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SCOTT AND WEATHERFORD ADD INSULT TO INJURY
By
Jan Bergemann
Published
April 4, 2014
Only
people not familiar with
Tallahassee
“customs” haven’t figured out yet that Governor Scott was
behind the “killing” of our consumer-friendly
HOA Reform Bill. With the help of Speaker Weatherford he
effectively killed our HOA Reform Bill by preventing a House
companion bill from being filed, leaving S
1348 – our HOA Reform Bill filed by Senator Alan
Hays – without a House companion bill. Even attempts to get
uncontroversial parts of the bill filed were plainly killed!
Make
no mistake, the
Tallahassee
legislative system is not a Democracy as many citizens assume.
It’s not like I hear over and over again from blue-eyed
citizens: There are 120 State Representatives and 40 State
Senators who vote on the issues at hand. That’s just not
the way reality works! In reality it’s a dictatorship where
only three people hold the power: Governor, House Speaker and
Senate President. Everybody else has more or less to ask: “How
high?” if these three people ask them to jump.
In
recent years we have seen what happened to legislators who dared
to buck this system: They were removed as members – or even
chairs – of committees and all their bills miraculously died!
That’s
how
Tallahassee
really works.
This
year
Tallahassee
“leadership” claims to be dealing with non-controversial bills
only! That’s a joke! See community association bill H807/S798
(Moraitis/Ring). This anti-owner bill had smooth sailing through
House and Senate, even more anti-consumer nonsense added in
committees. But it’s obvious this year that
Tallahassee
doesn’t mind enacting anti-consumer bills, while killing
anything that would help Joe and Jane Citizen. They think that
charging you about $25 less a year for car registration will buy
your vote!
The
only folks opposing the HOA Reform Bill were some dictators in
our community associations – also called board members – and
some greedy service providers who consider homeowners’
associations their private cash cows.
These
“dictators” found the support of the “dictators” in
Tallahassee
– namely Governor Scott and Speaker Weatherford, who quickly
killed the owner-friendly bill that would have reined in some of
the dictators in our HOAs. Not even fair election provisions
were allowed to pass. But
which dictator in his right mind likes fair elections?
Scott and Weatherford knew full well that the bill, once filed
in the House, would have gotten lots of support, because many
State Representatives receive nearly daily complaints about
abuses in HOAs from their constituents. Some are even victims
themselves!
But
if killing the bill without even a fair hearing wasn’t enough,
Scott and Weatherford added insult to injury when many owners,
very upset when hearing about the bill being blocked in the
House, contacted their offices by e-mail and phone asking them
to reconsider their decision to kill the HOA Reform Bill.
E-mails were not even opened or read! They were plainly ignored!
You may ask how I know this? Easy explanation: Many special
e-mail forms contain cookies that tell the sender if the e-mail
was opened and/or read! Not one of these “special” e-mails
was opened or read – telling you the fate of all the other
e-mails. It shows you that Scott and Weatherford are not even
interested in the opinion of their constituents.
The
folks calling the offices didn’t fare much better. They had to
deal with staffers who came up with “stupid” – or even
plainly false or truth-twisting excuses! Especially staffer
Eddie Westcott from the Speaker’s office outdid himself by
misleading callers with excuses that were plainly ridiculous. To
more than one caller he said something to the effect: “The
Speaker is the last one to blame! There are 119 representatives
who could have filed the bill, only the Speaker isn’t allowed
to file a bill.” Pretty disingenuous considering the fact that
in reality the Speaker is the only one who can kill a bill
before it is being filed. Westcott used as well some other
“choice” excuses, too long to tell here. We have to give him
credit for one thing: He was very inventive when it came to
finding excuses to protect the Speaker who was clearly the
guilty party!
Some
Tea Party supporters have been defending Governor Scott’s
actions of killing consumer-friendly bills. Their argument: A
governor has lots of other things to take care of. That may be
true, but as far as I remember we voted him into office as
Governor of Florida, taking care of things here in
Florida
. While in office he spent lots of time fighting “Obama
Care” – something we had hoped Marco Rubio and other
like-minded folks would do, who we elected to represent our
interests in
Washington
. Shouldn’t Scott rather have concentrated on issues directly
relating to concerns here in
Florida
?
This
session showed clearly that consumers in
Florida
are again treated like step children of society, especially in a
year when Governor Scott needs lots of campaign funds trying to
buy again the Governor’s mansion. The victims of his goal:
Florida
’s citizens!
Governor
Scott has the power to make dictatorial decisions now –
nothing we citizens can do – especially since attempts to
change his mind by many constituents were plainly ignored.
But
we – the voters – have the power to make our opinion known
on November 4.
So
– as the saying goes: See you in 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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