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2005 Legislative Session
Update 2005: Representative Ellyn Setnor Bogdanoff
Impending 2005 Legislative Session – Term 1, Year 2
 | | Representative Ellyn Bogdanoff |
January 25, 2005 - Ellyn Setnor Bogdanoff, the Galt Mile’s Representative in the Florida Statehouse, addressed the January 20th meeting of the Galt Mile Community Association Advisory Board at Nick’s Italian Restaurant. The second year Fort Lauderdale attorney discussed an assortment of issues that impact all District 91 residents. She touched on shore preservation, fire safety statutes, insurance changes, a Barrier Island emergency room, legalized gambling and issues brought into focus by the vicious hurricane season. In response to concerns expressed by Advisory Board members, Representative Bogdanoff also addressed the prospect of a new round of legislation devastating to condo owners resurfacing in the upcoming legislative session.
Ms. Bogdanoff squeaked by with a paper thin margin last January 6th in a hotly contested interim election for former Representative Connie Mack IV’s vacated House seat. She defeated a field of six contenders, including the well-known former Mayor of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Oliver Parker, to secure the District 91 Statehouse seat in her third attempt at elected office. A few days after her victory, she found herself in Tallahassee during what developed into the most contentious session in recent years for a large portion of her constituency… condominium owners. Without the benefit of an acclimation period, the 45 year-old Republican adapted to her Tallahassee environs “on the fly”. Given a full complement of major Committee appointments by former House Speaker Johnnie Byrd (including Appropriations, Commerce, Judiciary, Insurance and Procedures), the rookie lawmaker quickly networked the State Capital while establishing new lines of communication with her Fort Lauderdale constituency. When she last addressed the Advisory Board on May 20, 2004 (within weeks of completing her first legislative session), she recommended organizing a legislative “wish list” in preparation for the following year’s (2005) challenges. During a December 4th meeting with GMCA officials and residents Robert Rozema, Pio Ieraci and Eric Berkowitz, Ms. Bogdanoff reviewed Galt Mile community objectives and obstacles; offering to expand upon them for the benefit of the Association’s more fully representative Advisory Board.
Shore Preservation – Beach Renourishment
 | GMCA PRESIDENTS COUNCIL
CHAIR PIO IERACI |
Presidents Council and Broward Beach Coalition Chair Pio Ieraci acknowledged that bids for the beach renourishment were currently being elicited by Broward County in a process that would give rise to selecting a contractor. Once chosen, the winning bidder will commence the Segment II (Hollywood) part of the project. Representative Bogdanoff explained that the severe hurricane season has significantly reordered many of Tallahassee’s priorities. Over the past five years, procrastination by State officials has slowed Beach Renourishment progress to a crawl. The severe tidal erosion suffered by Florida beaches during the 4-event hurricane season served to alert Tallahassee to the dangers adherent to the unprotected shoreline. The immediacy of the threat to life and property has heightened the State’s concern, serendipitously encouraging officials to “pick up” the heretofore dilatory project pace.
Fire Safety – The “Sprinkler Statute”
 The reshaping of current fire safety statutes underwent some minor impacts last session. Two bills that ease the way for Associations to “opt out” of a full sprinkler retrofit were signed into law. Ms. Bogdanoff noted that newer, technologically superior “smart systems” are gaining credibility as preferable alternatives to the extremely expensive and questionably useful installation of sprinklers into apartment foyers (as mandated in the original legislation). However, in view of the substantial stakes on the table for the Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Union and the National Fire Sprinkler Association, she expects the controversy to continue for several years.
Insurance Changes – The Double Deductible Dilemma
 | | Special Session in Tallahassee |
Representative Bogdanoff discussed the insurance ramifications of a legislative special session convened on December 13, 2004 by Governor Bush to contend with emergency issues triggered by weather-related disasters. Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher engineered a law passed during the special session that provides reimbursement to policyholders of residential property insurance for multiple deductibles applied by insurers for two or more hurricanes. Condominium Associations are eligible for reimbursements of up to $3000/unit. The statute also provides that insurers restrict their future policies to a single annual deductible. In turn, carriers made clear their intentions to apply substantial premium hikes to affected policies. Ms. Bogdanoff explained that negotiations are underway to present Associations with a choice. Essentially, an Association will be able to opt for either a higher premium with a single annual deductible or multiple deductibles with a lower premium expense. To effect an appropriate response to Hurricane Insurance problems, the House and Senate formed a special committee, the Joint Select Committee on Hurricane Insurance. As per Senate President Tom Lee and House Speaker Allan Bense, the Joint Select Committee’s mandate includes, “Further study of the issue of multiple deductibles; including analysis of the effect on premiums, particularly for condominium associations.”
