Do they or don't they?
Orange Town Council members Pent and Cashell say they live in town, but there are signs pointing elsewhere
The selection of a new mayor will be the first order of business when Orange Town Council meets tomorrow evening (Jan. 21) for the first time this year. All eyes will be on council members Jeremiah Pent and Jason Cashell, whose residency in the Town of Orange has been questioned ever since they ran for office as a politically conservative duo in 2022. If one of them wins the majority of votes from his fellow council members and becomes mayor, the matter may draw a lot more scrutiny.
The mayor’s role is significant even if most of the time it’s just a matter of running council meetings. Orange’s Town Code specifies that the mayor “shall be the official head of the town, and shall be regarded as the chief law enforcement officer of the town, … who may call upon the governor for aid in case of any breach of the peace, tumult, riot, or resistance to law, or imminent danger thereof, in case of any disaster wherein the lives or property of citizens are imperiled.”
Last year, when longtime Mayor Martha Roby and Vice Mayor Rick Sherman decided not to seek reelection to council, town residents Harrison Cluff and Delmer Seal prevailed over their opponents for the open seats. They now join Pent, Cashell and Donna Waugh-Robinson as a new year of town business gets underway. Based on my exchanges about the residency question with all of them except Cashell (who didn’t respond to my email or phone call), it appears that if either Pent or Cashell were nominated for mayor, Cluff’s would be the deciding vote.
Both Pent and Cashell registered as town residents when they filled out their candidacy paperwork with the Orange County Office of Voter Registration and Elections. They receive their mail related to official town business at addresses on East Main Street in Orange, according to Town Manager Greg Woods. However, each man has a large, home-based family enterprise outside the town limits.
To skeptics, their Main Street addresses may look like a mere gesture toward satisfying Virginia Code 15.2-1525, which states, “Every city and town officer except the town attorney shall, at the time of his election or appointment, have resided thirty days next preceding his election or appointment in such city or town unless otherwise specifically provided by charter.” And if Pent and Cashell fulfilled that requirement, they would need to keep living in Orange, since the Virginia Code also specifies that an elected official must vacate office if he or she moves out of the town where elected.
Pent is adamant about his right to serve on council and brushes off his critics as a nuisance. He told me in a phone conversation last week, “I know where I live, and I know how I live, and I know what my life consists of, and I meet the requirements that the law outlines. So, you know, I think some people need a hobby. Some people need other things to do that aren’t just looking for problems with political opponents.”
Delmer Seal: “You should wash your clothes there and lay your head down to rest at night”
Seal and Waugh-Robinson, however, are equally adamant that council members must live inside the town limits. In a phone interview last week, Seal told me, “My opinion is that you must live in the Town of Orange in order to be on the town council. My opinion is that you have to live in Orange 100% of the time, not 50% of the time, to be on the town council.”
He added, “It should be your primary residence. You should physically live there, wash your clothes there and lay your head down to rest at night.”
Donna Waugh-Robinson: “They have no skin in the game”
Likewise, Waugh-Robinson wrote to me, “I think it is imperative for council members to live in the town, and I cannot think of any mitigating circumstances that would make it OK for a nonresident to run for office or to continue to hold that office if they moved out of town. Council members are stewards of the residents’ taxes, budget, public services, safety, water, sanitation, roads, transportation and so much more. Why should a nonresident be allowed to have a say in those matters when they are not vested? They … can make financial decisions that affect the people who live in town, but their decisions don’t affect them. That’s not right.”
Waugh-Robinson continued, “They have no skin in the game to do what’s best for all the residents of the town. As a council member, your role is to represent all the people in your community, and what better way to do that [than] to live here and know your neighbors and their needs?”
Harrison Cluff: “They ran, won and were certified”
In contrast to Seal and Waugh-Robinson, Cluff has hedged his bets. In an interview with Byrd Street last summer he said that “the idea of what constitutes a full-time town resident needs to be clearly defined.” He added, “The most important thing would be to follow the established ordinances and state codes.”
