Patterson claims councilmember abandoning her seat

The ongoing battle between the city of Patterson and Councilwoman Sheree Lustgarten took yet another turn this week when a city report claimed that Lustgarten is in danger of abandoning her seat on the council by failing to prove she still lives within the city limits.

According to the report, Lustgarten was evicted from her home on Kern Creek Lane and ordered to pay $7,360 in legal fees and get out of the home by March 17 during an unlawful detainer hearing last month in Stanislaus Superior Court.

“To date, Lustgarten has made conflicting representations about her residency, stating on different occasions that she has moved out and is living with a friend, but at other times has denied moving from the residence,” the report stated. “At the March 30, 2016 City Council meeting, Lustgarten made a representation to the City Council that she has not yet moved. However, court records indicate that Lustgarten was no longer a resident at 1347 Kern Creek Lane as of March 17, 2016.”

Government code demands that she update the city with her new address, but the report said she has refused to do so. She told the Patterson Irrigator newspaper the city had not tried, officially at least, to obtain her current address.

If she doesn’t comply, the council – which recently asked the state attorney general’s office to allow it to sue to remove her from office for other reasons – could claim she has abandoned the seat and fill it through an appointment or a special election. A special closed-session meeting has been scheduled for Friday.

She did not attend Tuesday’s regular meeting and has missed four of the city’s first eight scheduled meetings this year, including the state of the city address.

Even as this controversy was about to play out, and following the December suicide death of her husband, Jeff Lustgarten, she told The Modesto Bee she is considering running for a second term. She has been at odds with the city throughout her first term. Officials accuse her of perjuring herself by claiming on disclosure forms that she’d never declared bankruptcy or had been arrested on criminal charges when, in fact, she had dating to 1997 in Riverside County, before she moved to the valley. Organizers suspended a recall effort against her until the state rules on whether to permit the lawsuit.

Another probe determined she tried to intimidate and bully folks at the city’s Hammons Senior Center. And a Stanislaus Superior Court judge recently extended the restraining order that keeps her 100 yards away from the home, car or workplace of Councilman Dennis McCord because, he said, “she threatened to kill me.”

She can attend council meetings, where until recently she sat next to McCord. Mayor Luis Molina’s seat is now next to her’s on the dais.

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 4:58 PM with the headline "Patterson claims councilmember abandoning her seat."