August 17, 2011 - Village of Sodus - The primary race for the Republican slot for Village of Sodus Mayor has taken a decidedly different turn. Kelley Allen, who served as mayor from 2008 through April of this year, hopes to run for the office again, despite having been removed from it by the Village Board of Trustees.  

Village of Sodus Mayor John Minor says the Board took the action when it discovered Allen was not a village resident, and thereby was ineligible to be mayor.
“When somebody runs for office, they don’t have to be a resident at that time, but by the time they take the oath of office they have to be a resident,” Minor says.

Allen says he has an apartment in the village that rendered him eligible to be mayor, though he owns a home outside its boundaries, in the Town of Sodus.  
“The law says you can pick one legal residence,” he says. In his view, the village removed him from office because he’d broken up “the good ol’ boys’ club” on the Board.

“I had three board members who disliked me, and they hired an attorney,” he says.
The Board sued to remove Allen from office, taking its case state Supreme Court acting Justice Dennis Kehoe, who ruled against Allen on April 20. According to court documents, Kehoe found that Allen “was not at the time of election in November 2008, nor is he now, a resident of the Village of Sodus, thereby rendering him ineligible to serve.”
 
Kehoe listed several conditions in support of his decision, including Allen’s rental of the apartment four days before the election, the lack of a refrigerator, stove, microwave, television, computer or other appliances and of personal belongings in the apartment, and that Allen spent less than 50 nights in the apartment and what Kehoe called “the majority of his nights” at his town residence.

On April 29, the Board voted to declare the position of Village of Sodus vacant, and to appoint Minor acting Mayor. Minor says he hopes to move out of the village, and will not run for the office. He said dislodging Allen cost the village somewhere in the mid-$20,000 range, though he could not be more specific.  

Allen says he “can legally, completely, cleanly run for reelection,” to Mayor.