Guest Commentary - My Steve Ly Story
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2020/07/my-steve-ly-story.html
Steve Ly and Nancy Chaires Espinoza's campaign signs during the 2014 Elk Grove City Council District 4 race. | |
By Nancy Chaires Espinoza |
Special to Elk Grove News |
A few weeks ago, a couple of courageous young women speaking
out helped me to reflect on the need to publicly share my experiences with Steve Ly.
In sharing my hope is to inhibit his ability to harass and abuse women. I owe a
debt of gratitude to Linda Vu and Jackie “Jax” Cheung, and I stand in
solidarity with their call for Steve Ly to be held accountable for his years of
directing aggressive attacks on women and for allowing abuse of women to take
place in his name.
I first met Steve Ly in late 2013 when I was running for Elk
Grove City Council. Having heard rumors that Ly, who had been elected to the
Elk Grove Unified School District Board of Education less than a year before,
would be running for the same seat. Over coffee on a Thursday morning I told
him that obviously no one had a claim to the seat, but I’d like to know if he
was in fact running. He told me that he was flattered by encouragement he’d
received to do so, but was not going to run for city council. Two days later, I
began to receive calls from local elected officials saying that Steve was
running and had just called them to ask for their endorsement. Steve had
nothing to gain by lying to me about his intentions. This was the first of many
times I would witness Steve lying reflexively.
Contrary to what many people may think, the vast majority of
people who run for public office do so in an honorable way. Steve’s campaign
against me stood out for its personal attacks and constant pettiness. For
example, I spent countless nights with my team placing lawn signs or larger
campaign signs in view of the public across the entirety of the City of Elk
Grove. The following day, Steve’s signs would be placed in front of mine by a
few feet, blocking view of my signs when there was plenty of room to space out
his signs, in violation of city code. Eventually, he started placing his signs
literally on top of my large signs. My smaller, lawn signs would be pulled out
and thrown on the ground, sometimes torn in half. This occurred regularly for
the remainder of the campaign. No one else’s campaign signs were moved, blocked
or damaged that year.
When they started placing his signs on top of mine, I called
Steve and asked him to make it stop. He denied knowledge of these actions and
claimed he had no control over what his campaign volunteers did. For those who
don’t know, campaigns purchase these signs and choose who distributes them.
Steve’s interference with my campaign was illegal, and along with his frequent
placement of signs in prohibited areas, I could have reported him for that. I
chose not to because I didn’t want to look like a victim. In my first ever
campaign, I was introducing myself to many voters, and I didn’t want to be seen as the woman who was
too weak to engage in politics.
During the last month before the election, Steve’s campaign
distributed potted plants to voters with a note purportedly written by his wife
lauding him as a good family man. One might question why they chose a message
so unrelated from the job we were both seeking or his qualifications for it.
The reason, is because they were simultaneously engaging in a whisper campaign
to tarnish my ethical and moral reputation. Steve and his associates began to
use false social media profiles to post comments online suggesting that I had secret
transgressions and they urged local press to investigate. They created false
email addresses to impersonate my supporters and alleged that I had had an
affair with my husband resulting in the end of his first marriage. They claimed
to have court records of those divorce proceedings which described my
unscrupulous behavior. They created false email addresses and false social
media profiles. They claim that everyone in the State Capitol where I worked at
the time, knew about this and shunned me for it.
In reality, my husband was never married to my stepson’s
mother, and he and I met years after they had separated. We all enjoyed a
successful co-parenting relationship and my stepson’s mom had been an active
supporter of my campaign. No one who knew me believed any of these allegations,
but campaigns are about introducing yourself to people who don’t already know
you. I could have easily disregarded attacks that only involved me, but
attacking a candidate’s family crosses an ethical line. My young teenage stepson
had internet access and could have been confronted by his peers with these
salacious stories at any time. I had to sit him down and explain the
allegations and the true story. He had been too young to remember his parents
being together and wouldn’t have known whether these allegations were true. He
and his mother both felt exposed and upset at being dragged into this tawdry
story by someone they didn’t even know. My husband and I had worked hard to
give our son a positive impression of civic involvement and public service, but
I saw his heart harden and cynicism develop as a result of this attack on our
family. This all occurred about two weeks before the November 2014 election,
when there was not enough time to correct the record or expose Ly’s tactics.
With such a limited window to communicate with voters, I needed to use my
resources to convey more important things about myself to the electorate. Steve
won that election to City Council, I was pleasantly surprised to be appointed
to seat he vacated on the Elk Grove School Board.
To this day, Ly continues to employ the same tactics against
other women: fake email addresses, fake social media profiles, claims that
things are done without his knowledge or consent, claims that he cannot control
the actions of his volunteers or staff.
Two years later, In 2016, while I was hospitalized outside
the area and on strict bed rest due to pre-term labor, Steve recruited someone
to run against me in my re-election to the Elk Grove Unified School Board.
