With Three Addresses, Which One Is Home?

Which is home: A one-bedroom kitchenette apartment in Fullerton or a sprawling hacienda listed for $1.5 million in Chino Hills?

Fullerton City Councilwoman Julie Sa has been fighting accusations that the motor inn apartment she calls home is only a front for election purposes--that she really lives in the 8,200-square-foot mansion with private helipad in San Bernardino County.

Sa says she spends three to four days a week at her Ambassador Inn apartment, where she gets most of her mail--a key element to define residency. She says she divides the rest of the week between her parents’ home in Anaheim Hills and the Chino Hills estate. And she dismisses the formal complaint filed at City Hall as a political smear tactic.

Legal experts say Sa probably can survive a legal challenge over her residency, but the case points up a fairly common complaint in local elections, where even the hint of a candidate being an outsider can lead voters to cast ballots for someone else.

“It happens quite a bit, especially in small towns,” said Dana Reed, a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in election law.

“It certainly is not uncommon for people of means to have more than one domicile,” Reed said. “People have beach houses and desert houses and flats in London and all kinds of things. But you can only have one residence for purposes of voting, and if that’s the location she’s chosen, I think it’s going to be extremely difficult if not impossible to prove otherwise.”

The difficulty, Reed said, is the loose definition of what constitutes residency.

“The law hinges on intent, and intent is almost impossible to prove,” he said. “If she claims that’s her intention, that is her residence, how are you going to prove otherwise?”

Formal Complaint to City Manager

The accusation arose earlier this week when John Cross, president of the Fullerton Police Officers Assn., delivered a formal complaint to the city manager that he said stemmed from conversations with several residents he did not identify. He said he was acting as an individual, not on behalf of the union.

City officials referred the matter to the Orange County district attorney’s office, which passed it on to the state attorney general to resolve questions about a potential conflict of interest within the county prosecutor’s office. A district attorney staffer--Assistant Chief Investigator Mike Clesceri--is a candidate in the fall election for one of three council seats up for grabs, including Sa’s.

Nathan Barankin, spokesman for the attorney general’s office in Sacramento, said officials had not reviewed the case yet to determine whether the Orange County district attorney’s office has such a conflict.

Even if Sa survives Cross’ legal challenge, the political repercussions could be acute, some local observers said.

Alan Morton, a Fullerton resident who follows local politics, said voters’ perceptions of Sa could change if they feel she is not part of the community.

“I think this will have some effect,” Morton said. “It smacks of being a little askew, and the general public can draw their own conclusions. The fact that she’s spending her time in Chino Hills, with her parents [in Anaheim] and Fullerton certainly creates a rather unique way of representing Fullerton when she’s all spread out.”

The issue revolves around the Chino Hills home--which includes eight bedrooms, a swimming pool and tennis court--that Sa said was bought in her husband’s name as an investment. The couple paid $625,000 for the hilltop compound, made $200,000 in improvements and has been trying to sell it for $1.5 million, she said.

Duane Smith, Sa’s real estate agent, said the house was bought while it was in foreclosure at a “rock bottom” price.

The house contrasts sharply with the kitchenette abode Sa rents in Fullerton for $470 per month--less than half of Orange County’s median rent for an apartment.

Fullerton City Atty. Richard D. Jones has said that residency usually is indicated by where an individual conducts such personal business as receiving bills and registering for a driver’s license.

Sa said she receives two credit card bills at the Chino Hills address and the rest of her mail at the apartment.

Chul Kim, building manager at Ambassador Inn, confirmed that Sa receives mail there. Kim and other complex employees have said they occasionally see Sa there. Neighborsin the apartment complex said Friday they had not seen the councilwoman.

When Sa first won election to the Fullerton City Council in 1992, she lived in a single-family home in Fullerton with her then-husband, Hunghsi Lin.

Sa filed for bankruptcy in 1994 after her plans to build a chain of restaurants collapsed. Her marriage fell apart about the same time, and creditors included her ex-husband, from whom she had borrowed more than $400,000, according to U.S. Bankruptcy Court records. The bankruptcy was closed earlier this year with Sa’s unsecured creditors receiving a total of $397,800, or about 62 cents on the dollar, according to the court files.

Shortly after the bankruptcy filing, Sa moved to a Fullerton apartment on Euclid Avenue, then took the present apartment early last year.

She said she hopes to buy a house in Fullerton in the fall, where she, her parents and her brother will live together.

Sa said she believes the residency question was brought up in an attempt to mar her image before this fall’s city council elections.

Times correspondents Tariq Malik and Uyen Mai contributed to this story.

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