vowed to seriously reevaluate its scope or scrap it. Brady and incumbent Mayor Judy A. Dickinson remained staunch OnTrac supporters.

In a bitter Westminster school board race, voters were poised to oust incumbent Helena Rutkowski, one of three trustees who initially refused to rewrite district policies to comply with a state law that protects gays, transsexuals and others from discrimination on campus.

The Westminster district, which serves 10,000 elementary school students, erupted in turmoil last summer. Rutkowski, along with trustees Judy Ahrens and Blossie Marquez, cited their Christian beliefs in saying that the law immorally allowed people to define their own gender, potentially opening the door to cross-dressing teachers and Peeping Tom students.

Angry parents and teachers accused the three trustees of bigotry and launched a recall drive. When their signature petitions failed to qualify, they vowed to run challengers in an attempt to change the board majority.

Incomplete returns showed that Rutkowski was trailing city commissioner Sergio Contreras, business consultant Peter Nguyen and a second incumbent, Jo-Ann Purcell.

In Irvine, Agran, who has served an unprecedented 18 years in municipal office, held a paper-thin lead in the City Council race despite a scandal that threatened to undo his tenure.

Once a candidate for president, Agran is seen as one of the county’s more influential politicians. Many have credited him with halting plans for a new commercial airport at the closed El Toro Marine air base.

Charges of political corruption and unethical behavior surfaced in the summer when Councilman Chris Mears, a longtime Agran supporter, accused Agran of manipulating city business to enrich his chief political benefactor, Ed Dornan.

Hanging in the balance is control of the five-member council. Agran has endorsed Councilwoman Beth Krom to replace him as mayor, and he has backed two candidates -- Debbie Coven and Suhkee Kang -- for the council’s other open seat.

“There’s no question that this race has been a referendum on the city,” Agran said.In Newport Beach, a ballot measure to rezone 8 acres of city-owned waterfront land on the Balboa Peninsula for commercial development appeared headed toward defeat by a wide margin.