Article Courtesy of the Sun Sentinel

By Joe Kollin
Posted June 3, 2006

Less than two years after naming him as the nation's first condominium ombudsman, Gov. Jeb Bush has fired Virgil Rizzo and replaced him with a Department of Health attorney with no known condo law experience.

Danille Carroll, 39, of Tallahassee, on Friday took over the job of educating unit owners and board members, mediating their disputes, monitoring elections and making recommendations for new laws to make life in condominiums less stressful than it has become. She will be paid $80,800 a year.

Bush's termination letter, dated Thursday, simply told Rizzo, "This is to advise you that your appointment as ombudsman is rescinded effective June 1, 2006."

Rizzo, 69, a retired medical doctor and lawyer from Fort Lauderdale, had become a thorn in the side of both the state Department of Business & Professional Regulation, which enforces condo law, and attorneys who represent condo boards.

In a 2005 report, he said half the 4,000 queries his office had received during a three-month period involved mismanagement by boards, and a quarter involved alleged abuse by directors.

Rizzo is recovering from surgery and wasn't available for comment.

"Dr. Rizzo consistently demonstrated an unwillingness" to work within the system "and at times refused to be held accountable to the department and to taxpayers," said Meg Shannon, spokeswoman for the business regulation department.

He regularly complained that the department had no authority to supervise him. And in April 2005, he called procedures used by the Division of Florida Land Sales, Condominiums & Mobile Homes "not only confusing, obsolete and impractical, but also ineffective, inefficient, antiquated and in serious need of complete revision."

Rizzo's position was specifically designed to stir up the bureaucracy, said state Rep. Julio Robaina, R-Miami, who in 2004 helped create the job after condo residents statewide told "horror stories" about the way boards treated them and the department's indifference.

When he first got the job, Rizzo had to fight for money to run his office. He worked without pay for at least six months after his December 2004 appointment and recruited friends to work as volunteers answering phone calls, e-mails and letters from unit owners.

At one point, the department agreed to fund the office but provided so little money that Robaina said it is "apparent they want him to fail."

The state eventually did come through with money, which he used for help answering thousands of phone calls and e-mails and creation of Web sites to answer questions and provide a link to his office.

He also worked with Broward Community College on pilot classes for condo residents, opened an office in Fort Lauderdale to be closer to the heavy concentration of condos in the South Florida area, held town meetings throughout Florida and provided Spanish speakers in the South Florida office.

The ombudsman's office now has a staff of six and budget of $417,000, Shannon said.

Robaina didn't agree with Bush's decision to fire Rizzo.

"I think it's a shame but the office will go on and I hope and pray that it doesn't become just another bureaucracy in the state of Florida," said Robaina.

The new ombudsman, Carroll, has been an assistant general counsel for the Department of Health since 2003. She has been responsible for several boards, including those that regulate osteopathic medicine, chiropractors, psychologists and metal health counselors.

In 2002 she worked for the state Department of Environmental Protection in West Palm Beach and previously worked as a consultant or attorney for private industry in Houston and Miami.

She is a 1992 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law. She received her bachelor of science degree in criminal justice at Florida International University in Miami in 1988.

"She is accomplished, experienced and coming from a leadership position in the Department of Health," said Shannon. "She is ready to hit the ground running and ready to work cooperatively with the department for the betterment of the millions of Floridians living in condos."

Jan Bergemann, president of Deland-based Cyber Citizens for Justice, which represents unit owners and supported Rizzo, said Bush should have done something about the department rather than the ombudsman.

"The governor removed the only person in the Florida government who actually cared for the welfare of Florida's condo owners," Bergemann said. "People who work hard are removed while those who mess up everything [in the department] get to stay."

Harold Wechsler, a resident of the Plaza East condo in Fort Lauderdale, agreed.

"Unit owners all over Florida have lost a valiant champion," Wechsler said. "He wasn't doing it for the money, certainly. He was doing it for the people. But the department couldn't have an agency working alongside it that it perceived as a threat."

But Rizzo was strongly opposed by the Community Association Leadership Lobby, an arm of the Becker & Poliakoff law firm that represents more than 3,500 boards in Florida. Its executive director, Donna Berger, couldn't be reached for comment on Friday and the public relations firm that generally speaks for CALL wouldn't comment.

CALL opposed Rizzo because he supported changes that boards and their lawyers didn't think were necessary. Among them: term limits on directors, mandatory safety inspections of condo buildings, mandatory education for directors, a law to make it illegal for directors to abuse owners and creation of an ombudsman for homeowner associations.