Three women vying for political office in San Bernardino County this election cycle have been convincingly accused of phonying up their residential claims in order to qualify their candidacies for the offices they hold or seek, information and documentation provided to the Sentinel shows.
Despite the cases to be made that each violated the law and committed perjury by their actions, the prospect that any of them will be prosecuted is very light, individuals in a position to know have said, basically because the prosecutorial authority that will most logically oversee the enforcement relating to these matters are of the same political stripe as the alleged offenders or are politically affiliated with them in some way.
The three women under question are Palm Springs Councilwoman Christy Holstege, who is vying for Assemblywoman in the 47th District; Ontario Recreation and Park Commissioner Daisy Macias who is seeking election to the Ontario City Council representing that city’s Fourth District; and Tiffany Gaudin, who is seeking election to the Victorville City Council.
The case against Holstege is by far the most advanced, having proceeded to the stage where, according to prosecutors, “she would be convicted tomorrow” if the matter were to go to trial. The circumstances and attendant facts, the Sentinel was assured, have been examined thoroughly by investigators, and evidence against her, including photographs and around-the-clock videos, document that she is not living where she claims to live.
According to a letter Riverside District Attorney Mike Hestrin sent to Palm Springs Councilman Ron de Harte, Palm Springs City Attorney Jeffrey Ballinger and Palm Springs City Manager Scott Stiles on August 20, 2024, “The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office has received multiple requests to investigate a potential residency violation by Palm Springs Councilmember Christy Holstege, which may jeopardize the finality of any action taken by the Palm Springs City Council during the pendency of the violation.”
deHarte is Palm Springs mayor pro tem, which makes him, as vice mayor, the second highest ranking authority on the council after Mayor Jeffrey Bernstein. Bernstein is a close Holstege political associate. Hestrin’s suggestion is that any votes made by Holstege while she was not living in her District 4 residence while she was representing District 4 would be deemed invalid. Depending on how the other council members voted on those items, some actions by the council could be overturned. In Palm Springs, the mayor is not elected directly. Rather, members of the city council, who are elected by-district are rotated into the mayor’s slot on the basis of a yearly council vote.
Hestrin’s letter continues, “According to our investigation, we have determined that Ms. Holstege does not own the residence that she publicly claims as her primary residence within District 4. We have also discovered that this District 4 residence has been consistently listed as a rental home on Airbnb.com and rented out since 2022. Our investigation revealed that Ms. Holstege owns a residence located in District 3 within in Palm Springs. We have found sufficient credible evidence that Ms. Holstege primarily resides at her home in District 3, instead of the residence located in District 4. Palm Springs City Municipal Code §2.02.005(A)(2) specifically mandates that all Palm Springs City Councilmembers reside in the district they represent. In the event that a councilmember no longer resides in the district that they represent, Palm Springs Municipal Code §2.02.005(A)(3) deems the councilmember to have vacated their seat on the city council.”
Hestrin continued, “Based upon the facts as we understand them, our legal analysis has concluded that Ms. Holstege’s occupancy of her primary residence in District 3 constitutes a clear violation of the City of Palm Springs Code of Ordinances. The District Attorney of the County of Riverside is committed to enforcing local residency requirements for city councilmembers, which is to ensure that members represent the interests and concerns of the specific communities they represent. Therefore, the Riverside County District Attorney herein submits a formal written demand asking the Palm Springs City Council to cure or correct Ms. Holstege’s vacancy of her District 4
council seat as set forth above, as well as to cure or correct any illegal action taken during her vacancy in compliance with all applicable California laws.”
Hestrin then told de Harte, Ballinger and Stiles that if Holstege and the city did not redress the circumstance, his office would, pursuant to section 803 of the California Code of Civil Procedure pursue through the California Attorney General’s Office a quo warranto procedure, a challenge questioning the legality of Holstege remaining on the city council and seeking a resolution of the whether she has the legal right to hold the council position and whether she has already, under the law, vacated her council post.
“Please either cure or correct the challenged actions or inform our office of your decision not to do so within 30 days from the receipt of this demand,” Hestrin’s letter to de Harte, Ballinger and Stiles continued. “Should you fail to cure or correct pursuant to this demand letter, our office shall take any and all appropriate legal action, including but not limited to, referring this matter to the California Attorney General’s Office with a request that they seek judicial invalidation of Ms. Holstege’s position on the Palm Springs City Council by filing a quo warranto action, or alternatively, submitting an application to do so.”
