By Mike W. Ray Southwest Ledger Questions about whether Gideon Miller’s residence lies within the boundaries of the corporate limits of the Town of Gore arose almost immediately after he announced his candidacy in 2023 for the municipal Board of Trustees. A nasty town feud arising from that issue continued for at least a year and a half, court records indicate.
Town Clerk Lisa Settlemyre and Mayor Robin Henry “went to the Sequoyah County Election Board to verify that Gideon Miller was eligible to run” for the town board, a letter in a court file relates. In June 2023 Miller himself “had questions as to whether he was in the town limits,” Henry and Settlemyre wrote in that letter.
Vice Mayor Larry Pack, Settlemyre and Miller all went to the Sequoyah County Clerk’s office to find out whether Miller’s residence had been annexed.
After no such record was located, Henry asked Miller to “provide a statement or certification from an authority that determines eligibility,” the same letter reports.
Miller “provided a short letter” dated Sept. 6, 2023, from David Slaughter, Sequoyah County’s 9-1-1 director, stating that Miller’s residence was “inside the Town limits of Gore.”
However, Pack went to Slaughter’s office and asked how any residence can be in the town limits without being annexed.
“Upon further investigation” by the County Assessor’s Office and the Oklahoma Tax Commission, “whose job it is to maintain municipal boundaries,” Slaughter sent a letter to Gore officials informing them that his previous letter “was incorrect.” Gideon Miller’s residence was not inside Gore’s town limits.
Gideon Miller “has always paid rural taxes and rural water rates,” the letter in the court file states. “It was also discovered that Gideon Miller’s residence was not included in the Haven Heights platted subdivision, nor has his residence been annexed.”
After receiving a second letter from Slaughter, dated Dec. 4, 2023, Mayor Henry met with Miller and told him that he “was not nor had ever been eligible” to serve on the Gore Board of Trustees.
“The Town must adhere to state guidelines,” Henry and Settlemyre wrote in a letter.
They cited a provision in Title 11 of Oklahoma State Statutes which decrees, “A municipal elected official shall be a resident and a registered voter of the municipality in which he serves, and all councilmembers or trustees from wards shall be actual residents of their respective wards.” The state law also provides that, “If an elected official ceases to be a resident of the municipality, he shall thereupon cease to be an elected official of that municipality.”
Henry said she advised Miller “he would need to resign and annex his residence” into the town limits. He did not, and on Feb. 6, 2024, the town board voted to vacate Miller’s Ward 5 office.
‘It is a legal issue’ “This has never been politically motivated,” Settlemyre and Henry wrote in their letter. “It is a legal issue.” Gideon Miller’s residence “is either in Town limits or not. The Town must adhere to State guidelines.”
The Town of Gore “faced a similar issue several years ago” when a trustee “was asked to resign after discovering a problem with his annexation,” the two public officials recalled.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Miller filed a “petition and request for restraining order” in Sequoyah County District Court on Feb. 6, 2024, the day he was removed from office.
He claimed that he owns property in the Town of Gore and that his house is “on the property that is in the Town of Gore.” He also claimed that after his election to the Board of Trustees, he was handed a “notice that he was simply ‘off the Board’ despite the certified election results.”
The Town of Gore filed a motion in district court on Feb. 23, 2024, to dismiss Miller’s complaint.
“This case presents a straightforward question of law,” the town asserted. “Can an individual who does not reside in a municipality serve as an elective officer of that municipality?” Gideon Miller, “by his own admission and the relevant evidence, does not and, at all relevant times, has not resided within the municipal limits of the Town of Gore, Oklahoma.”
In response to the town’s motion to dismiss, Miller filed a document in which he claimed that after his election to the Board of Trustees he “began to have problems with the Town government because he asked too many questions about how things were being run in the government.”
Miller told the court he “asked questions” about why Settlemyre “was receiving payments for grants in 2023 – specifically, $500 – when this would not normally be allowable, and in fact prohibited.”
The ‘establishment’ “portion of the Town government did not like these questions, and were determined to pull out the thorn in their side – that thorn being Gideon Miller,” he declared. “To that end, the Town concocted a scheme to have Gideon Miller ‘removed’ as a Trustee on the Board of Trustees.”
The Town of Gore filed a motion on Aug. 7, 2024, asking the district court for “a civil protective order on certain discovery requests” made by Miller and his attorney, Wesley J. Cherry of McAlester.
Myriad documents sought by Miller The town stated that the motion “is made on the grounds that [Miller] served upon [the Town of Gore] 14 separate interrogatories, six separate requests for admissions, and 10 separate requests for production of documents.”
Those interrogatories included one demanding that the town “state in detail all statutes relied upon for the removal of Gideon Miller as a member of the Town Board of Trustees.” That explanation was provided a year earlier.
Another interrogatory requested, “For the last five years, identify any payments to any person for grant-writing.” The town objected to that request “because it is irrelevant, unduly burdensome, and not reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence.”
Miller also wanted town officials to provide a list of “addresses for real property located in Ward 5” and a list of “ residents located in Ward 5” of the Town of Gore; a list of Gore law enforcement officers “who have left … for any reason since January 1, 2022:” a list of town employees “for the last five years;” residential addresses for the mayor, vice mayor, and each member of the town Board of Trustees “for the last 10 years;” “all bank account information where the [Town of Gore] banks;” and copies of records of all annexations to the Town of Gore for real property, from date the town was formed to the date of filing of the Petition.”
“All of the materials sought by [Miller]” which town officials objected to “are excessively burdensome” to the Town of Gore, attorney Matthew R. Price of Muskogee wrote. “Each of the requests seeks information which is not relevant to the case because none of the requested materials have a tendency to prove or disprove any of [Miller’s] claims or the [Town of Gore’s] defenses.”
Miller “cannot seriously argue that knowing the f inancials, addresses of others, or list of employees has any bearing whatsoever on his ability to show” whether he resided in the Town of Gore, Price argued. “Because none of the requests involve matters relevant to providing [Miller’s] contentions, there is exactly zero benefit to [Miller] in obtaining them.”
In a related “motion to quash” Miller’s records subpoena, Price described Miller’s records requests as a “blanket fishing expedition.”
District Judge Kyle Waters ruled on Dec. 10, 2024, in favor of the Town of Gore to quash Miller’s subpoena.
Nothing was filed in the case in the last six months.