Albany City Hall: Elected officials’ residency has come up as an issue. (July 2023 file photo)
Albany’s charter is silent about any residence requirement for elected city officials, meaning the mayor and six council members. Now the council may try to change this, but it won’t be easy.
The issue comes up because of a flap involving Carolyn McLeod, who resigned from the council last week. She gave up her seat after John Robinson, a building contractor who follows city government, filed a complaint charging that McLeod no longer lived in Ward 2.
McLeod, who describes herself on her campaign website as a parent, wife and disabled Army veteran, was elected to a four-year council term from Ward 2 in 2024. She owns a house on Salmon Run in South Albany, in Ward 2. She recently got married to someone who lives in North Albany, which is in Ward 1.
Now she’s running for mayor. On her campaign website she wrote about why she gave up her council seat. You can look it up here.
Here’s what the Albany city charter says:
“No person shall be eligible for an elective office of the City unless at the time of election the person is a qualified elector within the meaning of the state constitution and has resided within the city limits during the twelve (12) months immediately preceding the election, and in the ward the person represents for a period of ninety (90) days. The council shall be final judge of the qualifications and election of its own members, subject, however, to review by a court of competent jurisdiction.”
That’s it. Nothing in there says anything about where council members must reside once they are in office. They could move to Scio, or Sunriver, and attend meetings via Zoom, for all the charter cares. But fellow councilors would probably vote to expel a member who tried that.
But moving within the city? Albany is not so geographically vast that people living at one end of town means they are necessarily out of touch with people at the other end.
Councilor Marilyn Smith said Wednesday the residency issue is something the council should consider.
The council could do so by passing an ordinance requiring the mayor to reside within the city limits and council members to reside in the wards from which they were elected.
But what does “reside” mean? Normally it means your address, and where you spend most of your nights.
But people sometimes have more than one house, and who’s to say you must sleep at your address a certain number of nights?
And if some authority like the Albany council did say that, who’s going to come around at night and check that someone is properly tucked in? (hh)
The councilor in question lived where she was supposed to when elected, she snuck out of her ward knowing that the spirit of the law says they wanted her in the ward. Why else would there be a requirement to live in the ward for a period of time prior to the election? She even consulted legal counsel to prove “how can I prove that I am living someplace.”
That points out that she knew there was a problem with her moving and was searching for some way of slicking her way out of the situation.
It’s like a truck driver having to pass a drug test to get the job and then using drugs, when he got caught he complains that there wasn’t a rule against using, just a rule about getting caught.
When you are part of the group that makes the law, or enforces the law you DAMN WELL BETTER FOLLOW THE LAW.
This is mostly hot air. The plain fact is that the charter requires only one thing and nothing else, concerning residency.
It actually requires 2 openly 1. that you are in the city for a year and 2 that you are in your ward for 3 months, Both the City Attorney and the City Manager say that the spirit of the law is that you stay in the ward, that is why when I sold my business, I rented the apartment above the store and space for my Motorhome for the rest of the year that I was in office, to comply with the spirit of the law. You are just wrong on this one Hasso.
That’s RICH coming from you considering your own residency could’ve been questioned while you were serving.
Nice try at deflection.My motorhome was parked within 35 feet of the apartment that I lived in when I first ran for office.You should get your facts together before you make silly comments.
She consulted the city attorney to find out what she needed to do, if anything, and if she needed to prove where she lived because the whackos were already being whacky. That alone doesn’t prove anything other than she asked a question to make sure she did the right thing.
This is a very favorable and bias view of the facts of the matter. The spirit of the law is paramount. Why require residency to run, it it doesn’t matter after your elected? Just because the blanks were not fully filled in when the charter was written, or the provided some wiggle room, for situations as has recently presented itself does not mean residency doesn’t matter. I wrote about this in my transparently bias subtack opinion article earlier this week. You would have been more balanced had you included what the city manager Peter Troedsson said at the Wed. city council meeting “It it’s a city attorney’s [Ref to Sean Kid]…. in discussions with him, it’s his opinion that the legislative intent when the charter was adopted that somebody selected by the people of a ward would stay in the ward from which the people elected that person.”
You asked why require residency to run, if it doesn’t matter after you’re elected?
She said on her website the answer to this. Did you even effing read it??!!
She said: There is no legal requirement within the charter to maintain that specific residency after the election. This distinction ensures that the primary focus of the law is on established community ties leading up to the representative term.
Albany may not be so vast that one would be “out of touch with people at the other,” but traditionally in Albany, North Albany issues are very different than the rest of the city.
The current mayor lives in ward 2. By your logic he doesn’t understand the needs of North Albany residents. That would make this lady the better of the two candidates, going between the two!
Mary,
The focus of responsibility is different between Councilor and Mayor, first order of a councilor is their Ward, for the Mayor it is for the entire City. By your logic we should make sure that a Mayor Candidate has lived in all three Wards to be eligible.
Take a break Hasso…..you’ve been working 60 hours a week & put 50 miles on that bike…you don’t have time for properly tucked in either…..
There’s intent of the law period!!!!!!! And it’s not a flap ( poor word for a great journalist )
Hasso: I agree with all the men that commented above. You referred to one of your commenters that “this (what he wrote, that is) is mostly hot air!!?” You got up “on the wrong side of the bed” is what I would say if I wanted to make an excuse for you. However, what you wrote sounds just like you.
You agree with all the men? Of course you do. The good ol boys gotta stick together, right?
Forgot to say I love the picture your took of the City Hall and your bike that is taken at an angle! Very good.
It strikes this Albanian that if an elected official doesn’t care enough to live in the district from which they were elected, then that same official is less likely to care about the district’s constituency. Thus, if voters elect such a person, then they deserve whatever they get. Voters failed to pay attention in 2024 and look where we are today.
Is her new location in North Albany even in city limits?
Always excited to read people definition of ethics when they disagree with ethics of one person but not consider their interpretation of ethics behavior. Remind me of story of pot and kettle. In Albany there are many pots and kettles I think.
Didn’t we just allow the police chief (or some city department head) to live outside Albany? If I remember correctly, no property in Albany met their living requirements. They were already living outside here when they were granted “permission.”
I’m with you. This looks like silly court intrigue by people jockeying over things most of us will never know about.
I guess we will be testing the old “any publicity is good publicity”