Employment Attorney in San Jose, CA

"Losing one election but carrying lifelong hatred — Guinness should open a 'Lifetime Grudge' category just for Van Le," Quennie Ngo wrote.

November 10, 2025

An alleged abuse of public resources. A mocking Facebook video.

A series of unusual dramas has marked a bitter feud between the office of District 7 San Jose Councilmember Bien Doan and East Side Union High School District Trustee Van Le. Le said she will run against Doan when he’s up for reelection next year — and also plans to sue him for defamation.

“I’ve gotten messages from so many community members who are tired of Bien Doan,” Le told San José Spotlight. “He’s dividing the community.”

Doan and representatives from his District 7 office did not respond to requests for comment.

Le’s defamation claims stem back to April, when District 7 Chief of Staff Jonathan Fleming called for a school district probe into Le over accusations by an anonymous whistleblower.

Fleming sent an email on Doan’s behalf to East Side Union High School District leaders — which he read publicly at a school board meeting — raising concerns that Le used community fundraising events on school property as a venue to reward political allies and shame her adversaries. He alleged Le used her board position to pressure school district staff into providing additional time and access to district facilities without proper registration or payment — and questioned whether the money raised was actually going to homeless students as publicly stated.

“If these claims are true, it would constitute a misuse of public funds and an abuse of power. A thorough investigation is warranted,” Fleming’s email reads.

In a June 16 letter, a school district lawyer told Fleming the claims lacked sufficient evidence, and without the whistleblower’s identity, the district was limited in its ability to probe further. In response, Le announced her intent to sue Doan — though she has yet to file a lawsuit. She rebuked Doan at a September news conference for using his position as a public official to discredit political rivals. She also criticized Doan over his feuds with other Vietnamese community leaders at an Oct. 7 San Jose City Council meeting.

After that meeting, Queenie Ngo, a community outreach worker in Doan’s office, mocked Le’s comments in a video on Facebook. The video shows Ngo’s dog watching Le’s speech on the meeting livestream with dog barking sounds added over her actual comments.

“While everyone has the right to express themselves, Quennie Ngo represents a political official, and her actions reflect on public service,” Le wrote in an email widely circulated among Vietnamese residents. “This behavior is unacceptable and raises serious questions about accountability and respect for civic participation.”

Ngo declined to comment. She has been vocal about her feud with Le and Doan’s other critics on Facebook. In one written post, she said Le resents Doan for winning against her during the 2022 council election. Ngo’s post said Le is determined to smear the entire District 7 office.

“Losing one election but carrying lifelong hatred — Guinness should open a ‘Lifetime Grudge’ category just for her,” Ngo wrote.

Le said her rift with Doan started around the time he moved to change the rules for who could host certain Vietnamese community events at the garden. She isn’t the only challenger to Doan’s incumbency. Campaign finance records show Hanh-Giao Nguyen, a staffer for District 5 Councilmember Peter Ortiz, has also filed papers to run for District 7. Nguyen gained notoriety earlier this year after heckling Doan during a council meeting in April. Doan had publicly called for Nguyen’s firing.

“People don’t understand — it’s a pattern with Bien Doan. He is at the center of so much division in the community,” Le told San José Spotlight. “We need someone who listens, respects and brings people together.”

If Le files her defamation lawsuit against Doan, it’ll be the latest in a series of legal battles Doan has become embroiled in with different Vietnamese community members. His new rules for the Vietnamese Heritage Garden followed a tense courtroom battle with a prominent bail bondsman, Hai Huynh.During the hearings in July last year, Doan accused Huynh of threatening his safety and having mob ties to convince a judge to grant a restraining order against the bondsman. Huynh argued Doan sought to use the restraining order to shun him from community events, as Huynh has been critical of the District 7 councilmember. The hearings revolved around trauma and political divide among older Vietnamese refugees who fled the Vietnam War. San Jose has the largest population of Vietnamese people for a city outside of Vietnam.

Huynh is also suing Doan for defamation over last summer’s hearings, which brought big names in Little Saigon out to testify, including Ha Trieu of the Vietnamese American Community of Northern California — who has also filed a defamation suit against Doan after the councilmember accused Trieu of money laundering.

Ngo said Doan’s critics should be grateful to him.

“If not for my respect for him, I would have long since revealed the information I have from dealing with the Viet community on behalf of him,” she wrote on Facebook. “Then some would be forced to… wear their shame like pants on their heads for eternity.”

Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X.

San José Spotlight is the city's first nonprofit news organization dedicated to independent political and business reporting. Please support our public service journalism by clicking here.

