The resignation of the Capitola council member shows the vague residence rules for politicians

While the Capitola City Council is preparing to choose how on Thursday how the free seat of Alexander Pedersen can be filled, concerns about the life situation of the former member of the council raise new questions about the official residence rules for local civil servants.

Pedersensen's abrupt resignation from the Capitola City Councilor at the beginning of this month followed a flood of allegations that he had violated state laws by continued to serve in the council after he had bought a house in Santa Cruz and lived in a rental property in Capitola. Several citizens asked the district prosecutor of Santa Cruz and Capitola's city council to examine him.

However, legal experts and other observers say that state law is at best confusing for chosen civil servants and, in the worst case, frustrating.

“It is a very unpleasant position to be in a place where people reproach against a council member who acts as my boss,” said Jamie Goldstein, manager of Capitola City. “If you look at the law, it is difficult to understand what is necessary.”

The state laws say that a person is only entitled to a city council seat if they are based in the district in which they serve. However, the California election code defines the residence of a person as a “residence” – a permanent home in which you want to live indefinitely. This differs from an apartment that the state is largely defined as a “place where the dwelling of the person is set for some time, but in which it does not have the intention”. According to state law, voters – and thus elected civil servants – can have more than one place of residence, but only a legal place of residence for political purposes.

In Pedersensen's case, he lived from the time when he was elected to the city council for the first time until the beginning of this year, in a rental property in Capitola. Then, in February, he and his wife bought a house in Santa Cruz. Some Capitola citizens questioned this and said that he should no longer meet the residence requirements defined by the state and therefore should be examined and censored.

Katrina Rogers, a chief inspector of the district prosecutor in Santa Cruz County, told Lookout that everyone who has the elected office in hand has their seat immediately if he changed outside of jurisdiction in which they serve, but leaned, but to comment on whether Pedersen broke the rules in his case.

Rogers said that the office that did not open up a investigation, but instead referred affected citizens To the office of the California General Prosecutor's Prosecutor to start a process called Quo Warranto, with which a person's right to keep public office. A spokesman for the office of Attorney General Rob Bonta confirmed that the office never received an application for Quo Warranto examination.

In a similar way, Goldstein said that he had never received the statement from the city council to examine Pedersen.

Pedersen said Lookout that, while he was moving in Capitola in Capitola to reduce after his wife had moved to her bought house, he wanted to live in the rental agreement until he could serve his term in the council, which would be over in 2026 and then moved to Santa Cruz. He added that he was also registered for the coordination in Capitola because he had not yet moved to Santa Cruz.

So does that mean that the Capitola rent in which he lived was his place of residence? Legal experts do not agree.

“I don't care whether he has five houses who, in which he is rooted, is his place of residence,” said Rex Halverson, a tax lawyer based in Sacramento who often deals with tax issues in which the statutory residence of a person is involved.

He added that it is quite common for politicians to have a house or property outside the area that they serve – for example US sensers. Many of them will rent places in Washington, DC, where they serve. Halverson argues that the single rent of a property does not implied a residence because it is not the property in which one intends to remain permanent.

Others believe that Pedersensen's house purchase did not affect his authorization to continue to serve in the Capitola Council. Justin Levitt is the electoral administrator of the Law School of the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, who recently worked as a high -ranking political advisor to the bid administration for democracy and voting rights. He told Lookout by e -mail that Pedersensen's situation is not necessarily a legal problem.

“Simply buying a house outside of city limits does not lead to a legal problem (although a political company could possibly make it) if the member of the council only moved there after his term,” wrote Levitt. “If the rental property in Capitola was in his district and he originally drove with the intention of staying indefinitely, the residence under California was probably quite good.”

Pedersen and his wife described their purchased house as the main residence for their mortgage and controlled tax returns in their house. Levitt said he still believes that Pedersen was probably certain according to the state's electoral law as long as he was still alive in his district in the rental unit.

“Nobody doubts that the new house is currently the main residence of his wife and that one day it will be its main residence,” he wrote. “If it is your mortgage, it doesn't really talk about where his residence is in such a situation.”

Goldstein, the city administrator of Capitola, said that the city has no requirements for the council members to disclose where they own property, but the Commission for California Political Practice requires all the ownership that they have within 2 miles of city limits. The Santa Cruz House of Pedersen is only about 3 miles outside the city limits of Capitola.

Goldstein added that the urban residence rules for chosen civil servants were “very useful”, but the city is probably not allowed to design itself.

“The state law regulates, there are no city rules that the rules as we define the residence,” he said. “Usually the state law specifies local law, so I don't know that this is possible.”

Pedersen said that at the end of the day there is a legal dispute over this topic when he wanted it, given the associated costs and stress. But he said that the discussions with various legal groups believe that he would have won and that his critics are wrong with regard to their residence concerns: “I am very confident that it would not have worked in their favor.”

After Pedersen has resigned and the General Prosecutor's office never received a quo guaranto application in the matter, the legal question of Pedersensen's place of residence is probably never officially answered.

“Courts have spent a lot of time to analyze what makes an apartment and what makes a residence,” said Capitola City Walt, Samantha Zutler, to Lookout. “I don't know what the court would do.”

– Christopher Neely contributed to this report.

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