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DID 98 PEOPLE DIE IN VAIN?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published March 18, 2022
After the collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium in
Surfside on June 24, 2021 about everybody was gung-ho about
creating condo reform in order to prevent a repeat of this
disaster.
Everything was on the table: Safety inspections, reserve
studies, reserve funds, mandatory education and even a task
force to prevent abuse and/or embezzlement of all these funds
created.
It looked like
legislators trying to make up for the mistake they made up for
the mistake they made in 2020, when they repealed laws created
in 2008 due to pressure from the industry. This eliminated
required safety inspections and other financial requirements
that may have prevented the Surfside disaster.
Legislators from both sides of the aisle filed a myriad of
bills, well intended and well written. And it all looked great
until House leadership – Speaker Sprowls and Representative
Perez (future Speaker of the House) -- got other ideas and
torpedoed every attempt to pass any condo reform bill. All these
good bills died because House leadership had other ideas.
Looking into the actual time-lines after the failure of all
community association bills to be enacted by the Florida
Legislature it becomes apparent that Daniel Perez was from the
very beginning trying to torpedo the Senate bill (SB
1702 -- Senator Jennifer Bradley)
that was used by the Senate to pass a condo safety bill. Long
before the session started quite a few House bills -- bills that
could be used as companion bills for SB 1702 -- were filed,
because common sense called for necessary changes to community
association laws to improve the safety of these buildings. But
these bills had different sponsors, meaning Perez had no direct
control over these bills. On February 10, 2022 he filed
CS/HB 7069
-- using his House leadership position -- to take total control
of the House condo bills.
House leadership -- Sprowls and Perez -- was never interested in
passing any of the many good and owner-friendly community
association bills that were filed in response to the collapse of
the Champlain Towers South by House Representatives. Not one of
them got a real serious hearing in one of the assigned
committees. And there were a lot really good bills (HB 547, HB
811 and HB 1033 -- just to name a few). All these bills had
companion bills in the Senate. SB 1702 made its way through the
Senate, got favorable votes in the Senate committees with some
good amendments. There was never any NAY vote! Then it was sent
to the House. Perez rejected the Senate version and asked for
changes. The Senate concurred and voted 38:0 in favor of the
amended version of CS/HB 7069 – a bill that was sent by House
leadership to the Senate. That was on March 10, 2022 -- meaning
there were two days left for the House to vote in favor of the
House version of the bill that was approved by the Senate. Lots
of time to vote or make even more changes.
But Perez chose to ignore the bill and let it unceremoniously
die. No matter what his reasons it's a shame that the Florida
legislature ignored the death of 98 people and made not even a
reasonable attempt to create any kind of safety changes to
prevent another deadly collapse of one of the many old hi-rises
here in Florida. God help Florida's owners of property in
community associations if Perez becomes Speaker of the House. In
Washington the Republicans have RINOS in Romney and Cheney. Here
in Florida we have RINOS named Perez and Sprowls. Perez excuses
plainly "STINK" -- all his "concerns" could have
been easily taken care of in a timely manner. His "excuses"
are just political "BS"!
Remember: Insurance reform failed as well because of
Sprowls and Perez.
Perez said that he will be back
next year to create condo reform bills. I hope he will not be
back and that home- and condo owners vote him out of office in
the November.
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Jan Bergemann is president of Cyber Citizens For Justice,
Florida
's largest state-wide property owners' advocacy group.
CCFJ works on legislation to help owners living in
community
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associations. He moved to
Florida
in 1995 - hoping to retire. He moved into a HOA, where the
developer cheated the homeowners and used the association dues
for his own purposes. End of retirement!
CCFJ was born in the year 2000, when some owners met in
Tallahassee
- finding out that power is only in numbers. Bergemann was a
member of Governor Jeb Bush's HOA Task force in 2003/2004.
The organization has two websites to inform interested
Florida
homeowners and condo owners:
News Website: http://www.ccfj.net/.
Educational Website: http://www.ccfjfoundation.net/.
We think that only owners can really represent owners, since all
service providers surely have a different interest! We are
trying to create owner-friendly laws, but the best laws are
useless without enforcement. And enforcement is totally lacking
in
Florida
!
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