San Jose continues to operate under extreme supply constraints even as the broader California housing market normalizes. The metro carries just 1.1 months of inventory, compared with 2.3 months statewide, underscoring the region’s sharply limited supply and persistent seller leverage.

San Jose also maintains premium pricing. The median price per square foot sits at $939, or 129% above California’s $409 median. Price reductions remain less common as well, with 24.9% of San Jose listings cutting prices vs. 36% statewide.

Supply constraints drive market velocity

Active inventory stands at 389 homes. Weekly absorption reached 92 homes, while just 57 new listings came to market, reinforcing the structural imbalance between supply and buyer demand.

Homes spend a median of 35 days on market, half of California’s 70-day median. The Market Action Index remains above the neutral threshold, signaling continued seller advantage even as statewide dynamics move closer to balance.

Pricing power remains concentrated

The median list price reached $1,668,888 in October, up 4.4% from $1,599,000 a year earlier. Meanwhile, 2.6% of active listings increased their asking prices, slightly above the statewide 2.2% rate. Relisted homes represent 11.3% of activity, close to California’s 10.3%, signaling stable transaction completion in a tight market.

What to watch

The 1.1-month supply remains the defining constraint in San Jose. Use the 35-day median days on market as a benchmark for setting speed-to-offer expectations. The $939 per square foot pricing benchmark, second highest in the nation, helps frame valuation discussions in a premium-priced market.

Tracking buyer activity through absorption can help determine whether tight supply continues to support firm pricing even as other California markets move toward balance.

HousingWire used HW Data to source this story. To see trends in your market, generate a local housing report. Enterprise users can license market data at scale through HW Data.

With an unusually high concentration of smoke shops in East San Jose, Councilmember Peter Ortiz cannot be accused of using hyperbole when he says that if you throw a rock there, you are likely to hit one of those stores.

But after years of attempting to rein in the problem, the San Jose City Council has approved a temporary moratorium on tobacco retailers and a ban on nitrous oxide sales in those establishments — efforts it says that put the well-being of youths and their families first.

“Both these items take an important step to protect the health and safety of our residents by closing a dangerous gap in our laws,” said Ortiz, who represents District 5. “Over the past several years, East San Jose and other working-class neighborhoods have seen a dramatic rise in smoke shops, often located just blocks away from schools, youth centers and family homes. In fact, I first thought of this policy when a smoke shop under the guise of a gift shop opened directly across the street from the James Lick (High School) and the Alum Rock village business district.”

The 45-day moratorium approved by the City Council can be extended for up to two years. Existing retailers can continue to operate and seek permit renewal during the moratorium, while the city suspends new applications.

During the temporary ban on new establishments, the city intends to review its licensing program, including the possibility of additional regulations and increased fines to address the growing number of complaints about smoke shops and illegal sales to minors.

In 2021, the city banned the sale of flavored tobacco and e-cigarettes and limited the distance retailers could open from youth-sensitive areas. But health and youth advocates have argued that the city could do more to limit the impacts.

“Strengthening the (tobacco retailer licensing program) can better hold retailers accountable, prevent illegal sales, and foster healthier, more equitable environments for all San Jose residents,” wrote Carol Baker and Vanessa Marvin, co-chairs of the Tobacco-Free Coalition of Santa Clara County, in a letter to the City Council,” Six out of 16 jurisdictions in Santa Clara County currently have a comprehensive TRL policy — San Jose is not one of them. Let’s work together to make the changes needed to get San Jose there.”

In May, Ortiz and a few of his colleagues on the dais introduced the concept of a smoke shop ban following the release of the 2025 Latino Health Assessment report, which found that Latinos faced more dire health outcomes than their counterparts.

In East San Jose, the area Ortiz predominantly represents, the report highlighted that tobacco retailers were more prevalent than in other parts of the county. East San Jose has 6.7 tobacco retailers per square mile, more than two times the countywide density.

“The truth is, while we believe in freedom and consumer choice and options and all those sorts of things, there’s an over-concentration of these retailers and these products in our lower-income neighborhoods that have been historically underinvested in,” Mayor Matt Mahan said. “We see tactics targeting our children and we see the impacts — the negative impacts — far outweighing any benefit, frankly. And so it’s high time we get a better handle on the activities of some of these retailers and certainly ban nitrous oxide.”

While the city acknowledged there are specific legitimate uses for nitrous oxide, such as in the medical, dental and industrial fields, state law left a gap in its enforcement abilities.

Along with banning the sale of nitrous oxide in smoke shops and similar retail establishments, the newly enacted rules would hold property owners jointly liable, allow the city to declare violations a public nuisance, and potentially seek license revocation.

