FRANKFORT — Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo's Franklin County farm, which became an issue in last spring's Democratic U.S. Senate primary, is for sale.
Mongiardo bought the 54-acre farm in July 2009 for $753,069 with the help of a $30,000-a-year state housing allowance.
Carolyn Edwards, a Realtor with Creative Realty in Lexington, said the asking price for the land and a large farmhouse has not been determined.
The lieutenant governor said in a telephone interview that he had bought the property to live there:
"If I had won the general election for U.S. Senate this year, it would have been a convenient place to stay coming in and out of Washington. That is no longer the case."
Mongiardo lost in the primary to state Attorney General Jack Conway, who faces Republican Rand Paul in the Nov. 2 general election.
Conway said last spring that Mongiardo should repay the housing allowance because Mongiardo had lived with his in-laws in Frankfort and had planned to develop and profit from the property.
About 20 acres of the property is zoned for a subdivision.
State law does not spell out how the housing stipend to lieutenant governors should be used.
Mongiardo — an ear, nose and throat surgeon in Hazard — said he and his wife, Allison, had lived in the property last year until a furnace broke. He said they moved back in this year "after the weather broke and repairs were made" and still stays there when he is in Frankfort.
Asked where his wife and young daughter will live if the farm property should sell quickly, Mongiardo said that he expects it will take some time to sell and that his term as the state's No. 2 chief executive will continue until the end of 2011.
If it should sell before then, he said, "We will make necessary arrangements."
Mongiardo said he has "absolutely no political plans and plans to go back to Hazard" to practice medicine when his term as lieutenant governor expires.
The farm property is valued at $825,000, according to the Franklin County Property Valuation Administrator's office.
Mongiardo bought it from Frankfort business partner Jerry T. Lunsford at nearly $72,000 less than what Lunsford paid for it in 2006.
Mongiardo said last spring that he was collecting about $5,000 a year in rent from a tenant on the farm. He also said that even though he had attempted to develop the farm with Lunsford in 2003, he would not because of public opposition.