In response, Ballinger in an August 22 letter to Hestrin requested that the district attorney’s office provide him with the evidence it had to back up the claim that Holstege was not living at the residence in District 4 she had declared as her domicile and what evidence it possessed to show she was actually living in District 3 so he could make a determination how the city could best proceed.
“The City of Palm Springs, and this Office, take very seriously allegations that an officeholder may be improperly holding public office,” Ballinger wrote. “As such, as city attorney, I would respectfully request that your office share with me the evidence upon which your office relied in reaching the legal conclusion above. As an attorney yourself, you realize that an attorney’s legal conclusions are only as good as the factual evidence upon which they are based. Without factual evidence, I cannot provide specific legal advice or recommendations to my client, the City of Palm Springs, nor to its officials. Please let me know how my office can make arrangements with your office to transmit the evidence in your office’s possession regarding this matter.”
The city clerk’s office simultaneously initiated a review of the council’s votes going back until 2022 to determine what votes by the council resulted in a 3-to-2 outcome in which Holstege voted in the majority.
Simultaneously, Holstege’s campaign questioned the legitimacy of the investigation, calling for the matter to be referred to the California Attorney General. “How can the guy who endorses Greg Wallis [Holstege’s opponent in the race for the Assembly] be the one who is supposedly running an independent investigation?” the statement, in the form of a swipe at Hestrin said. “He should recuse himself immediately and refer this matter to the California Attorney General where we have every confidence it will be resolved quickly.” Christy does and has always lived in her Palm Springs City Council District at the address where she is also registered to vote.”
There were no questions about where Holstege, who was originally elected to the city council in 2017 before it transitioned to even-year election, lived during the first four-and-a-half years of her tenure on the council. On occasion, there were what were referred to as politically-related gatherings at the Holstege Fourth District residence at that time. In 2022, she and her husband purchased a property outside her district in 2022, She publicly indicated at that time, which was during her first run for the Assembly, that she would move to the that home only in the event she was elected to the state legislature. There were somewhat contradictory statements made at that time that the recently purchased property was going to be converted to a rental. There is information, including vans transferring furniture and other household items from Holstege’s District 4 residence to the District 3 residence, that the Holstege Family had moved to the District 4 residence.
City of Palm Springs records document that Holstege’s District 4 residence was listed on Airbnb and rented for 13 nights in 2024.
A senior investigator with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, Lauren Swirsky, staked out Holstege’s claimed domicile in the District 4 as well as the home she owns with her husband in District 3 over a period of at least three days this summer. According to Swirsky, the District 4 house at all times appeared to be or was unoccupied, while there were indicators, including the presence of the vehicles driven by Holstege and her husband at the District 3 house, that she was residing at the District 3 address.
After much back-and-forth between the city and the district attorney’s office in which the district attorney’s at last refused to provide its entire investigative file to the city, the city put out a statement, which states, “The City of Palm Springs is aware of a complaint from the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office regarding the residency of Councilmember Christy Holstege. The letter alleges that Councilmember Holstege does not reside in her council district; however, Councilmember Holstege has firmly refuted these claims and maintains that she resides at her home within the district. Despite repeated requests from the city, the district attorney’s office has not provided any evidence to substantiate [its] allegations. Without such evidence, the City of Palm Springs is unable to assess the validity of the claims.”
The city’s statement continues, “On Thursday, Sept. 12 during [its] closed session meeting, the Palm Springs City Council directed city staff to formally request, once again, that the district attorney’s office provide any evidence [it has] related to this matter. The city remains committed to transparency and due process and will continue to seek clarity on this matter to ensure a fair and factual resolution. Councilmember Holstege has adamantly expressed that she resides in her district. The city respects her right to due process and expects that any claims made against elected officials be supported by verifiable evidence for any further action to be taken.”
The district attorney’s office, which had functioned at least partially in the initial stages of its investigation on information provided by confidential informants, did not immediately provide the requested proof. After the September 12 closed session discussion in which the council voted to have Ballinger formally request the district attorney’s office to provide the evidence at the center of the accusation that Holstege was not residing at the home she claimed to be her residence when she last ran for the city council in 2020, a stand-off over the provision of the evidence ensued. When the issue with regard to Holstege’s actual residency was not resolved at the local level and more than a month had elapsed following Hestrin’s August 20 letter, the district attorney’s office forwarded a complaint including a quo warranto proceeding request to the California Attorney General’s Office on September 30.
Holstege has signed, under penalty of perjury, multiple official documents pertaining to her application for candidacy. The one relating to her council run in 2020 occurred prior to her and her husband’s purchase of the home in District 3, and so does not represent any legal issue for her. However, there is a question about her Assembly candidacy documents in 2022 and and earlier this year.
