Where does he live? Depends on who you ask

Special Judge James Bowling is expected to rule later this week if a Whitley County magistrate candidate should be removed from next Tuesday’s ballot because he allegedly doesn’t live in the district where he filed to run.
Bowling presided over a nearly five-hour hearing held in the district courtroom over whether T.O. Elliott, who is running for the fourth-district magistrate, actually resides in that district as he contends on his election filing papers or in the first district at a different address.
“I will give you a quick ruling,” Bowling told attorneys for both sides. “You all did a nice job representing your clients. I want to get this ruled on and get your decision by Thursday, Friday at the latest.”
On April 13, a lawsuit was filed in Whitley County Circuit Court against Elliott challenging his qualifications for office. The suit, which was filed by Corbin attorney David O. Smith on behalf of Whitley County resident Paul Cummins, claims Elliott lied on campaign forms regarding his residency when he filed to run for office.
“Although the Defendant listed 202 Elliott Road, Rockholds, KY 40759 as his residential address on his Notification and Declaration, which address is in the Fourth District of Whitley County, Kentucky, the Defendant does not reside at that address and is not a resident of the Fourth Magisterial District,” Smith writes in the civil complaint.
Cummins contends Elliott actually lives at 4626 Meadow Creek Road, about a mile outside the Fourth District.
Kentucky law requires that candidates for Magistrate must reside in the district for which they are seeking election.
Elliott, who was the first witness called, testified that he lives in a house at 202 Elliott Road, but that he owns another house at 4626 Meadow Creek Road where his wife lives. The couple divorced in 1994, but remarried in 1999.
When asked why he and his wife have separate homes, Elliott explained, “If I were there all the time, this marriage wouldn’t work.”
He said the Meadow Creek home was one he started building with his brother, Terry, in about 2000.
The house isn’t completely finished, but it is livable. Terry Elliott testified that the home is about 80 percent complete with some work left to do in the basement.
Both Terry and T.O. Elliott testified that the home is for sale. Terry Elliott said he is supposed to receive 15 percent of the proceeds from the house’s sale.
T.O. Elliott testified that he has never had a for-sale sign on the house, advertised it, or listed it with a realtor though. He testified that he makes a nearly $1,000 monthly mortgage payment on the Meadow Creek house.
Terry Elliott said a distant relative had inquired about buying the house a few months ago, but so far nothing else has come of that inquiry.
T.O. Elliott testified that he goes by the house on Meadow Creek every day to check on his wife, who is disabled, that he keeps clothes there, and that he spends the night there with her two to three days a week.
He testified that the 202 Elliott Road residence isn’t a trailer, which Cummins initially claimed, but a house.
He said there is a mailbox with a 202 address in front of an empty trailer that his brother owns, and that the house in question has a driveway on the other side of the road across from the mailbox.
Elliott testified that in January he had a telephone hooked up at the Elliott Road house for election use and that prior to that he used his work cell phone or the phone at his brother’s place, which is only a few hundred yards away.
Elliott said under cross-examination that the phone has no answering machine hooked up to it though.
“If I am going to campaign, I will make the calls myself,” he answered in response to why he didn’t have an answering machine hooked up.
Elliott testified that utility bills for both homes go to his post office box in Woodbine, and that he pays the utility bills at both homes.
An electric company employee testified that the electric bill at the Elliott Road home has been far below the average electric bill over the last 14 months. On average most homes use 1,100 to 1,200 kilowatt-hours of electricity compared to roughly 200 hours of use at the Elliott Road home some months.
Elliott’s attorney, Ron Reynolds, noted that during much of that time, Elliott was staying at his brother’s home helping to take care of his dying father, who passed away this past August.
During the hearing, Smith called four witnesses, most of whom live or have lived in the Woodbine area, which testified that they believed that Elliott lived at the Meadow Creek Home.
Former Sheriff Ancil Carter said he talked with Elliott at the Meadow Creek home in 2002 when he went there to speak to him about a chain length fence, and that he complemented Elliott on his home.
“He said, this is the home he wanted,” Carter testified. He also testified that the 202 Elliott Road address is that of a trailer, and not a house.
Reynolds called four witnesses, including Elliott’s brother, a cousin, a distant relative, and his soon to be son-in-law. All four live on Elliott Road, and testified that Elliott lives at the Elliott Road residence. Smith also called Whitley County PVA Ronnie Moses, whose office assigns 911 addresses to new homes or when there is a road name change. Moses cited a confidentiality agreement with BellSouth as the reason he couldn’t disclose Elliott’s 911 address.
Moses said he did assign a 911 street address for the Meadow Creek home for Elliott, but that he can’t say that is where Elliott resides.
Cummins took the stand, and testified that in March he began investigating allegations that Elliott didn’t live in the district after talking to several people.
Cummins said he went around Woodbine asking where Elliott lived, and everyone that he talked to told him it was on Meadow Creek, which was the address he found listed for Elliott in the phone book.