Second Candidate’s Residency Questioned

The Orange County district attorney’s office is investigating whether 1st District supervisorial candidate Mark Leyes lives outside the district.

Leyes is one of five candidates in the March 26 election. Another candidate, Gary Copeland, has also been accused of living outside the district.

Acting on a citizen complaint, the district attorney’s office is checking whether Leyes lives in a section of Garden Grove that is part of the 2nd Supervisorial District, Assistant Dist. Atty. Guy Ormes said.

Westminster Mayor Charles V. Smith, one of Leyes’ opponents, said Friday he will file a complaint with the county Registrar of Voters office next week challenging Leyes’ candidacy.

“If he really does not reside in the district, then he shouldn’t be on the ballot,” Smith said.

Leyes, a Garden Grove councilman, said in an interview that he does live at the Claussen Street address he used in reregistering last October to qualify for a run at the seat being vacated by Supervisor Roger R. Stanton.

“I do live there,” he said. “We had been living in the other house, but we moved over to Claussen in October.”

Leyes and his wife, Wanda, have owned the house in the 10000 block of Claussen Street since 1991, according to property records. Part of it currently is rented to another family, Leyes said, though he and his wife also live there, sharing the four-bedroom, two-bath house with them.

“They cannot get me on the issues, so they are going to try to harass me in other ways,” Leyes said. “This is a nonissue. Others may not want to share their house with another family, but for us, it is fine.”

Election law provides for multiple residences by requiring that a voter register from his or her domicile. A domicile is defined as the place the voter calls home, where he or she intends to go back to, officials said.

The couple’s other house, in the 9000 block of Imperial Avenue, is in the 2nd Supervisorial District, which is represented by Jim Silva.

Leyes and his wife transferred their voter registration from the Imperial Avenue address Oct. 3, according to voter records, about the time Leyes decided to run for supervisor.

Bill Rogers, the Leyes’ next-door neighbor on Imperial Avenue, said he does not believe the couple has lived in the house on a full-time basis for some time, although he said he does see Wanda Leyes around the home with some frequency.

The tenants at the Claussen Street house, a family of three, could not be reached for comment.

Leyes said the family pays rent of $800 a month to occupy the front portion of the home. There is no physical separation between the living areas and the families do not eat communal meals, he said.

“I don’t eat there or anywhere much at all,” he said. “Fast food is the name of my game.”