Poor Lowell.
I mean, what can you say about their woes but just that? Poor Lowell.
Here they are squeezed between Rogers and Springdale, trying to make something of themselves and what happens? The city attorney absconds. Or so city fathers thought.
If you have missed the stories, the Lowell City Council reached a financial settlement recently with Vaughn-Michael Cordes, the duly-elected city attorney, so he would resign. Essentially, he got a year’s worth of salary for doing nothing, just so he would go away.
That’s on top of the salary they paid him while he was “suspended.”
The problem is, of course, the City Council has no legal authority to suspended an elected official.
Here’s what led up to this: Sometime last year, someone got concerned Cordes no longer lived in Lowell. As an elected official, state law requires a person to maintain a residence within the jurisdiction from which he or she is elected.
That means you have to live in the jurisdiction, right? Not so fast, buckaroo. Actually, it doesn’t.
Cordes said he and his family did indeed spend time at their home outside of Lowell, but he maintained his residence in Lowell where he is registered to vote. That’s probably legal based on a number of court rulings over the years.
One of my favorite rulings includes this sentence: “A person may have two places of residence, but only one domicile.” And I always thought “residence” and “domicile” meant basically the same thing.
Did you know they teach Legal Mumbo Jumbo 101 in law school? I have been reading legal documents all my adult life, but the rulings about elected officials and residency are off-the-chart crazy. If you read them, have pencil and paper ready so you can make a flow chart.
My absolute favorite ruling on residency involves a mid-1990s case from Lepanto. Apparently, a gentleman really wanted to run for mayor of the Poinsett County town, but he lived outside the city limits. To correct that, he rented a residence for $5 a week where he stayed “all the time,” although he never bathed or showered at the rental.
I remind you, I could not make this stuff up.
Anyway, the fellow said he kept his clothes in his truck. He admitted he had no intention of giving up his rural home, but would move into an apartment in a complex he had bought as soon as the apartment was vacant.
Yep. You guessed it. The Arkansas Supreme Court said that was enough to claim residency.
I can’t tell you how many times we have gotten calls about elected or wannabe-elected officials living outside their jurisdictions. In every case, it turned out they were legal because they may have had a house outside whatever boundary was involved, but they had a residence inside.
There were other factors at work in the Lowell-Cordes mess, such as Cordes’ work habits. City officials thought when they got a full-time city attorney, they got a full-time city attorney. Based on email my colleague John Gore obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the parties involved didn’t define “full-time” in the same manner.
And guess what? State law doesn’t say a full-time city attorney can’t have a private practice, too.
Best not assume when talking Arkansas law.
Ridding themselves of Cordes was expensive for Lowell — the settlement was more than $60,000, but doesn’t include the salary they paid him when he was “suspended.” It was expensive, but a lesson one hopes a lot of people learned from.
It would be nice to think someone will take the bull by the horns and start lobbying for changes in the residency law. The “full-time” issue can be handled by establishing a policy.
The Arkansas Legislature could be addressing issues such as residency instead of messing around with women’s reproductive health care and whether people should carry guns to church and school. Where an elected official lives is just not sexy, however.
Here’s the thing: I seriously doubt anyone will work to approve a law that clearly states a person must live in the jurisdiction he or she wants to represent.
Too many people have benefited because of the vagueness of the current law — and the people who could make the change might be next ones to do so.
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LEEANNA WALKER IS LOCAL EDITOR OF THE ROGERS MORNING NEWS AND THE SPRINGDALE MORNING NEWS. FOLLOW HER ON TWITTER AT WWW.TWITTER.COM/NWALEEANNA.