Barrier Island Emergency Room
 When the Cleveland Clinic abandoned their previous North Ocean Boulevard location, it left the Barrier Island without a hospital and, more specifically, an emergency room. Despite the continuous efforts of politicians, civic leaders and various local health care organizations, attempts to replace the “Certificate of Need” (CON) required to authorize another hospital have come up empty. Representative Bogdanoff alluded to what may be another “silver lining” to the catastrophic hurricane season. Officials are considering the consequences of the Barrier Island’s forced isolation from the mainland. If the bridges that span the intracoastal were disabled or rendered impassible from either a weather-related catastrophe or a terrorist threat, no medical stabilization facility would be available for Barrier Island Residents. Ms. Bogdanoff is investigating the feasibility of utilizing this scenario as the basis for securing the elusive CON necessary for either a hospital or a stand-alone emergency room.
Legalized Gambling – “Slots” for Hot Spots
 Ms. Bogdanoff mentioned that the March 8, 2005 elections will contain only one issue pertinent to Fort Lauderdale residents. The Broward County Commission authorized a Special Referendum Election for the purpose of determining whether slot machines shall be authorized at existing licensed pari-mutuel facilities located within Broward County as provided in Article X, Section 23, of the Florida Constitution. Dania Jai-Alai, Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Pompano Park Harness Racing in Pompano Beach, and the Hollywood Greyhound Race Track in Hallandale Beach - should they choose to participate - will each pay Broward County $625,000 by September 30, 2005. The agreement also stipulates that each pari-mutuel facility shall make a monthly payment to Broward County in the amount of 1.5 percent of the gross slot revenue generated by each and every slot machine to defray the cost of local government impacts and expenses incurred as a result of the development and operation of slot machines. In case the gross slot revenue exceeds $250,000,000, the percentage paid to Broward County will increase to 2 percent. Ms. Bogdanoff explained that while the tax revenues must supplement public education statewide, no formula currently exists to guide distribution. While she feels that the issue is a matter of personal preference, Ms. Bogdanoff is concerned that because no Fort Lauderdale races or issues are to be decided in the March 8th election, municipal turnout will be marginal - as will our input!
New Threat to Self-Governance
Advisory Board members exhibited serious concerns about another threatened legislative attempt to dismantle the condominium system and disenfranchise condo owners. In last year’s legislative session, a bill “spun” by sponsors as “empowering to condo owners” was offered in both the House and Senate. When the actual text was examined by condo owners across Florida, an ocean of protest hit the State Capitol. The “Condo Killer” legislation threatened to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of owners, creating a structure in which a single disgruntled resident could bring all daily condominium operations to a halt and effectively disembowel the entire condominium system. Self-Governance would have been functionally replaced by a new Tallahassee-run bureaucracy. After reading the contradictory and unconstitutional mass abrogation of rights in the bill text, the bill’s Senate sponsor, Evelyn Lynn, withdrew and had to be replaced. Thousands of angry condo owners across the state bitterly complained to their Senators, Representatives and the Governor. Apparently, the only input collected by the bill’s sponsors was anecdotal evidence from a group of disgruntled condo owners. Additionally, it appeared as if some of the bill’s sponsors were using their office to enact a personal agenda. Two lawmakers who hadn’t paid maintenance assessments on their condominiums were liened by their respective Associations. GMCA members postulated that they might have found a more appropriate way to exact revenge on their Associations for expecting them to pay their bills. One by one, the legislation’s damaging provisions were excised by legislators. In summarizing the “Condo Killer” bills’ ultimate fate, Representative Bogdanoff stated, “Fortunately, the provisions of the bill that threatened to confiscate owners’ rights or interfere with an Association’s daily operations were removed.”
Pio Ieraci of Galt Ocean Club affirmed, “The vast majority of Condominium Associations are well run and successfully address their members’ needs and objectives. It is built upon the democratic principle of majority rule while protecting the rights of the minority. To replace self-governance for over a million condominium owners with governmental micro-management is unacceptable.” Ieraci continued, “If a condo board member OR a State legislator behaves inappropriately, they should be disciplined according to the law. You don’t dismantle the entire system or punish every legislator. A substantial part of a condominium unit’s value hinges on the stability of the Condo system. Who would buy a home in which maintenance and security could be thwarted spontaneously by any neighbor for any reason?”
 | | REP. JULIO ROBAINA |
When queried about the political motives of the bill’s primary sponsor (Miami Representative Julio Robaina), Representative Bogdanoff opined that “Mr. Robaina may have created the legislation in response to a problem local to his district; he incorrectly assumed that his resolution should be universally applied.” Mr. Ieraci noted that Mr. Robaina had excluded authoritative input into his legislation, restricting it to a small group of disgruntled condo owners based in St. Augustine. “He hasn’t allowed participation by representatives of the 99% of Florida Condominium Associations that operate well,” Ieraci exclaimed. Mr. Ieraci referred to the unpublicized “public meetings” held two years ago by Robaina’s “Select Committee on Condominium Association Governance” in which any speaker that didn’t belong to Robaina’s exclusive “insider” group was roundly shouted down by group members with the tacit approval of the Committee. Mr. Ieraci regretted that Robaina’s legislation didn’t match its promise. Instead of promoting constructive legislation “to empower condo owners” that would have secured universal support, Mr. Robaina decided to cook up a “straw dog” to seemingly harvest media access stimulated by the controversy.
