UF's Student Senate president said plans to revise Student Body statutes and the replacement-senator process are underway following questions surrounding another senator's residence.
Senate President Kellie Dale said the plans, which would need to be passed twice by the Senate to change the statutes, would clarify what qualifies a senator to represent District E, which under current statutes includes all ZIP codes not listed in Districts A, B, C or D.
That flexible statute allowed Sen. Sheldon Nagesh, appointed to District E in February, to use his home address in Houston and a Gainesville P.O. Box as grounds for keeping his seat following accusations that he lived at his fraternity's house in District A.
Dale said she asked Audrey Goldman, chairwoman of the Rules and Ethics Committee, to make recommendations to clarify the statute after Nagesh's Wednesday hearing so the confusion wouldn't happen again.
Nagesh listed the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity house in District A as his mailing address on a resume, but he told the committee he lived in Melrose, a town about 20 miles away, and presented a bank record and a mail receipt as proof. The committee deemed the Melrose evidence invalid but said his Texas address and a P.O. Box, both not covered by other districts' ZIP codes, make him eligible for his seat.
Nagesh said in a telephone interview Thursday that he has lived in his Melrose house since January. He listed his fraternity as a mailing address because he recieves some mail there and sometimes spends the night. He would not say how often he sleeps at the house, but he said it depends on the number of social activities during a given week.
"We have a big couch," he said. "And the boys are really lenient on that type of stuff."
Sen. Ben Cavataro, who brought the charges against Nagesh, said he does not believe Nagesh lives in Melrose because he did not mention the residence until Tuesday afternoon. Cavataro said revising the statutes wouldn't change the appearance that Nagesh doesn't reside in the district he represents.
