The two candidates vying for the Garden Grove mayor seat both said further steps need to be taken to hold GKN Aerospace accountable for the chemical threat that evacuated thousands of residents earlier this year; they also agreed on some basic issues: neighborhoods need to be safe and affordable and business growth should tend to the city’s diverse communities.
But candidates Stephanie Klopfenstein and Thu-Ha Nguyen differ in their plans to remedy the issues and in their priorities for leading the county’s fifth-largest city.
Incumbent Klopfenstein and Nguyen, a clinical scientist, are facing off in a bid for a two-year term as Garden Grove’s top elected official; the two ran for the same position in the 2024 general election.
The winner will take office in December, shepherding the council through decisions on tourism developments, new housing and addressing lingering community concerns surrounding safety and transparency regarding the GKN plant, at which the company said it plans to restart full operations in the coming weeks.
Both candidates, who were interviewed and provided written answers to questions, said they want accountability from the company at the center of the Memorial Day weekend chemical scare that triggered a large-scale emergency response and evacuation orders for some 50,000 area residents.
Klopfenstein, who served as councilmember for two terms between 2016 and 2024 before being elected mayor, said she has “demanded accountability from GKN on the chemical tank crisis,” adding the company is “now paying $100 million to our community.”
GKN Aerospace, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of civil and military aircraft parts, announced the claims program in August in conjunction with the OC District Attorney’s Office, which launched a criminal probe into the company that ended without charges. The program, also demanded by city leaders, is intended to help residents and local businesses who were forced to evacuate in May recoup financial losses. The company has said the program is expected to go live this month.
Community members and advocacy groups, for months, have packed Garden Grove’s city chambers, asking their elected officials to impose tighter controls on the plant or to even shut down the facility and for a moratorium, or pause, on new or expanding military manufacturing facilities.
Klopfenstein said the findings of an “after action report” underway would govern her next steps.
“I want to see all of it in its entirety, not only what GKN’s doing,” Klopfenstein said. “What we’re doing as a city, what OCFA has done, what all these agency partners have done, so that I can see the full depth and breadth of this situation from start to finish, instead of just feeding little chunks of information at a time to piece it all together.”
Nguyen, who has previously served terms on the council representing District 3, said working in the medical field, “I deal with a lot of chemicals and we do have regulations and guidelines.”
She suggested frequent inspections of the Garden Grove facility and passing a new law, inspired by one recently passed in Irvine, that requires businesses operating with toxic chemicals to notify nearby residents and new zoning restrictions for future businesses.
“It’s very easy to say, ‘I want to shut them down,’ but they’re a big, big business and the amount of employees they have is not small. Not a solution,” Nguyen said.
“Because, going back to the local economy and jobs,” she said, “there’s 500 families’ lives on the line.”
Both candidates said they’d support business growth in the city, with Nguyen proposing to streamline permitting processes.
“We must also grow our revenue responsibly by supporting existing businesses, attracting new investment, and removing unnecessary barriers to doing business in Garden Grove,” Nguyen said, adding that new businesses in cultural hubs, such as Little Saigon and Koreatown, should preserve the areas’ identity.
Nguyen also champions making City Hall “accessible” to residents by expanding “options for participating in council meetings” and language assistance based on the needs of Garden Grove’s diverse communities.
Klopfenstein said she is “very much a pro small business, pro business mayor, and council person” and welcomes “the conversations and ideas of our community and want to support our residents and business owners that truly are the backbone of Garden Grove.” She highlighted investments along the Harbor Boulevard corridor.
“I got to really know and invest a lot of time out there. And so I want to see these hotel projects move forward. I think it’s good for our city, it’s good for our local economy, and we need to be able to share those opportunities as we sit, basically, at the doorstep of a business,” Klopfenstein said, referring to the Nickelodeon-themed resort that is again making its way through City Hall for approval after years of legal delays and environmental reviews.
Bolstering businesses, Klopfenstein said, could involve leveraging Garden Grove’s proximity to the Disneyland Resort area — the city recently launched a shuttle system connecting local hotels to the tourism hub.
Both candidates agree on lifting Little Saigon as a tourism destination and supporting its hundreds of small businesses. The city is in the early stages of a partnership with Fountain Valley and Santa Ana to promote and revitalize the business core of Little Saigon, home to the largest population of Vietnamese outside of Vietnam.
Building new in an aging city, including adding additional homes to meet state housing mandates, would require the city pay attention to its infrastructure, both candidates said.
“Whether that be streets and roads or storm drains, all of that is extremely important and putting an emphasis on capital improvement projects, you can’t let that stuff sit and get behind on that too much,” Klopfenstein said. If elected for a second term as mayor, Klopfenstein said she’d improve the city’s green spaces by polishing existing parks and adding trees.
Nguyen said infrastructure improvements should be “step by step.”
“To improve the city, you cannot just do patching,” she said. “We need to focus on improving one street, on one area.”
Nguyen also proposed streamlining permitting processes to boost ADU development to help add to the housing stock.
Naming what they see as top priorities for their city, Nguyen said, “Keeping our families safe must be Garden Grove’s highest priority. Public safety means supporting our police officers and firefighters, strengthening neighborhood safety, and preventing emergencies before they happen.”
Klopfenstein named “homelessness” as one and mentioned steps taken in previous years to address the issue, including the recently adopted Homeless Strategic Plan and a tri-city effort to open the Central Cities Navigation Center, a transitional housing and support facility that added 85 beds in an industrial sect along West Street.
The mayor of Garden Grove is paid an monthly stipend of $1,512 a month, $200 more than what councilmembers are allotted, and not including pension contributions and health, dental and vision benefits.
Ballots may be returned by mail (must be postmarked by Nov. 3 and received within a week of Election Day) or to the OC Registrar of Voters’ drop boxes around town now, and the first vote centers will open for casting ballots in person on Oct. 24.