 | | Dott Nicholson-Brown |
Dott Nicholson-Brown of Regency Tower exclaimed to Ms. Bogdanoff, “I want to emphasize just how important this issue is to us. Last year, hundreds of my neighbors expressed ‘bi-partisan opposition’ to these arbitrary changes to the Condominium Laws.” Ms. Nicholson-Brown explained that, “Both Republican and Democratic Party leaders contacted the Governor, Broward Senators and Statehouse Representatives to overturn these destructive provisions.” GMCA President Robert Rozema concurred with Ms. Nicholson-Brown’s assessment. Several other Advisory Board members identified with her experience, confirming that large numbers of normally passive residents contacted State officials in angry opposition to this attempted infringement of their rights.
Ms. Bogdanoff assured the assemblage that she would remain vigilant, promising to “fight for her constituents’ right to self-governance” should they again be threatened by governmental micro-management of their homes. She also asserted that Tallahassee would likely be too preoccupied with serious problems resulting from the catastrophic hurricane season to dwell on questionable political agendas such as the “Condo Killer” bills. By way of example, she stated that “measures for streamlining statutory provisions for Condominiums to effectively operate under emergency conditions” are being reviewed, such as “when Board members are scattered and resources for emergency repairs have to be secured and disbursed.” According to Professor William Sklar, Co-Chair of the Governor’s Homeowner Association Task Force, the Florida Bar’s Real Property and Condo Committee intends to propose the legislative measures referred to by Ms. Bogdanoff during a scheduled February meeting in Tallahassee.
Invitation to Greater Community Participation
 | | REP. BOGDANOFF ON HOUSE FLOOR |
Representative Bogdanoff invited greater participation by constituents in the legislative process. “Because you are often aware of events before we are in Tallahassee, it would be very useful if we could communicate during the course of the session. Last year, with the help of constituents back home - some of you - I was able to address important issues as they emerged. I am accessible during the entire legislative session.” She elaborated, “This is particularly true during the final weeks of the session; situations change quickly and you often learn of these changes before we do. My laptop was always on as the session drew to a conclusion last year.” This is a reasonable request. Our laptops were also on. They will also be on during the upcoming session. It is always comforting to know that someone in Tallahassee is listening.
For the 2005 legislative session, Representative Bogdanoff has been appointed to five new Councils/Committee memberships in the Florida House of Representatives. She is the Chair of the Joint Administrative Procedures Committee and the Vice Chair of the State Administration Council. She serves on the Commerce Council. She is also a member of the Ethics & Elections Committee, the PreK-12 Committee and the Transportation & Economic Development Appropriations Committee. Not bad for the second year of her first term! I can personally attest to our Representative’s claimed “accessibility”. During the final days of last year’s legislative slugfest, I alerted her to our concerns about quickly morphing legislation. She kept me continuously updated while she was “networking” on the House floor. Questions were generally answered within an hour or two, often late into the evening. Despite her “rookie” status last year, Representative Bogdanoff clearly demonstrated that she knows how to assess developments, form alliances and, when indicated, roll up her sleeves and take care of business! In addition to these required ingredients for success in Tallahassee...SHE LISTENS!
 Contact Representative Ellyn Bogdanoff 
Tallahassee -
The Capitol (Room 1102), 402 South Monroe Street, Tallahassee, FL 32399-1300. Her phone# in the Capitol is (850) 488-0635. Her Email is ellyn.bogdanoff@myfloridahouse.gov
Legislative Assistant -
Gerald O’Rourke, Ms. Bogdanoff’s Legislative Assistant, can be Emailed at gerald.orourke@myfloridahouse.gov.
Local -
2601 East Oakland Park Blvd (Suite 204), Fort Lauderdale, FL 33306-1612. Her local phone# is (954) 958-5569.
Legislative Assistant -
Aaron Nevins, Ms. Bogdanoff’s District Aide, can be Emailed at aaron.nevins@myfloridahouse.gov.
For complete contact information, go to Report Card.
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Community Association Day
 February 15, 2005 - The Galt Mile Community Association will be participating in a Community Association Day up in Tallahassee on March 30, 2005. We will be planning meetings with key legislators to afford YOU an opportunity to voice your concerns and wishes to your public-policy makers. Despite all the media hype regarding out-of-control boards and reckless communities, this will be an opportunity for the usually silent majority to give another view of life within community associations to your legislators as they contemplate even more radical proposals impacting community associations this year.
What are the Issues?
| | GMCA goes to Tallahassee |
In addition to important local issues, the Galt Mile shares concerns with Condominium Associations across the state. During the Florida Legislature’s 2004 Special Session for Hurricane Issues called on December 13th, alarming deficiencies in the Condominium Act became apparent. The $20 billion cost of the catastrophic season is threatening to send insurance costs through the roof and/or insurance companies to pull up stakes and abandon the Florida market. Condominiums devastated by the damage were surprised to find their hands tied when they attempted to effect emergency repairs. The 4-hurricane wake-up call alerted authorities to the critical need to enact statutory guidance for Associations trying to survive disasters.
