Challenge to candidate’s residency thrown out

A legal attempt to get a Pompano Beach City Commission candidate thrown off the ballot by challenging her city residency has been denied.

Rhonda Eaton, represent District 2 in the city, is legally qualified to be a commission candidate, Circuit Court Judge Raag Singhal ruled in a sevenpage decision issued this week.

Eaton is facing Tom Terwilliger in the race to represent the district that runs from Atlantic Boulevard north to Sample Road.

Terwilliger had presented documents that showed that she did not change her voter registration from Palm Beach County to Broward until Oct. 17, 2017, and her homestead exemption wasn’t moved from her Boca Raton address to one in Pompano until March 20.

The ruling points out that two sections of the Pompano charter seem to have different requirements — one says that a person must be a resident a year before election and the other seems to imply that the candidate must be a resident for a year before they qualify as a candidate.

“With regard to the charter provision here, it should be noted they are poorly drafted,” Singhal wrote, noting that the omission of a comma in one section of the charter left the timing of residency requirements ambiguous.

Singhal did not assign court costs to either of the parties in this case. who wants to