Peralta Colleges Area 3 Trustee candidate Monica Tell
A candidate for an Oakland seat on the Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees has public records indicating a Castro Valley address as her residence, a fact that would make her ineligible for office.
Mónica Tell is challenging two-term incumbent Linda Handy in Trustee Area 3, a community that includes parts of the Laurel district, as well as the San Antonio, Maxwell Park, Fruitvale, Fairfax, Brookdale and Allendale districts of Oakland.
Her website proudly states, “Mónica Tell has lived, worked and worshiped in Oakland for over three decades.” Tell declared her candidacy on Aug. 6 using a Fruitvale address, but it appears the public relations specialist for PG&E actually lives in an unincorporated area of Alameda County.
According to Alameda County Assessor and Auditor-Controller records, Tell purchased a townhouse in Castro Valley in 2007. The Castro Valley residence is valued at $354,000.
Tell receives an annual Homeowner’s Exemption that exempts $7,000 of the home’s assessed value from taxation, making the net taxable value of the property $347,000. Homeowners are eligible for an exemption only at their principal residence, according to the Assessor’s Office.
Although Tell has been registered to vote at the Fruitvale address for more than 10 years, records show the single-family residence is owned by her father. Public records state the family purchased her two-bedroom, childhood home in 1975.
Tell has voted regularly at the East Oakland home since 1999, according to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters office. Candidates are not required to prove their residence when filing; however, addresses submitted are verified against voting records.
Election law states that residence, for the purpose of voting, means a person’s domicile. And at any given time, a person may have only one domicile.
Tell admitted owning the Castro Valley property in an telephone interview Monday, but denied living there stating that she lives in Oakland.
“I’m not aware of that exemption,” said Tell. She has received the homeowner’s exemption annually since she first became eligible in 2008.
“They have to live in the house that they claim the exemption on,” said Russ Hall, the county’s deputy assessor.
Records also indicate that Claudia Quezada also lives at the Castro Valley residence. Homeowner’s claiming an exemption are not allowed to rent out their homes to others, according to Hall, and are required to cancel their exemption if they do not own or occupy their home as their principal place of residency.
According to records, either Tell, 38, lives in her parent’s East Oakland home and is ineligible for the homeowner’s exemption, or lives in Castro Valley and is not legible to serve on the Peralta board.
To be eligible for office, candidates must reside and be registered to vote in a specific trustee area, according to Peralta’s Board Policy. District officials would not comment on the matter.
“Each trustee or challenger is responsible for their own legal counsel on elections,” Thuy Nguyen, the college district’s general counsel said in an email.
In 2009, former San Francisco County Supervisor Ed Jew was sentenced to one year in county jail, three years probation and fined $2,000 for perjury after it was discovered that he lied about living in the district he was elected to represent.
This story originally appeared on OaklandLocal.com.
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