In 2002, the legislature passed a law requiring the retrofitting of existing condominiums with a questionably effective and extremely expensive sprrinkler system. In view of the improvements in fire safety technology and the availability of resulting “smart systems”, we will propose this to legislators as a clear improvement over the existing requirements. Alternatively, we'll seek to extend the current 2014 compliance date to install either a full or partial sprinkler retrofit until 2020.
Every democratic institution constantly struggles to balance the rights of its members with institutional objectives. Every year, legislators consider ways to refine the “Condominium Act” and the “Cooperative Act” (Chapters 718 and 719 of the Florida Statutes), the laws that govern this balance. If regulations created to improve the way neighbors treat one another aren’t carefully crafted, they do more harm than good. Any proposal worthy of support requires a balance of everyone’s rights with each individual owner’s rights. Last year, several politically motivated bills damaging to condo owners were cynically “spun” by supporters as “empowering to condo owners”.
 The Galt Mile Community Association carefully monitors those proposals deemed detrimental to the maintenance, operation or administration of community associations and the rights of condo owners. Of concern are proposals which make board service too great a burden or diminish the pool of those eligible to volunteer and serve on the board by unconstitutionally disenfranchising certain owners. We oppose proposals which harm the ability of an association to consistently and effectively collect assessments necessary to fund essential community services and proposals which unnecessarily increase the cost of administering and operating the community - hiking maintenance costs. These types of radical proposals harm community association residents and the real property value of their homes and communities.
 Florida is already nationally recognized as a “debtor’s paradise”. There are proposals being promoted that limit or ban the ability of associations to lien and foreclose to collect delinquent assessments. Since the Associations expenses still have to be paid, every other member’s assessment is increased to cover the scofflaw’s unpaid debt. This is unacceptable. No homeowner should be legally forced to pay their neighbor’s debts!
The Galt Mile  Needs You 
 Two years ago, the Galt Mile Community Association sent a contingent of residents to appear at a meeting of the Florida Cabinet to express concern for our disappearing beaches. Their efforts resulted in the Galt Mile’s inclusion in the upcoming beach renourishment. We once again find ourselves at a crossroads. Along with CALL (Community Association Leadership Lobby), condominium owners from across the state intend to apprise our officials in Tallahassee of our urgent concerns. The Community Association Leadership Lobby (CALL) is the leading organization working to enhance the quality of life and protect property values for Florida’s community association residents. CALL advocates on behalf of more than 4,000 member communities, including condominiums, homeowners’ associations, mobile home communities and cooperatives throughout the state.
 Please contact your building office to learn more about CA Day. All residents and board members are invited to join your neighbors in support of your community, your Association and your way of life. We are asking for your personal participation to insure that our state legislators - Senators and Representatives - understand the gravity of our concerns and the depth of our conviction. Volume discounts will minimize the costs of transportation (flight), lodging and meals. Our intent is to fly to Tallahassee on March 29, 2005 and return in the late evening of the following day. Of course you may arrange your own transportation and lodging. The importance of your presence in Tallahassee cannot be overstated! For additional information, call Donna Berger at 1-800-432-7712 or email her at Dberger@becker-poliakoff.com. Click Here to access the CALL web site. Click Here to review CALL's 2005 legislative goals.
To impact the legislative process without leaving your home, simply follow the legislative histories of the bills that affect us. Send emails to the members of the various committees that are responsible for reviewing the bills. Tell them your opinion. They will vote according to the input they receive from interested parties...like you! Click Here to follow the legislative history of HB 1229, the Condo Killer Bill. Click Here to follow the legislative history of SB 2632, Senator Siplin’s bill designed to destroy an Association’s operational underpinnings.
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Condo Owners Invade Tallahassee
Galt Residents Meet with Legislators
 | GALT MILE RESIDENTS JOIN OTHER BROWARD HOMEOWNERS
TO APPRISE STATE OFFICIALS OF THEIR CONCERNS |
 March 31, 2005 - On Wednesday, March 30th at 6:00 AM, 21 Galt Mile residents met at Fort Lauderdale International Airport to board a flight to Tallahassee. Altogether, over 100 condominium owners from Broward and Palm Beach Counties prepared to join another 200 homeowners from all over Florida in the State Capitol. Rose Guttman, Terry Cook and Bob Krevy from the ocean club condominium looked around the ATA counter for familiar faces. Marty and Shelly Glazer from Southpoint and Galleon resident Vini Persiani patiently waited on line as Dott Nicholson-Brown, Louise Collins, Fern McBride and Eric Peter Berkowitz from Regency Tower entered Terminal 3. Regency Tower resident Howard Hirschman shared a taxi to the airport with Ocean Summit residents Dr. Jim Comis, Russell Bailey, and Martha Bruno. Lorraine Alfano from L’Hermitage snapped pictures of the Galt Mile contingent as they waited to clear security. The Galt Ocean Club’s Pio Ieraci discussed the premise for our pre-dawn gathering with residents and board volunteers from Galt Towers, the Riviera, Coral Ridge Towers and other Galt Mile Associations. Along with condo owners from Miramar, Plantation, Margate, Delray and Boca, they all anxiously anticipated participating in the impending Community Association Day event in the State Capitol.