Last week, in response to my inquiry, Cluff wrote me that Pent and Cashell “were deemed eligible to run by the local elections office. They ran, won and were certified. The state Attorney General’s Office provided a recourse to those who wished to question that eligibility. As of this point in time, no one to my knowledge has challenged that eligibility in civil court. In the eyes of the law, they are council members in the Town of Orange. Just because someone says the councilmen in question don’t live in town, doesn’t make it so in the eyes of the law.”
Diana O’Connell: “I didn’t find any of the answers that [Pent and Cashell’s critics] wanted me to come up with”
For the record, the Orange County Office of Voter Registration and Elections is not, as former Commonwealth’s Attorney Diana O’Connell explained to me, an “investigative” office. Orange County Registrar Donna Harpold was not empowered to track down where Pent and Cashell lived (or didn’t live) when they submitted their candidacy paperwork—or to stand in their way when they ran for office. As was appropriate for her role, she contacted O’Connell about citizen complaints that neither candidate was a town resident.
It was up to O’Connell to decide whether to make a case out of those complaints. Although there are people in Orange who have criticized O’Connell for not pursuing the matter as doggedly as they wanted her to—and the controversy may have cost her reelection when she ran against current Commonwealth’s Attorney Page Higginbotham—she told me that she researched case law extensively before submitting her findings to the Attorney’s General Office. That office chose not to pursue the matter.
“I didn’t find any of the answers that [Pent and Cashell’s critics] wanted me to come up with,” O’Connell said. “We are not outcome driven. You go by the law, you don’t go by the intent. You don’t go by what you want to happen.”
Here’s another legal issue worth contemplating: Are Pent and Cashell casting ballots in the Town of Orange? If so, are they legally allowed to? According to the Virginia Constitution, “The residence requirements shall be that each voter shall be a resident of the Commonwealth and of the precinct where he votes. Residence, for all purposes of qualification to vote, requires both domicile and a place of abode”—that is, an actual home.
Where do Pent and Cashell actually live?
To make sense of where Pent and Cashell say they live in the Town of Orange, Pent’s father, Arnold Pent III, enters the picture. Under the auspices of several companies, the elder Pent has bought a variety of properties in downtown Orange over the past few years, including 130, 132 and 133 E. Main St. Number 130 is home to Happy Gardens, the Chinese restaurant, and 132 houses Wiley Real Estate. Across the street, 133 is that white sliver of a building between Blue Ridge Studio of Fine Art and The Music Room.
Jeremiah Pent has designated the second floor of 132 E. Main St. as his in-town home address. In a downstairs window, on the left side, a sign has long promised the opening of a coffee shop. A second sign now announces that the space is for lease. If you peer up at the windows on the second floor, where Pent allegedly lives, you’ll see a tidy row of closed blinds. Town of Orange GIS records show that the owner of 132 E. Main is Stockhome Trading Corp., based at an address associated with Arnold Pent III.
Pent family home: “Hidden in the rolling hills of Madison County”
Pent may well climb the stairs of 132 E. Main every evening and fall asleep to the soothing roar of trains barreling through town a short distance away, but it seems more likely he’s at home with his wife, Amy, and their children at Arcadia at Edgewood, the family’s wedding and corporate event venue in Madison County.
The text on the Arcadia at Edgewood home page nails down the estate’s location: “Hidden in the rolling hills of Madison County, Virginia, Edgewood was established circa 1801. Featuring backdrops of the Blue Ridge Mountains, its 1853 manor house, and its pristine pastures, you won’t find a more picturesque place to host your guests on your special day.”
Jason Cashell: “Hopeless romantic” with two home addresses
Pent is not the only one on council with an impressive manor house. Cashell and his wife, Casey, run Mayhurst Estate, a large B&B outside the town limits. But Cashell claims 133 E. Main St. in Orange as his residence, at least for town council purposes. The building has less than 800 square feet of living space and one bedroom. The property last traded hands in May 2022. Public records identify the owner as GHI Properties Corp., which is connected, like Stockhome Trading Corp., to Jeremiah Pent’s father.
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