Judge Refuses to Invalidate School Board Election

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge refused Tuesday to invalidate the election of an Alhambra school board member who was accused of living outside the district where he won office in November.

Judge David Yaffe, after a four-day trial, ruled there was not “clear and convincing evidence” that school board member Robert Miranda does not reside in the 5th District, which covers portions of South San Gabriel and Rosemead.

Yaffe said challenging election results is difficult and that courts are rarely willing to defy the will of the people. “No one has overturned the result of an election in this state based on nonresidence . . . in 90 years,” Yaffe said.

Glenn Rothner represented John Nunez, who challenged Miranda’s status as a district resident. Rothner argued that Miranda lives most of the time with his wife in an Alhambra ranch home in the 3rd District, not in a ramshackle abode on South San Gabriel’s North Cathryn Drive, which he registered as his residence in nomination papers.

However, Miranda testified that he and his wife slept at the Cathryn Drive address and consider that their domicile, but continue to maintain the larger home to keep their pets.

Miranda’s attorney, Sylvia Silva, produced photographs in the trial that showed the interior of the Alhambra house being remodeled, leaving little space to live.

Yaffe said the photographs of the larger home’s interior in disrepair persuaded him the “Mirandas aren’t living there.”