 | CALL Director DONNA BERGER Accompanies Condo Owners
(Galt Resident PIO IERACI Discusses Issues Across Aisle) |
Organized with the help of the Community Association Leadership Lobby (CALL), Community Association Day promised to be an enlightening albeit exigent experience. Far from a pleasurable trek through the halls of State government, over 300 homeowners journeyed to the Capitol because their way of life is once again being threatened. Residents took time off from their jobs and various commitments to join hundreds of other condominium owners from around the state. Together with homeowners from Naples, Jacksonville, Orlando, the Sun, Space and Gold Coasts, Pensacola, Miami, St. Petersburg and many other areas, they converged on Tallahassee by bus, automobile and plane to communicate their concerns and those of their neighbors to their political representatives.
The group expected to accomplish multiple objectives. They intended to clarify to their elected officials that claims made by a self-serving political coalition about “condo problems” were creative distortions. The legislative “answers” proposed by this coalition were designed to destabilize Association operations, skyrocket maintenance expense, dismantle the condominium system throughout the state and replace self-governance with government controls. They also went to demonstrate their universal opposition to the recent profusion of skewed legislation by this anti-association lobby and their minions in the Statehouse. They arrived “en masse” to make clear that the purveyors of the “Condo Killer” bills spoke only for themselves, not the “silent majority” of homeowners throughout Florida. Their message was that they were capable of governing their own homes.
Arrival in the Capitol
| | Representative Ellyn Bogdanoff |
Upon arriving at the Capitol, the various condo owners sought to visit their respective elected officials. At 10 AM, Galt Mile residents met with Statehouse Representative Ellyn Bogdanoff to discuss two bills currently filed in the legislature, HB 1229 in the House and SB 2632 in the Senate. Fortunately, our Representative was already familiar with the dangers inherent in the legislation. She described HB 1229’s attempt to mandate onerous reserve requirements, unnecessary costly audits and obstacles designed to deter board participation by homeowners as clearly harmful to her constituents. She opined that every representative with substantial condominium constituencies would share her concerns about the bills. Fort Lauderdale City Commissioners Christine Teel and Carleton Moore joined the group to help underscore their concerns.
 | | Senator Jeffrey (Jeff) H. Atwater |
Later in the morning, Galt Mile residents met with Senator Jeffrey Atwater to discuss the bills’ consequences. Bob Krevy of Ocean Club gave Senator Atwater documentation taken from the Galt Mile web site (sourced from the House and Senate web sites) to illustrate the group’s trepidations. As described in the House of Representatives Staff Analysis of HB 1229, “The Legislature recognizes that it is not in the best interest of homeowners’ associations or the individual association members thereof to create or impose a bureau or other agency of state government to regulate the affairs of homeowners’ associations. This bill arguably creates a ‘bureau or other agency... to regulate the affairs of homeowners’ associations.’” In addition to the faulty premise upon which the bill was constructed, the Senator recognized the devastating consequences ignored by the legislation and the suspicious disconnect between the bill’s actual language and its stated objectives.
Senator Atwater has had some direct experience with the group behind this bill. He also has a unique insight into the needs of Associations and the real problems facing their members. Senator Atwater sponsored SB 2984, a progressive Homeowner Association bill that passed last year in response to the findings of Governor Bush’s Homeowners Association Task Force. Last year, a few of Mr. Robaina’s “Cybers” joined some pickets provided by SEIU to demonstrate outside the Senator’s Palm Beach office. Financed by Local 11 in Miami, a union trying to organize condominium employees, the demonstrators demanded that the Senator include regulations in his legislation that were overwhelmingly voted down by the Governor’s Task Force. He naturally refused to accept provisions designed to hurt the same people that his bill was created to help. The Senator also exhorted that the tremendous cost being placed on Association members by Representative Julio Robaina’s HB 1229 would further “deter many legislators from supporting the bill.”