There is little likelihood that the Quo Warranto proceeding will have any impact on Holstege or the City of Palm Springs or District 4 before December, when Holstege will depart from the city council. She did not seek reelection to the city post this year in lieu of her Assembly run. This makes the quo warranto procedure a moot issue. Nevertheless, the examination and investigation the California Attorney General’s Office is carrying out brings with it an onerous implication as pertains to the documents Holstege, an attorney, signed under the penalty of perjury. If perjury charges against her are pursued, she could end up in jail or prison and her law license would likely be revoked.
The likelihood that the California Attorney General’s Office, now headed by Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, will go after Holstege is virtually nonexistent. Holstege is a darling of the state’s Democratic establishment. In her unsuccessful 2022 Assembly run against Wallis, Holstege took in $3,183,291 in donations. So far this year, again vying against Wallis, a Republican, prior to the close campaign and before all of the donations she has or is to receive have come in and have been tallied, as of October 16 Holstege had received $2,963,703.53. In both 2022 and this year, the majority of political donations provided to Holstege came from major Democratic party donors, a decided number of whom likewise have made donations to Bonta’s political war chest.
Though Bonta may decline to take up a perjury or fraud prosecution of Holstege, Hestrin, a Republican, would have the option of seeking to make such a case against her.
In Ontario, Daisy Macias, a lifelong resident of that city who grew up in that city’s De Anza district, is vying for the city council in District 4. This year’s contest is to be the first in which those chosen to the council are done so by district. Previously, the council and mayor were elected at-large. The mayoralty, representing all of Ontario’s 184,705 residents citywide, will yet be voted upon at-large. The four council positions on the five-member panel are to represent roughly one quarter of the city’s population, which is distributed somewhat unequally geographically, with Districts 1 the smallest and most densely populated district occupying the northwestern corner of the city; the slightly larger and marginally less dense District 2 covering a swath of territory in the middle and west side of the city; the less dense portion of the city that contains the areas most recently annexed to the city formerly consisting of the former Chino Agricultural Preserve referred to as Ontario Ranch at the southern end of the city comprising District 3; and District 4, which covers all of the northeast corner of the city east of Districts 1 and 2 and extending down to a boundary generally formed by the 60 Freeway where it borders District 3 and the unincorporated county area west of Fontana.
Throughout her early life and right up until recently, the now 33-year-old Macias’s stomping grounds had been primarily in District 2, which contains the De Anza District, features of which are De Anza Park right off Euclid Avenue and De Anza Junior High School, which is east of Euclid and fronts on Sultana Avenue, the first major north/south street east of Euclid. For years, and to relatively recently, Macias resided at 170 East De Anza Circle, which is on the east side of Euclid less than a quarter of a mile south of De Anza Park and but a stone’s throw west of the De Anza Junior High School Campus. Two internet sources show Macias yet residing at 170 East De Anza Circle, with one of those stating she has lived there since 2009.
In public statements made as late as August 2024, Macias herself stated that one of the issues that ignited her civic activity was seeking to eradicate crime and drug dealing in close proximity to her residence, including on the campus of De Anza Junior High School, which is immediately adjacent on the east to homes on De Anza Circle, and at De Anza Park. In one of those statements, Macias implied, but did not directly state that she was still living in the De Anza District, which would make her a resident of District 2.
Mayor Paul Leon, in statements made earlier this year, indicated he associated her with the city’s De Anza District and that she resided in that area. When queried this week about the controversy over Macias’s actual residence, which has now raged for the better part of three weeks, Leon indicated he had no information with regard to where Macias was living, whether she had moved or if she was residing in the city’s District 2 or District 4. Upon being asked when Macias had moved out of District 2, the mayor responded, “I don’t know.”
According to Ontario residents, including one living very close to the De Anza District, information relating to Macias’s whereabouts was that, in the words of one, “She got married and bought a house with her husband a few years ago. The house was not in Ontario.”
The information available from the city about exactly where Macias is living is sketchy. Because of privacy considerations, the exact location of her residence cannot and is not being disclosed.
In weeks past, Ontario City Clerk Sheila Mautz was unwilling to address the Macias residency controversy. This week, the Sentinel redoubled its efforts to extract from the city clerk’s office whatever information is available about Macias’s actual and official residences and whether they are one and the same. In a phone call and a follow up email to Assistant City Clerk Claudia Isbell, who is also Ontario’s records management director, the Sentinel, in a general question, sought a description of what examination the city clerk’s office normally engages in to ascertain whether candidates for the Ontario city council in fact live at the addresses they claim in their candidate applications filed with the city clerk’s office and what the office and/or the city does to determine that those who qualify for the ballot meet the residency requirements in the district which they are seeking to represent.
