By M.R. Wainwright
Tiffany Gaudin’s campaign for Victorville City Council is facing some strong headwinds in the face of accusations that she misrepresented her residency status in order to qualify for her candidacy in that city’s District 1 council race.
There are no incumbents involved in the Victorville District 1 contest. In addition to Gaudin, Leyda Fernandez, Valentin Godina , and Robert Andrew Lucero are seeking the post in the November 5 balloting.
In her campaign literature and on her electioneering website, Gaudin presents herself as a committed, long-time resident of Victorville. The facts tell a different story, one which some of her opponents and some Victorville residents say involves her in manipulation, dishonesty, and a calculated attempt to mislead the voters.
There is indication that Gaudin doesn’t live in Victorville. She re-registered to vote using a Victorville address on July 13, 2024, the same day she pulled her candidacy papers. Before that, she was registered at what is said by multiple individuals to be her true residence in Apple Valley, where her husband, Justin Gaudin, is still registered. Despite her claims of deep ties to Victorville, neighbors in Apple Valley have confirmed that nothing has changed, and they continue to see Tiffany around the neighborhood regularly. This has given rise to the allegation that the Gaudins haven’t uprooted their lives for Victorville; instead, it is the observation of some that they are attempting to game the system by falsifying residency to enable Tiffany Gaudin to run for office.
If the basis for Gaudin’s claim of Victorville residency is false, what has occurred goes beyond being a minor technicality. Such a violation of the public trust would involve Gaudin asking the people of Victorville to believe she’s one of them when, in reality, she’s living in another city. Her willingness to make such a representation about where she lives would raise further questions about what other issues she might be deceiving the public about.
Such a misrepresentation, if actual, would potentially carry with it criminal implications. There is precedent in San Bernardino County for prosecutions relating to a candidate making a false claim of residency.
The most celebrated case relating to the residency of a San Bernardino County elected official in the last half century was that of Fontana City Treasurer Ron Hibble, who was elected to that post in November 1986. The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, then headed by District Attorney Dennis Kottmeier, charged Hibble with four felony charges of perjury and election fraud based upon the contention that he lied about his city of residence. At trial before Judge Robert Krug, Deputy District Attorney Karen Ferraro established that Hibble regularly spent the night at the Grand Terrace home of his girlfriend, Judith McBride, that he had rented out his Fontana residence to a tenant and that he had prevaricated about living in the garage of that home.
Judge Krug made several rulings in the case that were crucial to the outcome, one of those being that the case boiled down to not where Hibble lived on a constant day-to-day basis but whether he met the State of California’s criteria relating to what constitutes an individual’s legal domicile, and whether Hibble had met that bar when he ran for office and voted in 1986. Making a finding that the utilities at the Fontana home were in Hibble’s name and that his driver license showed the Fontana home’s address, Krug ruled there was no evidence that Hibble’s intent was to move to Grand Terrace permanently, and that Hibble was not paying rent to McBride. Hibble was acquitted.
Gaudin’s case differs from Hibble’s in that it was established that before being elected, Hibble had at one point actually resided in the home he claimed to have lived in. That issue is not as clearly cut in the Gaudin matter.
Even if Gaudin’s case does not fall into the realm of criminal law, a misrepresentation about her actual residency is likely to result, in the event of her victory in November, in her not being able to be seated as the District 1 councilwoman or being subjected to an examination in which she might end up being removed from office.
Such was the case in 2021, when the Victorville City Council, then composed of members elected not by district but at large, voted to remove the late Rita Ramirez-Dean from office.
Ramirez-Dean, originally elected to the council in 2018, lived in Victorville at that time. In December 2019, however, she severely injuring and bruised left foot in a fall, requiring hospitalization. The subsurface bruising transformed into a gangrenous patch, which in Janaury 2020 had to be cut out, thereafter leading to the amputation of some toes, then her foot and then her lower leg. With the advent of the COVID pandemic and her residency in a recovery hospital, her son, concerned over her potential exposure to the Coronavirus, removed her to the family home in Joshua Tree to facilitate her recovery.
When Ramirez-Dean’s recovery became extended, despite her participating in the council meetings remotely, her council colleagues in March 2021 voted, in a 3-to-2 vote, to remove her from office on the grounds that she was no longer living in Victorville.
After the May 2018 death of then-Hesperia Mayor Russ Blewett, Jeremiah Brosowske wangled an appointment to the Hesperia City Council as his replacement in July of that year, despite his residency in Rancho Cucamonga. Brosowske was able to plausibly maintain he lived in Hesperia by asserting that he was residing at the home of former Hesperia Mayor/Councilman Bill Jensen. Jensen, who was in favor of Brosowske’s appointment, backed him in his claim of Hesperia residency. Once on the council, Brosowske subsequently rented an apartment unit at 16784 Sultana Street in Hesperia within the Sultana Mulberry Apartment Complex in the city’s Fourth District in Hesperia and filed to run for election in the November 2018 election. He was successful in that effort.
Subsequently, however, he had a falling out with Jensen, who began speaking out publicly, saying Brosowske had not lived at his home nor in Hesperia at all at the time he was appointed to the council. This led to a further examination by others, and ultimately by the city itself, into what were Brosowske’s ten-current living arrangements. Though he had rented the apartment unit on Sultana Street, constant monitoring of that location by a private investigator established he was not living there, and further surveillance established he was living with his girlfriend in Rancho Cucamonga. The city council took action, in a 3-to-2 vote, in September 2019 to remove him from office.
According to records and nearby residents, Gaudin is living at 15480 Navajo Road in Apple Valley. In her filing for her city council candidacy, Gaudin claims to be residing in a domicile at 16761 Kayuga Street in Victorville. The Kayuga Street home is owned by Daniel Brown and Fleta Joyce Brown.
In a discussion with a Victorville resident on October 5 during Victorville’s Fall Festival, Gaudin said she had moved to Victorville where she is renting a home so for the express purpose of being able to run for the city council.
The Sentinel is now informed that the district attorney’s office is looking into Gaudin’s actual residency.
Reportedly, the union representing San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies – the Safety Employees Benefit Association (SEBA) – which initially endorse her, is now reconsidering its support in light of the revelations about the residency questions surrounding her.
Gaudin claims she and her family are longtime residents of Victorville, committed to the community.
Neither Tiffany Gaudin nor her husband voted in any local elections since the 2021 recall election.
The Sentinel’s inquiry of Gaudin about her actual residency, sent to her in an email provided as the means of contact on the website for her candidacy, did not garner a response by press time.