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HOA ELECTIONS?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published June 4, 2021
Since we are blogging this
week about all kinds of different topics, I would like to talk
about HOA elections. I get bombarded with questions and
complaints about HOA ELECTIONS. It seems that the
Pandemic created all kinds of serious trouble, including the
fact that board members and community association managers seem
to think that the laws regulating HOA elections (FS 720.306)
are no longer in effect – and they can do whatever they want.
Boards cancelling the
annual meeting with elections altogether and declaring
themselves “elected” for another year is just one of the issues
I hear nearly on a daily basis. Or annual meetings held by Zoom,
without giving the owners the access code, is just another way
to eliminate the possibility that owners would elect some
different members to the board.
But that are just of the
options used by board members and CAMs to make sure that the
sitting board stays in power. For the CAMs it’s a financial
reason to avoid fair elections. A new board may quickly cancel
their contract, while the sitting board will renew it due to the
fact that the CAM helped them to stay in power.
Add the reasonable new
provision of “Electronic Voting” – see FS 720.317. This
provision added a new way to cheat at the election. Ever figured
out that there is no secret ballot in play? Never forget:
Definitely the person operating the program has access to all
documents. The first lawsuit on this matter has already been
filed. In that case one of the sitting board members obviously
already knew the outcome of the election before the actual
counting took place. He resigned in order to avoid
embarrassment of losing.
The USA has clearly
serious election issues: There is obviously no election without
somebody crying fraud – and very often fraud can actually be
proven. Aren’t there better ways to hold elections – ways other
countries do it where elections are decided by vote counts – not
by courts or arbitrators.
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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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