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WILD BOARD MEETINGS!
By
Jan Bergemann
Published
May 27, 2016
It seems that screaming and hollering is pretty common at board
meetings in Florida’s community associations. Over the years I
have attended board meetings where the participants were
obviously under the impression that the one who screamed the
loudest is right. And if that didn’t work some folks even turned
to physical confrontations.
I always think that community associations bring out the worst
in people. Our TV programs are full of so-called
REALITY-SHOWS. As we all know, most of them are actually
scripted – and are often not really reality shows. The producers
of such shows should just attend board meetings – and they can
film better shows than any writer could script.
But these screaming and fighting “matches” are in my opinion not
caused by just a few obnoxious owners, they are caused by a
system that allows bullying and dictatorial behavior. Every
fight at such board meetings has two sides to the story. In most
communities I know there are two – or even more – parties that
fight each other. And these fights often turn ugly, causing
scenes like described above.
Nice, peaceful communities? Whom are you kidding?
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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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