The Sentinel then questioned Isbell as to Daisy Macias, specifically. Noting that the only information available from open sources was that Macias was a resident at 170 East De Anza Circle, within District 2, the Sentinel asked Isbell if she could confirm that the city clerk’s office had verified, to a complete certainty, that Macias lives somewhere in District 4, even if the exact location could not be disclosed. The Sentinel further inquired whether the city clerk’s office merely accepted Macias’s assertion that she lives in District 4 without any independent verification.
Isbell made no response to the questions posed over the phone, requesting that they be put in writing. After the Sentinel did so in an email, Isbell did not respond to the email.
The Sentinel fared no better with Macias, herself. Repeated phone calls, phone messages, texts and an email in which the Sentinel raised the question with regard to her residency and directly asked if she was yet living in District 2 or had in fact moved to District 4 elicited no response.
Of note is that the virtual entirety of the Ontario political establishment has lined up behind Macias. She has Leon’s endorsement, the endorsement of Councilman Alan Wapner and the endorsement of Councilwoman Debra Dorst-Porada. She declined the endorsement of Councilman James Bowman because of his entanglement in an impaired driving hit-and-run incident this summer.
In August, Wapner transferred $40,000 out of his electioneering fund into her recently opened political war chest. Over the last two months, other major donors to the ruling coalition on the Ontario City Council – consisting of Leon, Wapner, Bowman and Porada – have chipped in massive amounts of money to fund Macias’s campaign. Those include $30,000 from the Ontario Police Officers Association, $31,000 from the Ontario Professional Firefighters Association IAFF Local 1430, Paul Hofer gave her $5,000, Maclin Markets $2,000, JRC Real Estate Investment provided her with $5,000, JM Realty donated $2,500 to her, Circle Green, Inc Beneficial AG Services came through with $1,000, Sacramento-based Community Prosperity Partners handed her $12,500, Mission Viejo-based Reina Holdings provided $1,000, Building A Stronger California, which is sponsored by the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters, gave her a $4,000 bequest and Councilwoman Dorst-Porada provided Macias with an in-kind $3,037.12 contribution.
That money, forked over while questions about Macias’s actual residency have yet to be resolved, is an indication of the intensity with which the business community and political establishment in Ontario wants to get Macias into office. That intensity greatly diminishes the likelihood that the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office will involve itself in examining issues related to Macias’s actual residency vis-a-vis the address she provided in the application for her city council candidacy as was done by the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office in Holstege’s case. Though Macias, like Holstege, is a Democrat, and San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson, like Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin, is a Republican, the political dynamics surrounding Ontario are far different than what exists in Palm Springs. For one thing, Macias, unlike Holstege, is a conservative Democrat. Moreover, her political support network consists almost entirely of Republicans. Indeed, there is substantial identicality between Macias’s donor list and Anderson’s roster of political supporters. Every bit as importantly, Anderson was for four years previously, a member of the Ontario Council, which makes him either a current or emeritus member of the Ontario political establishment. Prior to becoming District Attorney, in 2014 as a lawyer in private practice, Anderson represented the city council and Wapner in particular when he entangled himself in an election interference matter in the Los Angeles City of Industry.
All of this leaves Anderson disinclined to so much as investigate any accusations with regard to Macias’s real residence not matching up with her claimed residence signed by her under the penalty of perjury, let alone initiate a prosecution of her.
In Victorville, much has been made of Tiffany Gaudin’s appearance on the ballot as a candidate in District 1 race. Until this summer, Gaudin for years had been a resident of Apple Valley, where she lived with her husband at 15480 Navajo Road. Her husband operated a business that was registered at the address.
On July 13, the day the filing period for council positions on cities and towns throughout the county opened, Guadin reregistered as a voter with the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office, from 15480 Navajo Road in Apple Valley in the Town of Apple Valley, to 16761 Kayuga Street in Victorville, which lies within that city’s First District. The same day, she pulled papers city council candidacy papers from the Victorville City Clerk’s office, which she completed, including getting at least 20 signatures of voters living within District 1 to qualify her candidacy for the First District position. That put her in competition with Leyda Fernandez, Valentin Godina, and Robert Andrew Lucero, who are also seeking the post in the November 5 balloting.
