By CHRIS HAIRE, OC Register
Bruce Broadwater will likely get a seventh term as mayor after escaping election night with a 357-vote lead over his opponent, school board Trustee Bao Nguyen, with all of the precincts reporting.
Mayor of Garden Grove, Bruce Broadwater. (Photo provided by the city of Garden Grove.)
“The fiscal position of the city is great,” Broadwater said. “I want to keep it that way. Change for the sake of change is wrong.”
In the contentious campaign, Broadwater had to survive several challenges, such as allegations of city nepotism in the hiring of his son, Jeremy Broadwater, as a firefighter, which the mayor said he had nothing to do with, and a council meeting comment that art would never sell in Garden Grove.
Nguyen, for his part, had several times taken to the lectern during the public comment portion of council meetings with campaign-like speeches; several active residents criticized him for posturing.
The election’s unofficial results, from the Orange County Registrar’s Office, have Broadwater receiving 43.2 percent of Tuesday’s vote compared with 41.5 for Nguyen.
A third candidate, retired Lt. Col. Albert Ayala, received 15.3 percent.
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