INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — School Board District 1 winner Shawn Frost is beginning his post-election tenure under a cloud of suspicion after the husband of his rival filed an elections complaint the day before the August Primary.
Frost calls them “baseless complaints,” referring to the complaint filed with the State Division of Elections that challenges his having met residency requirements.
He maintains that he left his wife and kids behind at a home they own in District 3 in order to move into District 1 and challenge incumbent Karen Disney-Brombach.
He says he’s moved into a home on 77th Street that his father has sold to a third-party. That third-party is now leasing the home to Frost, according to him. However, the Indian River County Property Appraiser’s website still lists the home as being owned by Frost’s father.
“Did I move here to win this race?” Frost asked, referring to the 77th Street home. “Yes. Absolutely. The stakes are so high.”
And while he maintains that he is living in the 77th Street home, Frost says he still is able to make time to have dinner with his family and date nights with his wife.
“I didn’t want to upset the household,” Frost said of uprooting the family to the 77th Street home. He is planning on selling the home his family is currently living in and relocating them to 77th Street, Frost said.
However, one neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous for now, told sister publication VeroNews.com that she has seen no decline in Frost’s presence at the home shared with his family.
The neighbor said she sees Frost’s vehicle in the driveway in the morning, throughout the day, and at night before she retires for the evening.
“It’s lies,” the neighbor said. “It makes me sick.”
And while one neighbor claims Frost has not moved out, another neighbor – on 77th Street – maintains that Frost is, in fact, living at the District 1 home.
“I know he’s living there,” said the neighbor, who also didn’t want to be named. He went on to explain that he knows Frost’s dad and that Frost went to school with his own boys.
The neighbor said he’s grateful to live where he is and knows his neighbors.
“We’re back-scratchers,” he said, later adding, “He has my full support.”
However, the neighbor said he couldn’t recall when Frost moved into the 77th Street home and didn’t remember seeing moving boxes or the like being brought in.
Frost said all of his clothes have been moved into the 77th Street home; he has a TV and a DVD collection. He said he changed his voter registration card as well as his driver’s license, and he has mail delivered to the home.
Frost, too, signed a declaration with the Supervisor of Elections Office attesting to his having residency within the district in which he was seeking election.
On the surface, it would appear that Frost has met the one condition the Florida Division of Elections looks for in residency: intent – his signing of the declaration. The department also looks for evidence of intent, such as changing the driver’s license, utility bills for the home, possessions being located, and the like.
Where a person sleeps is not one of the residency tests the Division of Elections recognizes.
As of late Friday, the State Division of Elections did not have the elections complaint on file, according to Brittany Lesser, the director of communications for the department. She said it was possible the complaint had arrived but had not been logged into the system.
Bob Brombach, Karen Disney-Brombach’s husband, said Friday that he had sent the complaint via FedEx on Monday, Aug. 25, and he received confirmation that it was delivered Tuesday at 10 a.m.
“I was surprised no one else had done it,” Brombach said of registering a residency complaint with the Division of Elections.
He said there were too many questions to ignore surrounding Frost’s residency. Brombach explained that Frost had first filed to run for County Commission District 2, then he dropped that pursuit and switched to School Board District 1.
In both cases, Brombach said, Frost didn’t live in either of the districts for which he was running.
“I don’t know how many places you can go,” Brombach said.
Brombach said it is his opinion that Frost is skirting the law, claiming residency in a district that he doesn’t really live in.
“To me, it’s not right,” he said.
For his part, Frost said he could understand why some would question the validity of his claims of living on 77th Street when his family lives in another home.
“Those suspicions are reasonable,” he said, adding that the 77th Street home is not a “paper residence.”
Lesser, of the State Division of Elections, said that when the department receives Brombach’s complaint, a department attorney will review it and determine whether it should be forwarded to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for investigation.
Because the Division of Elections had not logged the complaint as of press time, Lesser could not provide a timeline for when the attorney would determine whether or not to refer the complaint to FDLE.