Gaudin’s husband did not change his voter registration to the Victorville domicile and he continues to live and operate his business out of the 15480 Navajo Road address in Apple Valley. What
What has been reported is that Gaudin continued to reside in Apple Valley, and was not in fact, until this week, living in Victorville at the Kayuga Street address. The 16761 Kayuga Street home is owned by 91-year-old Fleta Joyce Brown, who, it has been claimed, is renting the quarters to Gaudin.
Victorville residents over the past several weeks questioned whether Gaudin in fact had moved to Victorville and was living at 16761 Kayuga Street. Some of the Gaudins’ neighbors in Apple Valley maintain that Tiffany Gaudin is yet residing at 15480 Navajo Road, and that they have seen her at the Apple Valley residence frequently in recent weeks and months.
A complaint with regard to Gaudin’s misrepresentation of her actual abode has gone to the District Attorney’s Office.
Given that Gaudin is a Republican, there stands virtually no chance that District Attorney Anderson will see his way fit to file any order of criminal charges against her. It does not appear, however, that Gaudin is absolutely sure of that.
Unlike Holstege and Macias, who are entrenched members of the political establishments in, respectively Palm Springs/Riverside County and Ontario/San Bernardino County, Guadin lacks the political and social support network the other two women can count on. Accordingly, the Sentinel has learned, Guadin has grown intensely nervous over the situation she has rendered herself in by ostensibly departing, at the last minute, her home in Apple Valley, into a somewhat questionable rental arrangement in Victorville in order to run for the city council there.
In recent days, following a press account last week about the complaint that went to the district attorney’s office, there are reports that Gaudin has been frantically rushing to make an actual and convincing relocation to her newly registered Victorville residence from the home she shares with her husband in Apple Valley.
Gaudin’s hasty move to the new address appears to be less, on her part, about solidifying her campaign for the Victorville District 1 council position than avoiding what she has been led to believe is potential prosecution. Sources close to her campaign indicate she has been in a state of panic, “freaking out” is how one put it, reaching out to local community members to express her terror over the potential legal consequences she now faces. In this light, her most recent actions reveal she’s now focused on damage control rather than prevailing in the election.
To some, Gaudin’s sudden political ambition is a mysterious manifestation for someone who was in many respects heretofore apolitical. The now 43-year-old Gaudin was previously employed, for nearly a decade-and-a-half as an emergency medical technician. Some years back she took on the position of the pastor at the Apple Valley First Assembly of God. She has since moved on to the Victorville First Assembly of God Church, where she is the community outreach director.
While engaged in those more ethereal and spiritual pursuits, her focus was not on politics. Publicly available records kept by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters show that neither she nor her family members have voted in any Victorville elections since the 2021 recall election targeting Governor Gavin Newsom.
The Sentinel’s inquiry of Gaudin about her actual residency, consisting of phone messages and an email sent to an email address provided as the means of contact with her on the website for her candidacy have not resulted in any response.
There are multiple precedents in San Bernardino County relating to candidates or officeholders making false claims of residency, which resulted in either their removal from office or prosecution.
One of the more recent cases pertained to Victorville and the late former City Councilwoman Rita Ramirez Dean. Originally elected to the council in 2018, Ramirez-Dean lived in Victorville at that time. In December 2019, however, she severely injured and bruised left foot in a fall, requiring hospitalization. The subsurface bruising transformed into a gangrenous patch, which in January 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.
In May 2018, then-Hesperia Mayor Russ Blewett died, whereupon the city council in that city opted to fill the gap on the city council with an appointment. In July of that year, the council settled on 27-year-old, Jeremiah Brosowske. Despite actually residing in Rancho Cucamonga, Brosowske was able to plausibly maintain he lived in Hesperia by asserting he was living 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.
Brosowske had a subsequent falling out with Jensen, however, who came forth to report that Brosowske had not been a city resident at the time of his appointment. This led to a further inquiry, including private investigators surveilling him, which established that he was not living at the Sultana Street apartment but rather with his girlfriend in Rancho Cucamonga. The council then moved to undertake an official inquiry, which came to the conclusion he was not an actual Hesperia resident. The council voted 3-to-2 in September 2019 to remove him from office.
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.
In general, there was a consensus among municipal professionals that the Sentinel spoke with that city officials, most particularly those employed in city or town clerk’s offices, do not see it as their responsibility to monitor where city council members and other elected city officials live. City clerks and their deputies accept the candidate paperwork turned in by candidates, noting that the documents certifying that the applicants are qualified to hold office, including residing within the appropriate and applicable jurisdiction, under the penalty of perjury that they are qualified to hold office. Unless there is some obvious indicator that the documentation is in error or falsified, city officials take no further action to verify the accuracy of the applications.