Steve took advantage of my being unable to leave my premature baby in a
Southern California NICU, to provide my newly-recruited opponent with space in
his campaign office, featured him in campaign mailers, and contributed
financially to his campaign. When I was finally able to return home in the
summer, I was unable to heal from my emergency c-section or dedicate my
maternity leave to nursing my preemie. Instead, I had to devote a significant
amount of time to campaigning because Ly had manufactured an opponent for me,
for no reason. He kept me busy attending local Democratic club endorsement
meetings to defend myself from charges leveled by men he sent to allege that I
was a “closet Republican.”
I want to reiterate that no one—myself included—has a claim
on elected positions unless and until they earn them from the voters. What I
take issue with is the intentional recruitment of an opponent simply to create
a roadblock for a woman who is solely motivated by public service. A woman who
did not pose a threat to Ly’s political aspirations. Ly has never cited any
reasons related to public policy or governance to work so hard to oppose me,
even when we weren’t actually competing for the same position.
I’ve been asked many times what caused the schism between
myself and Ly. Having no knowledge of any actual disagreements or conflicts, I
can only note the pattern that has developed with his behavior towards any
woman who becomes involved in local democratic politics. Having shown his
character, Ly has poor relationships with most local elected officials. This is
one of the reasons he is ineffective and isolated from his colleagues on the
Elk Grove City Council. He frequently has substantive disagreements with his
male colleagues on matters that are not insignificant. But for some reason, he
reserves his vitriol and attacks for women.
Here we are in 2020, and I’d rather be doing ANYTHING other
than talking about Steve Ly. I’d rather devote my time to my young son who like
most others has been away from his teachers and friends, to my job in education
advocacy, and to my job on the Elk Grove School Board which is facing
unprecedented challenges in serving our students. I also have a responsibility
to engage in the democratic process in order to earn another term on the School
Board this November 3rd. I fully expect that as a result of my speaking out
against Steve, he will once again recruit someone to run against me, and devote
his time and resources towards impeding me from continuing my public service.
This is the threat that Ly has wielded over me for years, and I’m ashamed to
say, is one of the reasons I have stayed silent.
I’m speaking out now because the stories Linda Vu, Jax
Cheung, Bobbie Singh-Allen and many others tell bear a striking resemblance to
my own. Ly’s harassment of them was allowed to occur because I have been
unsuccessful in persuading partisan insiders to withdraw their support of Ly,
despite his unnecessary and vicious wars on Democratic women. This was allowed
to occur because I did not speak out publicly. Ly is unfit for public office.
He has no interest in public service and uses these positions as nothing but a
stepping-stone to his political aspirations. I am speaking out because the
residents of Elk Grove have a right to know who their Mayor is, and because I
hope they will join me in finally holding him accountable for his
misogyny.
As with racism, individual incidents of misogyny can be
easily dismissed as stemming from some other cause. In both cases, we have to
step back and see the patterns that emerge. Please take my story in context of
what other women have shared and hopefully will continue to share.
Sincerely,
Nancy Chaires Espinoza
Member, EGUSD School Board
5 comments
At what point will we hear the denouncement of Steve Ly from Maureen Craft, Ali Moua, Amandeep Singh, Sean Yang or any other politicians that Steve Ly has supported their candidacy. When will we hear that you support these women, these are community members, elected officials. This can no longer be left without a public admonishment, denounce Steve Ly’s behavior an cut your ties with Mayor Ly. All supporters should also publicly denounce Mayor Steve Ly’s behavior an denounce your support for the Mayor. All Democratic Clubs need to publicly denounce Mayor Steve Ly’s behavior an pull, rescind support immediately. Those that do not are no better than Steve Ly. The time has come that once again we hear the same similar story. Enough is Enough! Steve Ly needs professional counseling an needs to step down as Mayor an not seek another term. He has disgraced the office of Mayor. Elk Grove deserves better an women in Elk Grove should not be subject to his behavior of harassment, intimidation or threats.
Confuscious say, "little man resentful of women, kiss higher office goodbye"
Strangely I find myself in agreement with some of Randy's assertions. Steve Ly has embarrassed his political allies and if he were true to his party members seeking office, he would fall on the sword and resign. But we all know politicians of any ilk are loath to admit to anything so don't expect that to happen.
These type of situations occur in politics from time to time and they will invariably arise again here in our creepy little corner of California. Randy I trust you will apply the same principles when this happens to someone you support and don't delude yourself into thinking it won't, because as soon as you get comfortable that it will ever happen, it does.
Confuscious say, "Hmong man no longer in power, no longer get shower of Hmong money".
Spoons an Forks, it is good you can see my point of view once in awhile. I am only beholding to who I am an support my views an my family. If someone I support find themselves in a situation I would want to find out all the details an in this situation request to them personally to resign before publicly having no choice but denounce their behavior an resend my support. It should be pretty easy to run for local office since it is nonpartisan an you are supporting your community you live in. It should have nothing to do with politics. Coming from Old Town Elk Grove where a hand shack an your word means more than a legal document. Knowing a thousand of your neighbors you grew up with makes who you are. That is what I expect within reason. Everyone has their faults but there shouldn’t not be a negative trail of the same mistakes if that happens then that is truly who you are. Ly has a trail of negative choices that his word or handshake is not trustworthy. He has a pattern of abuse or allowing others to abuse women in his name or for his political gain. He needs Professional counseling, Ly needs to step down as Mayor an resign.
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