Elections board to consider Lara residency
Four have challenged if she lives in JP
The Boston Elections Commission will hold a formal hearing to consider four objections to nomination papers filed by City Councilor Kendra Lara, challenging the status of her residency in the district she represents.
Sabino Piemonte, the city’s head assistant registrar of voters, said he confirmed that each objector was a registered voter in Boston, as required by the city charter. The four objections were filed ahead of the 5 p.m. deadline on July 13. A fifth challenge, filed at 5:27 p.m. on that date, will not be considered, he said.
Each of the objections challenges Lara’s residence in District 6, Piemonte wrote in a Wednesday letter to the Elections Commission. Lara is seeking a second term on the City Council, and faces two challengers in the Sept. 12 preliminary election.
“As you know, when objections to nomination papers are filed, the Elections Commission, along with the chief justice of the Boston Municipal Court, sits as the Boston Ballot Law Commission to consider the objections and related evidence presented by the parties,” Piemonte wrote.
He noted that the Elections Commission is not independently responsible for proving or disproving the filed objections to Lara’s residency.
“The persons filing objections will carry the burden of presenting such information,” Piemonte wrote, “and, if they make a showing based upon evidentiary and objective information, the responsibility will shift to Councilor Lara to present information that she is properly registered for voting purposes.”
The objectors are Rasheed Walters, Anthony Strong, Kerry Kastor and Jeanne Black. The resident who missed the deadline is Stephen Morris, who requested that if Lara is found to be living outside her district, that the city “take immediate action to remove her from office.”
Strong wrote that there has been “much speculation” that has been given to the “exact whereabouts of Lara’s residence.”
He said he was “formally opposing her name being listed on the ballot until her proper residency can be officially certified.”
Lara told the Herald Wednesday that her thoughts on the matter remain the same — that she lives at the Jamaica Plain home listed on the nomination papers she filed with the city’s Election Department.
“I live at 46 Saint Rose St., and the Elections Commission will go through their process and confirm that,” Lara said.
Voter registration records list Lara at this address as well. She told the Herald last week that she moved into her apartment there in February.
Prior to that, she said she lived at 161 South Huntington Ave. in Jamaica Plain. That complex, Bell Olmsted Park, is income-restricted through the Boston Planning & Development Agency.
Lara addressed rumors that she was staying with a friend outside of Boston, stating that she was at her listed address in Jamaica Plain while speaking with the Herald last Thursday evening.
“I’m literally in my house with my kid,” Lara said at the time. “Why would I be spending time in Somerville?”