Tyrone “Ty” Humes has a distinctive booming voice and, at 6-foot-7, can’t be missed. But one neighbor says the San Dieguito school board candidate hasn’t been seen living at the Torrey Hills guest house he claims as his residence.
This neighbor has a clear backyard view of 11279 Senda Luna Llena in the Carmel Valley area, the address used by Humes in his election filing.
“I don’t believe he’s living there,” the neighbor said Thursday in a phone interview. The person declined to be named for fear of being targeted by Humes or his allies.
The neighbor recalled conversations with one of the property’s owners in April about whether they were renting out their granny flat. The response was that it wasn’t being rented. The owners didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
Their property is in Trustee Area 5 of the San Dieguito Union High School District — where the former appointed school board member — the district’s first Black trustee — is seeking election in early November.
If Humes is living on the property, the neighbor said, “he’d have to be very quiet and very invisible.”
Humes, 57, said via email Thursday that he commutes to Los Angeles and comes home after hours.
“I have lived in Area 5 since February 1st, 2003,” he said, adding that he didn’t know that the “sole Black former trustee and candidate had to announce his whereabouts and presence with a booming voice. Very sad of your racial expectations.”
He declined to provide lease details and said he has commuted to LA for 11 years.
But a text-message exchange obtained by Times of San Diego indicates Humes may live nearly 10 miles north in the Cardiff portion of Encinitas — Trustee Area 3 of the affluent suburban school district.
On Feb. 14, 2019, he texted a former wife:
My new address as of February 16th, 2019 is as follows. I will maintain two residences. My legal address is the following.
Ty Humes
11279 Senda Luna Llena
San Diego, CA 92130
The address that I will use as the house for the children, which is a four bedroom with a full size pool and Jacuzzi is as follows
Ty Humes
1440 Kings Cross Drive
Cardiff by the Sea, CA 92007
The ex-wife — his second, after one in Danbury, Connecticut — asked: “What is the purpose and the need for legal vs. physical addresses?”
Humes replied: “My residency for voting and a board.”
When asked Monday about the texts — provided by two sources who didn’t want to be identified — Humes said of the Senda Luna Llena home: “That’s my residence, OK, and has been since we sold our family residence back two years ago. … I rent the entire second house that they have in the back.”
He said of the Cardiff address: “It is a place that my children go to twice a month.”
Humes said he’s getting a little perturbed about entities trying “to put up every roadblock as if I don’t have a right to run. … So this is getting out of hand.”
He says the Senda Luna address is on his voting record, driver’s license and passport.
He says his more recent ex-wife — with whom he shares custody of two school-age children — “has an ulterior motive.”
Further, he said: “Why am I just a threat to the existence of the teachers union? I will no longer use the word faculty… You unseated me, and now you’re trying to prevent me from running?”
His lone Area 5 rival so far is Julie Bronstein — who also applied for the provisional appointment when Kristin Gibson resigned in March. Humes was appointed April 22 but lost the seat a month ago after a successful union-led petition called for a special election.
Humes wondered why Bronstein hasn’t been “put through all of this” as a white female. “But I gotta go through this as a Black male.”
Bronstein declined to comment for this report.
Voter records show Humes re-registered as a Republican several times over recent months — finally choosing “No Party Preference” on April 19, 2021. The school board race is nonpartisan.
In December 2020, in fact, he listed his home address as 4653 Carmel Mountain Road, Suite 308/315. That’s the address of a Postal Annex in Del Mar.
On June 9, 2021, he filed a Form 410 to establish a fundraising committee called Friends of Ty Humes for San Dieguito UHSD Trustee Area 5. Certifying “under penalty of perjury” that the form was correctly filled out, he listed his address as 11279 Senda Luna Llena in San Diego.
On June 25, county Superintendent of Schools Paul Gothold ordered the Trustee Area 5 election for Nov. 2 via all-mail ballot. That area includes Carmel Valley and Pacific Highlands Ranch.
On Tuesday, San Dieguito interim schools chief Lucile Lynch said she hadn’t been aware of the Humes residency challenge until notification by Times of San Diego.
“The selection of Mr. Humes occurred before my appointment to Interim Superintendent, so I am not aware of the information shared during the interviews,” Lynch said via email.
“Residency challenges to electoral candidates are within the jurisdiction of the San Diego Registrar of Voters. With respect to residency challenges of sitting trustees, those matters are within the jurisdiction of the District Attorney’s office and the Election Code.”
She noted an earlier residency complaint against school board president Maureen “Mo” Muir by Duncan Brown, president of the San Dieguito Faculty Association.
“The district immediately and proactively contacted the Deputy District Attorney who was copied on Mr. Brown’s email to provide information necessary to address any concerns,” she said. “The Trustee for Trustee Area 1 [Muir] also fully cooperated and the District Attorney’s Office has now been provided with information in response to Mr. Duncan’s complaint regarding that Trustee.”
She noted that a “robust 800+ student” summer session was under way — “a short summer with school starting on August 17.”
“My attention and the attention of our staff is better spent on our students than challenges that can be ably addressed by other individuals and entities,” Lynch said.
The neighbor of the Torrey Hills house said they routinely walk in the neighborhood.
“I would see the front of the … house,” the neighbor said. “I’ve never seen (Humes’ minivan) parked there. I feel like ever since he filed that paperwork with the Registrar of Voters and became the provisional appointee, he was making an effort to be seen in the neighborhood.”
On Tuesday, Humes explained his voter registration record.
“When I registered to vote after the sale of our family residence during the divorce and custody battle, I populated my postal address (lawyer’s advice to send all mail to the postal address) in error and it was corrected,” he wrote.
“Subsequently, the district under former Superintendent [Robert] Haley and the SDCOR verified my address, as is the process, when applied for the vacant seat.”
Humes didn’t explain what SDCOR stands for.
Updated at 11:04 p.m. July 8, 2021