As of September 1, the city reported issuing 551 tobacco retail licenses. However, there is a growing number of complaints about unpermitted stores.

Rachel Roberts, deputy director of code enforcement, said that of the 101 businesses facing complaints, 30 were operating without a tobacco permit, while another 35 were also operating with a general business tax license.

“This isn’t a problem that involves one or two bad actors,” said Vivek Sharma, policy lead for the Community Advocate Teens of Today. “This is a system that has been quietly spiraling out of control.”

San Jose’s actions on Tuesday put it among a growing number of California cities looking to curb the number of tobacco retailers or tobacco use.

Tiburon became the third California local government to ban tobacco sales after its town council approved the initiative last month, following in the footsteps of Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach, which passed bans in 2021.

District 6 Councilmember Michael Mulcahy said that as the city evaluates its options during the moratorium, he hoped it would lead to a “more permanent fix with bad actors in our community.

“This stuff is literally killing people in our community and harming our most vulnerable youth,” Mulcahy said.

OpenAI said Tuesday it would restructure as a for-profit company in a way that addresses concerns from California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who signed off on the transformation.

But details of the move could revive worries that San Francisco-based OpenAI is misusing charitable tax exemptions, experts and advocates told CalMatters. The ChatGPT maker is putting its nonprofit arm nominally in control of the for-profit entity, but there are numerous ways the for-profit company could end up calling the shots, these people said.

There are also important, unanswered questions about the safeguards that are supposed to keep that from happening.

Under the restructuring, the newly-formed OpenAI Foundation will hold about 26 percent of OpenAI’s valuation, a share amounting to $130 billion, instantly making it one of the most well-endowed philanthropic organizations in the world. Microsoft, company employees, and other investors will hold the rest.

The controlling nonprofit foundation can appoint members of the for-profit board of directors and, through a special committee, step in to address AI safety concerns. The company also pledged to remain in California.

OpenAI did not respond to a CalMatters request for additional details about potential safeguards to preserve the independence of the OpenAI Foundation.

OpenAI’s plans came under scrutiny in California because Bonta, along with Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, wanted to ensure the company stayed true to the mission laid out in its charter when the organization was founded as a nonprofit a decade ago to make artificial intelligence that benefits humanity. The company had pledged all “assets are irrevocably dedicated” to this purpose.

OpenAI has faced criticism for a wide range of impacts on society. In August, the parents of California teenager Adam Raine alleged in a lawsuit that ChatGPT coached him on how to commit suicide. The company put restrictions on its generative AI video app Sora 2 after depictions of Martin Luther King Jr were criticized as disrespectful. Lawmakers in California have also moved to mitigate rising power consumption and proliferation of data centers driven by ChatGPT and similar tools. At the same time, the company has helped drive an AI boom that has seen Big Tech companies surge money into state tax coffers.

Bonta and Jennings have both now signed agreements with OpenAI blessing its new structure.

“We will be keeping a close eye on OpenAI to ensure ongoing adherence to its charitable mission and the protection of the safety of all Californians,” Bonta wrote.

Robert Bartlett, a professor of law and business at Stanford Law School, has studied and worked in the venture capital ecosystem for three decades. He said OpenAI’s start as a nonprofit was unusual and related to its unique mission around artificial intelligence. But it found being a nonprofit restrictive, making it difficult to raise capital and compensate its employees with equity in the company. Its restructuring should pave the way for an eventual initial public offering.

Bartlett said the new arrangement that the nonprofit, a minority stakeholder, will have oversight of the public benefit corporation is also unusual. He said the deal envisions a “pretty active role” for the nonprofit’s safety committee, which will include the right to control safety procedures and halt the release of AI models made by the corporation. OpenAI previously named four members of the safety committee on its website and has said all current members of the non-profit board will serve on the for-profit board, with some as observers.

But not knowing exactly how much overlap there might be between the boards of the nonprofit and the corporation is a big question, as is the ultimate composition of the committee, Bartlett said.

“We’ll have to see what happens, who’s on the committee, how active (they are), and their relationship to OpenAI,” Bartlett said. “Will (the structure) be meaningful and consistent with the AG’s focus on safety?”

Steven Adler previously led a product safety team at OpenAI. On Tuesday he published an op-ed in the New York Times that argues that the company can’t be trusted when they say they can safely deploy erotica chatbots in part because it has a history of ignoring risks.

He told CalMatters that under the restructure that he thinks the nonprofit’s safety committee needs more independence to operate effectively. “I hope that a truly independent body will do a better job of protecting the organization’s mission than one that feels any pull toward profits,” he said.