Senator Atwater then focused on Senator Gary Siplin’s SB 2632, a bill seeking to severely limit or eliminate an association’s right to lien or foreclose when members ignore their financial responsibility. Acknowledging that these were the only tools available to Associations to deter delinquencies, he confirmed that the bill’s effect was tantamount to eliminating an Association’s ability to collect the funds required to operate. The subsequent financial “train wreck” would destroy thousands of Associations across the State, hurting millions of homeowners.
 | Ocean Summit's MARTHA BRUNO, DR. JIM COMIS
and RUSSELL BAILEY and Regency Tower's
LOUISE COLLINS Discuss the Bills with Legislators |
Galt Ocean Club resident Pio Ieraci informed the Senator about an article written by a well known banking official that illustrated another danger. In standard mortgage application procedures, the lender sends an inquiry to the condo about its solvency and the number of “unpaid” assessments carried by the Association. If the balance sheet demonstrates that their mortgage loan will be insufficiently collateralized due to the Association’s inability to collect its required resources, the mortgage is refused. Mr. Ieraci repeated the banker’s contention that, “passage of this bill will undermine the current basis for lenders to provide mortgages for condo ownership.” Regency Tower resident Eric Berkowitz added that, “when individual owners don’t pay their obligations, the condo still must pay its bills. The resulting shortfall must then be paid by the delinquent’s neighbors, thereby forcing an “unfunded mandate” on every other homeowner in the Association.” Senator Atwater responded, “A bill designed to protect deadbeats to the detriment of everyone else is clearly unworkable.”
 | RIVER REACH Condominium Residents Confront
Representative ROBAINA about his Controversial Bill |
As part of the outreach effort, the homeowners filtered through the Capitol seeking to alert legislators to their concerns. A group of condo owners from River Reach Condominium in Fort Lauderdale sought Representative Robaina to confront the legislator with their objections to his "counterproductive" bills. River Reach is also the home of Condominium Ombudsman Virgil Rizzo. Prior to his appointment as the State's top Condo mediator, he engineered a lawsuit against his Board for "mishandling condominium investments". The Association members rallied around their Board and countered with a libel suit. After Rizzo's appointment, a large contingent of River Reach owners met with reporters to question the wisdom of enstating such a disruptive influence as the State's top "dialogue facilitator". Upon finding Robaina, they took the opportunity to inquire about this suspicious appointment as well as questioning him about contradictions posed by HB 1229.
 | | Rep. Leslie Waters |
During the afternoon, all 300 residents wearing white tee shirts displaying “Community Association Day” in red letters met in the House chamber to hear several House members explain how the institution operates. Representative Leslie Waters of St. Petersburg, currently the Speaker pro tempore of the Florida House of Representatives, explained that the Speaker pro tempore does “whatever the Speaker wants.” Pointing out the portraits of past Speakers that encircle the chamber, she predicted that, “the day will soon come that a woman will occupy the Speaker’s post.”
 | | Representative Dudley Goodlette |
Representative Dudley Goodlette of Naples followed Ms. Waters. Representative Goodlette addressed last year’s “Condo Killer” bills. He recounted the demise of the ill-fated legislation as the session drew to a close. Ultimately, he voted for a bill that was heavily favorable to condo owners, despite containing some controversial remnants of the original Condo Killer language. When a Margate condo owner asked why he voted for the bill, he explained that, “bills often contain positive and negative aspects. Any responsible legislator will carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages before deciding whether or not it is deserving of support.” He expanded, “If every legislator voted against every bill that contained something that they didn’t agree with, nothing would ever get passed.” Despite the last-minute inclusion of a few controversial provisions, the final versions of SB 1184 and SB 2984 clearly helped condo owners.  | REP. FRANK FARKAS
ADDRESSES CONDO ISSUES |
They protected associations that installed defibrillators from civil liability. They also made it easier for condos wishing to “opt out” of retrofitting their premises with an expensive sprinkler system. When HB 1229 was brought up, Mr. Goodlette respectfully declined to comment on the bill before discussing it with the bill’s sponsors, adhering to “appropriate legislative protocol”. Goodlette also offered valuable insight into how constituents should contact their representatives about their concerns. He strongly advocates using email for this purpose, stating that most legislators check their email often and respond more quickly to emails than to telephone calls. He gives weight to emails that contain personal perspectives of issues. However, when he receives a plethora of identical emails, he simply deletes them! Goodlette has repeatedly proven himself as a valuable ally of condo owners.
 | Condo Owners Occupy their Representatives Seats
as State Officials Speak in the House Chamber |
Other legislators and state officials that enlightened the group were Senator Bill Posey, Representative Frank Farkas, CFO Tom Gallagher’s assistant Lisa Miller (introduced by Peter Dunbar, author of the “Condominium Concept” in its 9th Edition) and Advisory Council on Condominiums Chair Joe Adams. Earlier, Senator Walter “Skip” Campbell urged support of SB 2062, a bill that really does help condo owners. The disastrous hurricane season illustrated serious deficiencies in the Condominium Act. Some condominiums that sustained severe damage from the storms were unable to effectively respond to the catastrophe.  | SENATOR WALTER CAMPBELL
EXPLAINS SB 2062 |
The Associations’ boards weren’t equipt with sufficient authority to protect the premises or effect the emergency repairs required to restore the premises to a safe condition. The “notice” required by law prior to a board meeting would be waived, allowing for an emergency meeting to respond to a declared catastrophe. During the hurricanes, hundreds of balcony doors, windows and hurricane shutters were blown off the buildings along the Galt Mile. The bill would permit entry into the affected units to secure them and/or effect repairs to prevent further damage. The bill would also permit the board to implement a disaster plan prior to, during, or after a catastrophic event, including shutting down elevators, electricity, water, sewer, security systems, or air conditioners. In addition to adequately enlarging board powers and flexibility in the event of a catastrophe, Campbell’s bill would extend the time by which a Condominium Association that has “opted out” of a full sprinkler retrofit must install sprinklers into common areas of a high rise condominium from the current 2014 to 2020. Representative Frank Farkas is sponsoring a companion bill in the House of Representatives, HB 1593, to provide this important relief.
