A UF student senator representing off-campus students is doing so from a few hundred miles away - at least technically.
Members of a Senate committee said Wednesday that Sen. Sheldon Nagesh's home address in Texas satisfied a vague Student Body statute regarding the ZIP code needed to represent Student Government's District E.
In its recommendation to the Senate, which will vote on the case Tuesday, the Rules and Ethics Committee determined Nagesh's Gainesville P.O. Box was also sufficient, and the senator shouldn't be expelled.
The controversy over Nagesh's address started March 25, when Sen. Ben Cavataro, Orange and Blue Party Senate leader, charged that Nagesh shouldn't be allowed to keep his District E seat because the address on a resume Nagesh submitted for a Senate committee listed an address at the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity house - located in District A.
In Cavataro's charge, he provided screen captures of Nagesh's Facebook page, which showed his address as Phi Delta Theta 317.
Nagesh discounted Cavataro's evidence because he said Facebook is not a credible source, and there is no photographic evidence of him living there.
Nagesh said he submitted a roster of fraternity members to the committee that showed he was listed as out of house. He said he uses the house as a mailing address because it's convenient to pick up mail there between lunches and dinners.
However, on Nagesh's application to be a replacement senator, he listed a P.O. Box belonging to ZIP code 32604 as his mailing address. He argued that his P.O. Box qualifies him to run for District E because that district includes all ZIP codes not covered by districts A, B, C or D, according to UF's Student Body statutes.
Nagesh received a subpoena Tuesday from Audrey Goldman, chairwoman of the Rules and Ethics Committee to provide evidence he doesn't live at the fraternity house and he owns the P.O. Box.
Nagesh showed photos of the box's key and him opening it with the key. He said he receives his bills at that location.
He said when he filled out his Senate application, he provided the P.O. Box address because the form asked him to provide a mailing address, not a place of residency.
He submitted evidence to the committee showing that his residence is at an address in Melrose, about 20 miles from Gainesville, with a 32666 ZIP code. He provided a bank record and mail receipt of a letter sent to that address.
But Sen. Beau Frail, a committee member, said he did not consider the Melrose receipt valid because it didn't prove Nagesh lived there - only that someone mailed something to him at that address.
Nagesh also submitted a copy of his Texas driver's license with a Houston address.
The committee found this to be a valid address and said the ZIP code qualified him to represent District E under the statutes' current wording.
Though Goldman asserted that it wasn't the committee's job to interpret the statutes, many senators at the hearing complained that the wording should be revised.
Cain Norris, Cavataro's counsel, said after the meeting that the committee's decision established a person's out-of-town address as an acceptable claim for residency in the Student Senate.
"This is clearly not what the Student Body statutes are meant to imply," Norris said.