OpenAI’s restructuring drew ire from Eyes On OpenAI, a coalition of more than 60 California nonprofit organizations who have argued for more than a year that attorneys general should force the company to transfer its assets to an independent nonprofit entity. The precedent for this approach comes from Blue Cross of California, which started as a nonprofit. Following a transfer of assets to a for-profit subsidiary in the 1990s, that organization gave more than $3 billion in stock to two foundations.

San Francisco Foundation chief Impact Officer Judith Bell, a member of the Eyes on OpenAI coalition, said the deal could set a precedent for startups to evade taxes, and is also concerned that under the restructuring the same people can serve on boards of directors for the for-profit and the nonprofit.

“There’s a bazillion conflicts of interest here,” she said, adding that those conflicts are particularly worrisome given the broad potential harms the foundation needs to keep an eye on, including how the tech impacts children, the economy, the workplace, and society.

The deal speaks to the tremendous influence of a corporation to push forward a deal, said Orson Aguilar, director of the advocacy nonprofit LatinoProsperity and a member of the Eyes On OpenAI coalition.

He believes OpenAI lost its way when key executives realized they could make an enormous amount of money for themselves. Members of the nonprofit board, meanwhile, variously quit and lost influence after some of them attempted to oust CEO Sam Altman in 2023.

“The nonprofit continues to operate under the influence of the for-profit it supposedly oversees and that’s been our biggest objection and nothing today tells us that anything meaningful has changed that,” he said.

Khari Johnson and Levi Sumagaysay are reporters with CalMatters.

What you need to know: After months of negotiations, the City of San Jose has agreed to collaborate with Caltrans to address unsheltered homelessness within its city limits.

SAN JOSE — California announced today that the City of San Jose has entered into an agreement with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to help clear encampments that migrate onto state rights-of-way in the city. San Jose is joining 21 other cities that have already signed such agreements.

“Living in dangerous and unsanitary encampments should never be someone’s only option. In California, we’ve built systems of care — real alternatives that get people indoors and connected to treatment, housing, and stability.

“I’m glad to see San Jose stepping up with the state to reduce unsheltered homelessness and address encampments in the city. As a former mayor myself, I get how tough local management can be — but this is what partnership looks like – the city and state rolling up their sleeves to support this community together.”

Governor Gavin Newsom

The agreement streamlines the process of clearing encampments that have migrated onto state rights-of-way within San Jose city limits by authorizing the city to conduct removal operations directly. It requires San Jose to conduct encampment cleanups and maintenance activities in a manner aligned with state and local policies. And it requires specific reporting and accountability to ensure that eligible costs reimbursed by the state are tracked and used effectively and transparently.

Cleanup operations will continue to prioritize encampments that pose health and safety risks, such as those located near active traffic lanes, confined spaces, unstable structures, or areas where unhoused individuals face a heightened risk of injury. Under the agreement, San Jose maintenance and landscape crews will be responsible for removing litter, debris, weeds, and resolving encampments in designated state right-of-way areas. Similar agreements have already been established between Caltrans and the cities of San Francisco and San Diego.

These agreements add to work that has been underway since 2021 by the state, with Caltrans having removed more than 19,000 encampments on state right-of-way and collected approximately 354,000 cubic yards of litter and debris. From July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025, Caltrans removed 115 encampments in the City of San Jose — an increase of more than 50 percent from the previous fiscal year — and collected 9,200 cubic yards of debris.

Since 2019, through the Department of Housing and Community Development, the state has provided the City of San Jose $482.6 million to create new housing, which includes $126.8 million to specifically assist San Jose in addressing homelessness. California has also provided the County of Santa Clara with $246.7 million, which includes projects benefiting the City of San Jose.

The collaboration is a hallmark of Governor Newsom’s work with local governments, including through the State Action for Facilitation of Encampments (SAFE) Task Force — established to urgently address encampments and accelerate access to care and services. Although San Jose informed the state it was unable to provide required services to assist with the task force, since August, SAFE has executed removal operations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Anaheim and Fresno, marshaling state agencies and local partners to remove unsafe encampments and deliver social services, health care, substance use support and temporary and longer-term housing options.

Strategies that work

Governor Newsom is the first Governor to make addressing homelessness – an issue decades in the making – a top priority. Since taking office in 2019, the Governor has created unprecedented policy and structural changes in state government to help California better address its housing and homelessness crises, including additional and unprecedented support for local governments, stronger accountability and enforcement, transformational changes to mental health services and state government, and groundbreaking reforms to create more housing, faster than ever before.