The Messengers Return
 | GALT MILE RESIDENTS MADE
A DIFFERENCE IN TALLAHASSEE |
Upon returning to Fort Lauderdale, the travelers shared a sense of accomplishment, having expended their time, effort and resources to promote their beliefs. Every resident fought to protect their home and those of their friends and neighbors. While the exigencies of a sixteen-hour ordeal precluded many of our residents from participating in the event, those that went earned the uncontested support, respect and admiration of their neighbors. For defending the rights of homeowners to self-governance, they are nothing less than community heroes. In addition to appreciation by their neighbors, they deserve the gratitude of condo owners throughout the State of Florida!
Our Voices were Heard 
The travelers were also rewarded with responses from their legislators that were overwhelmingly positive. Senators and Representatives universally expressed gratitude to their visitors from “back home” for providing them with guidance as to how they should apply their votes. After declaring their appreciation, Representative Bogdanoff and Senator Atwater requested that the visitors continue to provide them with similar guidance as the session progresses. In addition to discussing their reservations about the current destructive bills, the condo owners emphasized their opposition to the recent blizzard of irresponsible legislation based solely on anecdotal assertions. Reacting to the unequivocal objections raised by the visiting homeowners, the Condominium Advisory Council voted on March 31st (the following day) to NOT support Representative Robaina’s HB 1229 in its current form! This is a step in the right direction. Apparently, the voices of condo owners are finally being heard!
 | GALT MILE CONDO OWNERS DISCUSS ISSUES AT A LUNCHEON MEETING ON CA DAY IN TALLAHASSEE
STARTING AT LEFT CIRCLING THE TABLE ARE ROSE GUTTMANN, PIO IERACI, ERIC PETER BERKOWITZ,
CITY COMMISSIONER CHRISTINE TEEL, LORRAINE ALFANO, MARTY AND SHELLY GLAZER, VINCENT PERSIANI,
BOB KREVY AND TERRY COOK |
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 The Ombudsman Question
 | CONDO OMBUDSMAN
VIRGIL RIZZO |
March 1, 2005 - Dr. Virgil Rizzo is the Condominium Ombudsman. The 67 year-old attorney - retired physician was appointed by Governor Bush on December 3, 2004. His responsibility is to mediate conflicts. Specifically, conflicts between condo owners, board members, Associations, Managers, etc. If an owner has a problem with the Board, they can call him. If a Condo Board has a problem with an owner, they can call him. If a Board member has a problem with another Board member, Rizzo is available. He is supposed to be a neutral dialogue facilitator. He is supposed to hear the facts surrounding an issue and apply the law; his mandate is to serve as a fair and impartial mediator. On January 28th, Rizzo attended a meeting in Dania Beach. Unfortunately, Dr. Rizzo has made certain statements implying a lack of conversancy with the real problems facing condominiums. Mr. Ombudsman stated that he will be making a recommendation to the Legislature that every condominium association in the State of Florida needs to have the same set of Bylaws and the same Declaration of Condominium.
Apparently it is irrelevant if you live in a small 4-unit condominium conversion or a huge 2000-unit condominium community; not important if you live in a timeshare condominium, mobile home condominium, commercial condominium, mixed-use condominium or a basic Chapter 718 (standard) condominium. Obviously, this would also deftly remove a basic right that condo owners now enjoy; the right to set rules pertinent to their unique problems. Rules about parking, rules for appropriate security, rules that maintain the physical premises, elevator use restrictions, rules governing noise - if it’s not in his “standard” set of Condo Documents - it doesn’t exist - even if every owner in the building wants it.
This isn’t simply a threat to majority rule; it’s an effort to do away with any form of self-governance. The decisions about your home would pass from you to Tallahassee. Instead of being decided by elected representatives, conflicts not addressed in the boilerplate Condo Docs - from security and maintenance issues to late-night construction - will all wind up in the courts. Condominiums would operate like public housing. Enactment of the Ombudsman’s idea would deter any sane person from purchasing a condo unit. The value of existing units would be reduced to the value of their furnishings. A strange proposal from a “fair and impartial mediator.”
 | | RIVER REACH CONDOMINIUM |
Ombudsman Rizzo carries some baggage that some feel should have precluded Governor Bush from selecting him to fill the office. Dr. Rizzo lives in a riverfront condominium complex in Southwest Fort Lauderdale called River Reach. A few years ago he filed a suit against the Association’s Board of Directors, claiming that they mishandled condominium investments. Condominium residents coalesced in support of their board and countered by filing a libel suit against the Ombudsman. To avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, Rizzo stepped aside as the litigation’s main catalyst. Fifteen of Dr. Rizzo’s neighbors met with reporters after his appointment, questioning his qualifications to lead the State’s condominium mediation efforts. Neal Ketcher, a retired airline pilot who has lived in River Reach for 33 years, surmised, “It strikes me that someone who has created such disruption, confusion and distrust in his own condominium . . . should not be allowed to do the same at other condominiums.”
