When Eric Hart decided to run to represent District 3 on the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors, he knew his housing situation would raise questions. That’s because the small one-bedroom cabin he and his wife bought outside Willits in 2019 on Northview Road is in District 4. Last year, he and his wife moved to the larger, adjoining parcel, on Williams Ranch Road, which is in District 3. They made Williams Ranch Road their primary residence.
The parcels are contiguous, however, and make up a hilltop and hillside. Hart and his wife sometimes joke about the houses being “upstairs” and “downstairs,” with the extra space “upstairs” being used as an office, a workshop, or for visiting friends and relatives.
Hart said in an interview that he and his wife are currently renting their primary residence on Williams Ranch Road with an option to purchase it. That explanation has satisfied most people, he said.
But not everyone.
At 6 p.m. Monday, Julie Golden, chair of the Hopland Municipal Advisory Council, sent an urgent letter to the board of supervisors. Golden requested that the board refrain from certifying the June primary election — an item on the consent calendar for the board’s meeting the next day.
“Supervisors, please PAUSE the Certification of the Election and pull it from the BOS Agenda until Eric Hart has the opportunity to confirm that his PRIMARY residence is in District 3,” Golden wrote. “It’s important for election integrity to allow Eric Hart the opportunity to publicly confirm that he has relocated and updated his State and Federal tax filings with his new PRIMARY Residence onto his neighbor’s property. This should be easy for him to provide tax filing documents and this issue can be closed and the election can be certified.”
In her email, Golden included an essay titled “Two Homes, One Seat: Residency Questions Loom Over Leading District 3 Supervisor Candidate.” The essay purported to be written “By Mendo Confidential” on July 20, 2026.
However, the essay was dotted with “mojibake” — corrupted characters that occur when copy is cut and pasted from large language models like Claude or ChatGPT — strongly suggesting it was produced by AI. The essay noted Hart’s former residence on Northview Road and his current home on Williams Ranch Road, where he is registered to vote. It also cited a complaint by Clay Romero, who competed unsuccessfully against Hart and Buffey Bourassa in the District 3 primary.
“California law requires supervisor candidates to be domiciled in the district they seek to represent. Domicile is more than temporary residence or property ownership,” the essay stated, “it is the place a person considers their permanent home and intends to return to.”
The essay suggested that “questions remain” about Hart’s Williams Ranch Road address “given public records showing strong ties to a Northview Road Property in the neighboring 4th District for many years.”
At the board meeting on Tuesday, Supervisor Mo Mulheren pulled Item C9, the Certification of the June 2, 2026 Primary Election, for discussion.
Mulheren asked Interim County Counsel Katharine L. Elliott to comment on the item, which she said was “related to an email that the board received because of one of the candidates.”
Elliott told the board it had received a letter requesting that C9 be pulled, but said certifying the election was not really the board’s choice to make. “The certification of the election has to go through pursuant to state code,” Elliott said. “Whether the board approved it or not, it’s sort of irrelevant. It would go through as certified anyway.”
The concern, Elliott said, “was related to the third district and whether there was residency there.” But the county registrar of voters has no role in vetting a candidate’s qualifications, Elliott said. The office is “not required to verify or determine if a candidate meets the qualifications” and is “by law, entitled to rely on that candidate’s declaration under penalty of perjury.”
“If citizens have concerns in terms of residency, there are actions that citizens can take,” Elliott said, “but not that the county would take.”
Hart wonders why no one took the trouble to call him to ask about the two properties before asking the board of supervisors not to certify the election. “My phone number is everywhere,” he said. “People are constantly calling.”
He said he would have been happy to show Romero or Golden or anyone from the county the properties had they simply called and asked. “Northview Road and Williams Ranch Road are both on our property,” he said. “They are both easements. I can drive from one house to the other without ever leaving our property. that’s how ridiculous this whole thing is.”
I thought the headline was a mistake. What an odd story about the power of invisible lines on one's own property.
Like my neighbor Eric, I vote in the 4th but live in the 3rd because the district line literally runs down my street. Even my Supervisor Williams was confused about if he had jurisdiction on my property earlier this year. If I had the option to domicile in the 3rd I’d do so. That said, his situation is perfectly legal under election law and I have no reservations about him being an excellent and hardworking Supervisor for the 3rd.