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ELECTION
MONITORS? BEWARE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE NEW MONITORS!
By
Jan Bergemann
Published
November 21, 2014
When
the Office of the Condo Ombudsman was created in 2004 it was a
great addition to the Division of Florida Condominiums,
Timeshares, and Mobile Homes, helping condo owners dealing with
the daily problems of their associations.
Especially
the creation of ELECTION
MONITORS was a big success, considering the many
complaints the Division got over the years accusing boards and
management companies of running unfair elections.
The program was quickly initiated by then Ombudsman Dr. Virgil
Rizzo and his election specialist Valmore Lucier, who created a
handbook for election monitors and trained the volunteers until
they knew all the ins and outs of condominium elections. The
volunteers were not let loose on the public until they were
sufficiently trained and attended quite a few elections as
apprentice.
Nowadays
we get more and more complaints from owners about election
monitors who are not really sure what they are doing and take
forever to figure out how to count the votes.
In
former times condo owners requesting election monitors were
allowed to request specific monitors who already conducted
elections in their community before and were familiar with the
situation in these condos. Now the Ombudsman’s office even
appoints an election monitor owners didn’t want.
I
guess it’s time for owners and associations to talk directly
to election monitors to hire them – circumventing the
Ombudsman’s office – in order to get knowledgeable election
monitors able to run fair elections.
It
seems that with Bruce Campbell the Ombudsman’s Office is run
with the same attitude as the Division of Florida Condominiums,
Timeshares, and Mobile Homes: Avoid any work and discourage
owners from contacting the office by telling them that the
Ombudsman’s Office doesn’t deal with their issue. Make no
mistake: Bruce Campbell learned his trade in the Division of
Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes.
So,
what else should we expect?
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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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