In appointing Melissa Barrett last week to fill a vacancy on the Rochester City Court bench, Mayor Lovely Warren said Barrett “has the right experience and temperament” for the job.

Until recently, though, Barrett didn’t have the right address.

By late summer, when it appeared that embattled City Court Judge Leticia Astacio would lose her seat to her legal troubles and that Warren would likely appoint a replacement, Barrett was living in her longtime home in Perinton.

The location put Barrett, who has twice sought judgeships unsuccessfully, out of contention for an appointment because state law requires City Court judges — elected or appointed — to reside in the city.

More:Mayor Warren picks Melissa Barrett to fill City Court seat left by Judge Astacio

So, a week after the state’s highest court heard what it would render an unconvincing argument as to why Astacio should stay on the bench, Barrett set the wheels in motion to establish residency in Rochester.

On Sept. 11, she filed a new voter registration form with the Monroe County Board of Elections that stated she had left the home in Perinton she had shared with her husband and two children since 2003, when the couple bought it almost new.

The home, at 1 Brimfield Circle, spans 2,700 square feet and sits on 1.5 acres of land on a quiet double cul-de-sac. With its beige stone and vinyl façade, the colonial is impressive by the standards of the neighborhood and was last assessed at $355,000.

Her new place of residence? The rear apartment of an aging two-family house at 250 Lyndhurst St. in Rochester in the shadow of the Inner Loop.

The house is owned by Democratic kingmaker and state Assemblyman David Gantt, whose best known protégé is Warren. The property sits across from Gantt’s home and was last assessed at $37,000. The other day, one of the windows was boarded up.

More:Assemblyman David Gantt removed from committee chairmanship, given leadership post

Barrett swore on her voter registration under threat of a $5,000 fine and four years imprisonment that she lived in the apartment and would reside there for at least 30 days prior to the next election in which she would vote.

Looking at the place, with its soot-covered siding, broken porch light and busted doorbell, left me to wonder whether someone who was positioning herself for a $187,000-a-year judgeship and had lived so comfortably for so long couldn’t find more becoming lodging.

Paul Jones, who has lived next door for six years, said he didn’t recall Barrett living in the house and that he never saw the yellow Hummer that she often drives parked outside. He added, though, that it was possible he could have missed her coming and going.

“I ain’t never seen no yellow Hummer,” Jones said. “Everyone on this block would know what a yellow Hummer looks like.”

Barrett didn’t return multiple phone messages inquiring about her residency, but Gantt said she rented the place.

“She needed some temporary housing,” he said, and added that she resided there until she bought a new home in the Charlotte neighborhood of Rochester.

On Oct. 29, Barrett and her husband closed on the purchase of a new house at 50 Cheltenham Road in Charlotte.

Public records show they paid $71,000 for the house and secured a $63,900 mortgage that contained a “second home rider,” a provision indicating the property will be used by the Barretts as a second home and not their primary residence.

The mortgage listed Barrett and her husband, Basil, as residing at Brimfield Circle in Perinton. It made no mention of Barrett living on Lyndhurst Street.

When Election Day arrived a week after the closing, however, records show Barrett cast her ballot in Rochester as a Lyndhurst Street resident.

A letter left Tuesday for Barrett at her Cheltenham Road home inquiring about her residency status wasn’t immediately answered. Neighbors said she appeared to be living there, and that they’ve seen her yellow Hummer in the driveway.

Indeed, the Cheltonham Road address was on Barrett’s resume disseminated by City Hall upon her appointment to City Court. Barrett will have to run for election in 2019 to keep the seat.

Barrett, 49, a principal court attorney in the state court system, twice ran for judgeships. The first time was in 2007 as a Republican vying for a seat on Monroe County Family Court. The second was in 2016 as a Democrat for a seat on Monroe County Court.

In the latter race, she was rated “qualified” by the Monroe County Bar Association; “qualified” by the Independent Judicial Election Qualification Commission; “qualified” by the Greater Rochester Association for Women Attorneys, and “highly qualified” and “highly sensitive” by the Rochester Black Bar Association.

Those designations and her résumé suggest Barrett would make a capable City Court jurist, regardless of her time in Perinton. And it’s questionable, even unlikely, that her winding path to establishing residency in Rochester would disqualify her from taking the bench.

After all, carpetbagging — the practice of moving residences from one jurisdiction to another for political expediency — is a time-honored American tradition.

“When we attempt to determine where a judge lives, there’s no one single factor that’s determinative,” said John Postel, the deputy administrator at the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which has disciplined judges for failing to meet residency requirements.

Postel spoke to investigating complaints about residency issues involving judges and not directly to Barrett’s circumstances.

“There are multiple factors,” he continued. “Where is the judge’s driver’s license? Where are they registered to vote? Where do they sleep at night? Where does their family live? Where do they pay utility bills? It’s really an understanding of where the weight comes down. Sometimes the requirements can be quite liberal and easy to meet, but a judge must meet them. A judge who fails to meet them is subject to commission discipline.”

After the fiasco that was the judgeship of Leticia Astacio, taxpayers deserve to know Barrett inside and out, where she came from, and the political power brokers she turned to when she needed to become a resident of Rochester so she could stand in judgment of its people.

Includes reporting by staff writer Gary Craig.

David Andreatta is a Democrat and Chronicle columnist. He can be reached at dandreatta@gannett.com.