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An
Opinion By Jan Bergemann Published March 3, 2009 It seems everybody in the Plaza East Condominium was ready for the annual meeting with election set for Friday, February 20, 2009. Everybody, but the board of directors and their attorney, Randall Roger, Esq. It looks like the board members were afraid that they would finally lose the election, getting replaced by candidates from the opposition, who would like nothing better than seeing the long-term board members together with association attorney Randall Roger and community manager David Beswick removed from their positions. One day before the scheduled election the election was cancelled, claiming "Board Concern as to Propriety of Election Integrity." Now everybody should know that the Florida statutes don't call for a cancellation of the election on such short notice -- and especially not for such a vague reason. I can imagine that a hurricane, a fire in the condo building or a terrorist attack might be a valid reason to cancel an election on short notice, but "Board Concern as to Propriety of Election Integrity?" Oh, my .....! But "UPON ADVICE OF LEGAL COUNCIL" the election was cancelled 15 hours before it should have taken place. The board voted on this matter, but where did the board members find the authority to do so? See here the notice that was posted in the lobbies and inside and outside of the elevators.
And since Randall Roger, the only licensed attorney involved in this election disaster, should have known much better, he is in my opinion the only one to blame for allowing this cancellation to take place. Despite his desperate attempts to claim that he listened to others before giving the advice to cancel the election, it's in my opinion just an attempt to cover up the problems he created with this "ADVICE." Being a licensed attorney, he has to realize that talking to election monitor Monica Hidalgo, scheduled to attend the election on Friday, is no excuse for his advice. An election monitor is supposed to monitor the election, but not make judgments as to the validity of the process before the election even takes place. That is far beyond her authority, according to Florida statutes FS 718.5012(10) -- and she surely isn't a licensed attorney. In a letter dated February 19, 2009, subject line "Annual Meeting of the Membership; Board Concern as to Propriety of Election Integrity," Roger, in detail, explains his conversation with the election monitor, including possible safeguards to "avoid future Election Integrity problems." Actually, no such "safe-guard provisions can be found in the Florida Statutes and/or the Florida Administrative Code. In my opinion they just serve in order to make owners vote again and force the owners who already mailed the ballots to go through the procedure again. It's obvious that the sitting board hopes that some of the owners who already voted for the opposition will -- for any reason -- not send their votes a second time! Actually, the letter was headlined CONFIDENTIAL ATTORNEY/CLIENT PRIVILEGED, but copies could be found all over the building -- most likely for a reason! Roger sent another letter, dated February 19, addressed to Bill Raphan, Ombudsman, subject line Notice of Suspension of Annual Meeting, confirming that the board of directors of the Plaza East Association, Inc. has voted to suspend the election and no election monitor has to be "sent" to the election that doesn't take place. The real Interim Condo Ombudsman, Colleen Donahue, Esq., responded to Roger's letter and definitely set the record straight -- see letter dated February 24, 2009. She obviously wasn't too happy that Randall Roger was trying to use her office as a scapegoat for his advice. So much for the claimed "Concurrence of the Office of the Florida Condominium Ombudsman"! There is really no argument: The election should have taken place as planned. The election monitor should have conducted the election as planned -- validated the outer envelopes, counted the ballots, recorded the election results -- and should have written a report -- as usual. All parties should have been able to voice their complaints and the election monitor should have noted it in her election report. Any party could have filed for election arbitration, if so desired -- and could have proved the allegations. That's the way the Florida statutes describe the process. If the regulating agency, the Division of Florida Land Sales, Condominiums, and Mobile Homes, allows this to go unpunished, they open the door to allow any board to cancel the election on short notice and continue to be the sitting board for another few weeks or months. Only requirement: Just bring up a few unproven allegations! These election shenanigans cost the owners of the Plaza East Condominium even more money -- the notifications have to be mailed out again. My suggestion: Have the attorney, who gave the board this shoddy advice, pay for the cost of the rescheduled election. That might stop attorneys from giving this kind of advice! But nevertheless, this advice bought the sitting board members of the Plaza East Condominium a few weeks time -- trying to come up with some better ideas on how to avoid a possible defeat at the rescheduled election? |
