Two Tet parades are in the works for Orange County next year.
The Garden Grove City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to bring a parade to town in celebration of the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, a parade that will take place early next year, one day after Westminster hosts its own Tet parade.
The council asked staff to proceed with plans to issue a parade permit to the Vietnamese American Federation of Southern California and other organizations to host a parade on Sunday, Jan. 26 along Westminster Avenue.
Parade organizers were told they’ll have to pick up the tab for all city costs, including police services, prior to the event. But as long as that happens, council members said, they welcome a second Tet parade.
“Any group that comes before this body and wants to put on an event and pick up the entire cost of …a positive community event… why would you say no? How could you say no?” Councilman George Brietigam told his colleagues.
The councilman added that he wants to do what’s best for Garden Grove “without any of the political drama.” He was referring to the political split on the Westminster City Council, which voted against letting the Federation group host a Tet parade in that city as it has for the past seven years. Instead, Westminster granted a permit to a newly formed Vietnamese American organization that plans to host the Tet parade in that city.
“You can’t help but have that backdrop of the political division going on in Westminster right now,” Brietigam said.
On Tuesday, organizers of a group called Westminster United submitted recall petitions to put Westminster Mayor Tri Ta and council members Kimberly Ho and Chi Charlie Nguyen on an upcoming ballot. Garden Grove Councilman Phat Bui, who heads the Federation group that has run the parade in Westminster, said he believes the vote against his group came because they believe he is the driving force in that recall effort — something he denies.
Most of the Garden Grove council, including Bui, did not speak during the public discussion prior to voting to proceed with the parade. Instead, they heard from a crowd that generally favored the idea of letting a Tet parade happen in their city, arguing that it will be good for local businesses and will boost the city’s image.
In recent years, the Tet parade in Westminster has drawn at least 15,000 people along Bolsa Avenue to watch floats, marching bands and dignitaries. In addition, the Tet parade in Westminster has been billed as representing all of Little Saigon, with millions of people around the world watching via YouTube and other media.
Organizers of the Garden Grove parade said they don’t see it as competing with the Westminster parade scheduled for Jan. 25.
“When you want to preserve a culture and share the beauty of that culture there’s no competition,” Khoa Do, program director of the Tet parade committee, told the Garden Grove council. “We want everybody to have a good time, being together.”
But organizers for the Westminster parade disagreed. The Lunar Near Year is a time for family togetherness and unity in the community, they said, and a rival Tet parade on the same weekend could be divisive.
“To have a second parade in a different part of town doesn’t show unity. It shows division,” said Duy Nguyen, whose Little Saigon-Westminster Tet Parade Organization was granted a parade permit by the Westminster council on Aug. 14.
“We’re not here to cut anyone out or leave anyone out,” Nguyen told the Garden Grove council. “Please come join us and celebrate a day of happiness.”
Political factions are not uncommon in the Little Saigon community, where there have also been competing Tet Festivals in the past.
In recent years, rival festivals have been held in Costa Mesa by the nonprofit Union of Vietnamese Student Associations, which has held the longest-running festival in the county – for years in Garden Grove – and at Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley, where the event’s tab has been picked up by Orange County.