Tom Umberg Lives In Santa Ana -- And I Have A Bridge To Sell You

I've raised the issue of 1st Supervisor District candidate Tom Umberg's residency in previous posts. It's common knowledge that Umberg lives in Villa park, a small, wealthy city of 6,000 souls snuggled in the 3rd Supervisor District.

The former Assemblyman bases his 1st SD residency claim on his Santa Ana voter registration. In October 2003, he and his wife Robin registered to vote at a unit in the MacArthur Village condominium complex in Santa Ana near Bristol and MacArthur. That's the part of Santa Ana where residents, if you ask them where they live, are wont to specificy "Oh, I live in Santa Ana-near-South-Coast-Plaza" as if that were an official postal address. Or they tell you they in in the "South Coast Metro" area.

In any case, not only did Mr. and Mrs. Umberg register to vote there, but they were followed by their two adult children in February 2004. It must have been a snug fit, since the biggest units at MacArthur Village have only two bedrooms.

Maybe overcrowding is the reason why on December 22, 2006 -- less than three weeks ago -- Tom Umberg re-registered at another unit in MacArthur Village.

So let me get this straight -- we're supposed to believe that Tom Umberg "resides" at one unit in Santa Ana, his wife and children "reside" at another unit in the same complex -- and they only "spend time" at their spacious home in Villa Park (where 3rd District Supervisor Bill Campbell also lives)?

A picture can be worth a thousand words, so I'll let readers compare MacArthur Village (home to expansive units with 864-square feet of living area) with Chateau Umberg in Villa Park:

I'd say that house is about 3,500 square feet, give or take a 100 square feet. It has a pool (like every other house on the cul-de-sac) and a tennis court -- and unlike MacArthur Village one doesn't have to share them with the other residents.

I'm no election law lawyer, but my understanding is residency is governed by the location of one's domicile -- where one goes home to, where one's family lives, where one plans to stay.  No serious person can believe the Villa Park house is not Tom Umberg's domicile.

Unless a plaintiff steps forth and files a suit challenging Umberg's residency, it will be a moot point legally. It will have political impact only to the extent Umberg's opponents or IE campaigns inform voters that the former Assemblyman lives in an entirely different Supervisor District.

We shall see what happens. Given that Umberg remains the front-runner, we may well find out what it is like to have two Supervisors from the 3rd District.