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FALL RIVER — City Councilor Steven Camara is suggesting that recent questions about his residency may have been motivated by his vote against ousting indicted Mayor Jasiel Correia II from office.

Discussion over Camara’s status as a Fall River resident started making the rounds on social media Saturday when New Bedford radio station WBSM published an opinion piece to its website. The article, authored by Ken Pittman, questioned whether Camara was still a Fall River resident as he had signed a document called a “declaration of homestead” for a property he owns in Westport.

On Monday, Fall River resident CJ Ferry submitted a letter to the city's election office requesting Camara's name be taken off the November ballot because of the information outlined in the WBSM article.

The 2014 homestead declaration – a copy of which was provided to The Herald News by the Bristol County Register of Deeds – states that Camara declared his Cherry & Webb Lane home in Westport to be the address he would “occupy or intend to occupy ... as (his) principal residence.”

The Secretary of State’s website stipulates that a homestead can only be declared for an applicant’s “principal residence,” and that a person can have more than one residence, but state statues only allow protections on a person’s “primary dwelling.”

In his article, Pittman concluded: “It would seem that Mr. Camara is ineligible and has either defrauded the city taxpayers and voters of a resident representative or has perjured himself in his Homestead Act Declaration.”

Camara said Monday that he has been in touch with legal counsel following Pittman’s article. He maintains that he is still a Fall River resident and able to serve on the City Council.

“I think my standing up for the Constitution and standing by innocence until proven guilty is not a position supported by many. ... I don’t want to think I’m being retaliated against for being the one voice of reason on this emotional roller coaster we’re on,” he said, alluding to the council’s recent vote to remove Correia from office.

Following his Sept. 6 arrest on charges that he extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars from local cannabis companies, Correia was the subject of a successful vote by the council to temporarily remove him from office. Of Fall River’s nine city councilors, Camara was the only one to vote against removing Correia.

“I think that some people think I should have been with the eight that saw we should move the mayor out of office, so there may be a political motivation here,” Camara said.

Camara also said Monday that he has two principal addresses: his home in Fall River and his home in Westport. The home at which he spends most of his time is the Fall River address, with the Westport home serving as a vacation property, he said.

“I’m not there that often. I’m rarely there, just for the occasional reprieve,” he said. “I tell people I don’t vacation in the Bahamas. I vacation in Westport.”

A clerk in Westport’s tax collector’s office said Camara receives no property tax exemptions as a result of his homestead declaration, adding that most people sign them as a protection in the event of foreclosure. Camara said he chose to sign a homestead declaration in Westport as a way of protecting the more valuable of his two residential properties in the event he was ever targeted by a lawsuit.

Though Camara’s declaration states he will “occupy or intend to occupy the home as (his) principal residence,” signing the document does not automatically rule him out as a Fall River resident, one spokeswoman for the Secretary of State’s office explained.

“Your residency for tax purposes isn’t necessarily the same as your residence for voting purposes,” said spokeswoman Debra O’Malley. “Mainly, what is important is everyone’s voter registration is subject to challenge.”

As O’Malley explained, any Fall River voter can challenge Camara’s status as a Fall River voter through the city’s elections office. This would then prompt a review of his status. However, O’Malley also cautioned that more than just the declaration of homestead would go into the decision.

“There’s a lot that goes into determining residency, including how many nights you stay in one place or another, or where your life is most centered around,” she said. “It’s taken on a case by case basis.”

When reached for comment Monday, a clerk within the city’s elections office confirmed that they had received Ferry's letter urging Camara's name be removed from the ballot.