To head off further inquiry or problems concerning the recent revelation that state Rep. Mae Beavers doesn’t actually live in the district she represents, sources say that she has hired a house moving company to have her home immediately trucked to property within her district.
Beavers claimed on election forms that her residence was a condo within her district. But she and her husband actually live in a house that is not in the 57th state House district.
Sources say someone in Beavers’ office apparently made several calls to various local house moving firms seeking bids on the job before settling on a price with Jimmie’s Houses on Wheels of Lebanon. “We gave her a real competitive bid,” says Jimmie Short, owner of the company. “She just said she had to get moving as soon as possible.”
At the same time, Beavers worked with Mt. Juliet real estate agent Lil Burns to select a lot within her district on which to locate her peripatetic house. “We got her a real nice lot with some trees and some real nice neighbors,” the longtime MLS Gold Circle member says.
Beavers’ office is reportedly working on a press release that will accurately, if misleadingly, assert that, “She has lived in the same house for several years, and that house is unquestionably within the 57th district.”
“This is brilliant,” says a longtime Wilson County political observer. “All she has to do is file a change-of-address form to her new location, and probably everybody will just let bygones be bygones about that bogus condo address.”
That would be a happy ending for Beavers, as long as the actual house move goes smoothly—not always a given, according to Burns, the real estate agent. “Jimmie usually does fine, as long as he doesn’t snag the electric wires with the house like he did with a doublewide last week. I think that thing is still smoking.”
(Fabricate: to make up in order to deceive.)
