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ELECTIONS? WHAT A JOKE!
By
Jan Bergemann
Published December 13, 2019
The USA has a very
serious problem with elections. Since three years they are
fighting in Washington over election issues, because party
obviously doesn’t like the president the voters officially
elected according to US election laws and comes up with all
kinds of weird theories to remove him from office.
But if you want to
talk about serious election problems, you don’t have to go to
Washington, just take a look at the annual elections in your
local community association. WHAT A Joke!
We are sending
ex-presidents to foreign countries to monitor elections, but who
is really monitoring the elections in our community
associations? The so-called “election monitor system” is only a
shadow of what it was when it was created in 2004.
The guy calling the
shots in the Ft. Lauderdale Ombudsman’s office, Richard Luther,
is sending out election monitors who are not well trained and
will yield to association attorneys who tell them what to do,
especially if the attorney is from a law firm they once worked
for.
Over the years our
esteemed Florida State Legislators come up with all kind of “fancy”
election rules, claiming to create fair and honest elections in
our community associations. It all sounds great on paper, but in
reality there is nothing fair and honest in these elections. One
of the main reasons: There is no proper enforcement of all these
rules created because the Arbitration Section of
the
Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes
made a mockery out of enforcing election and recall rules.
While elections in condominium associations minimum have some
sort of enforceable rules, the sitting board of a homeowners’
association can decide the outcome of the election even before
the election notices are being sent out. HOA bylaws allow
so-called “Nominating Committees” -- the members
being appointed by the board, often even family members – to
make a pre-selection of the candidates without having to give
reasons for disqualifying candidates.
Then it will not be an election – it will just be a JOKE!
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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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