Sa Residency Charges Hit 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 the San Bernardino County community.

Sa says she spends three to four days a week at her Ambassador Inn apartment, where she gets most of her mail--and a key element to define residency. The rest of the week she divides 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.

One of the more bizarre cases arose in Hawthorne in 1992, when it was revealed that City Clerk Patrick E. Keller had been living in Hawaii for four years while collecting his $600 monthly stipend for the part-time position. He resigned.

Politicians often maintain more than one address, typically opting to buy a home in, say, Sacramento or Washington, D.C., where they serve in office, and using a small apartment to maintain legal residency in the home district.

“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 problem, he said, lies in 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?”

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’s office because of a perceived conflict of interest. A district attorney staffer--Assistant Chief Investigator Mike Clesceri--is a candidate in the fall election for one of three Fullerton council seats up for grabs, including Sa’s.

Nathan Barankin, spokesman for the attorney general’s office in Sacramento, confirmed Friday that the case had been passed on to the office but said that officials had not reviewed it yet to determine whether the Orange County district attorney’s office has a conflict of interest. He said he did not know when that would be done.

Even if Sa survives the challenge on legal grounds, the political repercussions could be damaging, some local observers said.

D.A. Passes Case to Attorney General

Alan Morton, a Fullerton resident who follows local politics, said that 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.”

Leland Wilson, a community service commissioner, described Sa as “sweet” but “not politically astute.”

“If she can only feel enough about Fullerton to rent a motel room out, then she needs to resign from the council,” Wilson said. “She’s not involved in Fullerton enough to deserve a seat. People have questions about [Sa’s] background, and I think it will hurt her. It might put people over the edge.”

The issue revolves around an exclusive Chino Hills home--complete with eight bedrooms, six and a half bathrooms, a swimming pool and a tennis court--that Sa says 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 that 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 the Ambassador Inn, confirmed that Sa receives mail there. Kim and other complex employees have said they occasionally see Sa there. However, neighbors of the second-story studio apartment said Friday that 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 on Athena Place with her then-husband, Hunghsi Lin.

However, Sa filed for bankruptcy in 1994 after her plans to build a chain of restaurants collapsed and she couldn’t make payments on a $5.3-million strip mall at Harbor Boulevard and Katella Avenue in Anaheim, the site of one of her China Doll restaurants.

The marriage fell apart around 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 court files.

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

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

She said she believes the residency question was brought up in an attempt to mar her image before this fall’s City Council elections.

“This is definitely all political,” she said. “No question about that. I’ve heard they want my seat. I don’t think it’s going to hurt me. I think in a way it’s going to help me. People are starting to say, ‘Why can’t you guys leave her alone?’ ”

But Sa does not expect any relief until after the November election.

“I’m going to continue to be attacked,” Sa said. “I’m already aware of that, and it doesn’t surprise me.”

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