While the Ombudsman has made some disconcerting remarks that serve to arouse suspicion about his real agenda, opining about that agenda seems premature. He is new to the job. The job itself, at least in its present incarnation, is also new. The resources made available to him to accomplish his uncertain agenda are, in his opinion, inadequate. Additionally, when certain individuals are elevated into a position of power, a strange political phenomenon occurs. As exemplified by the overnight “moderation” sometimes experienced by some newly appointed Judges to the Supreme Court, past behavior ceases to be an indicator of how the individual will treat his/her new responsibility. For these, and other, reasons, it seems only fair to continue observing Dr. Rizzo and reserve judgment about his efficacy. Should you have questions for your new Ombudsman, please email Dr. Rizzo at virgil.rizzo@dbpr.state.fl.us or call at 1-(850)-922-7671, Fax: 1-(850)-921-5446. His address in the State Capitol is 1940 N. Monroe Street, Tallahassee, FL 32399.
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 Tallahassee Playbill
“Condo Killer” Returns!
You Can’t Tell the Players Without a Scorecard
March 7, 2005 - Last year, condominium owners throughout the State of Florida narrowly dodged a legislative attempt to disabuse them of the right to govern themselves. The legislation was “spun” by proponents as “the people’s bill” and promised “empowerment” to condo owners. Much to the chagrin of those it was supposedly designed to help, it revealed itself as a poorly drawn set of proposals that brazenly punished people living in condominiums. When the legislation’s deficiencies were obviated during its review by various House and Senate Committees, it became known as the “Condo Killer” bills. Perplexingly, the bills' sponsors flatly refused to fix the damaging provisions, clouding their motives and suggesting an ulterior agenda. The bills’ supporters, after blaming their product’s defeat on the “naïvety” of condo owners, promised to reintroduce the damaging bills “again next year.”
 The lives of condo owners are once again threatened by a political coalition with a specific agenda. The public face of the coalition is a small collection of disgruntled condo owners who weren’t satisfied with decisions made by their respective Boards. In response, the “Cyber Citizens for Justice” adopted a scorched earth policy; if they couldn’t control their condos, nobody would. Their intention is to dismantle the Condominium system in Florida. Their methodology is to regulate it into oblivion. To accomplish this end, they’ve assembled several key ingredients.
 | | REP. JULIO ROBAINA |
To create “regulations”, they’ve allied themselves with certain legislators in Tallahassee. The St. Augustine-based “Cybers” enlisted the aid of second-year Miami Representative Julio Robaina to compose legislation designed to dismantle Florida’s condo system. During the 2004 legislative session, Robaina and several other Miami legislators sponsored a bill laden with assorted provisions to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of condo owners, stultify self-governance, engender senseless litigation and cripple every Association’s daily operations. Upon being told that she would be “empowering condo owners”, Senator Evelyn Lynn agreed to sponsor the companion bill in the Florida Senate. However, after reviewing the actual wording and realizing that the bill was actually an attack on the rights of condo owners, she withdrew her sponsorship. Left without a Senate supporter, Robaina turned to fellow Miami legislator, Senator Rudy Garcia, to carry the ball. Thousands of condo owners objected to this unconstitutional attack on their rights by contacting their representatives to overturn these damaging provisions. Although the dangerous provisions were excised from the bill, Robaina promised to renew his attack on the rights of condo owners during the next legislative session.
 | SEIU Local 11 Deputy Director HIRAM RUIZ and State Rep
JULIO ROBAINA AT "STATE SPONSORED" Town Hall Meeting
(ACTUALLY ORGANIZED BY SEIU's CLEANCONDOS.ORG) |
The group also needed financing and media access. For this, they turned to a local union looking for new business opportunities. SEIU (Service Employees International Union) is a national union that represents building service employees and health care workers. The Building Services component represents janitors, doormen, reception personnel, maintenance workers, housekeeping personnel, etc., employed in hotels, apartment buildings, stadiums, private parks, etc. A Miami local of SEIU, Local 11, perceived condominiums as a fertile untapped source of new revenues. For years, the union has unsuccessfully attempted to organize anyone working in private homes. Their campaign to organize Homeowner Associations, Neighborhood Associations and, above all, Condominium Associations, has also yielded disappointing results. Their problem is simple; to organize a condominium, they need to be invited in by disaffected employees. The vast majority of condominiums have good relations with their employees. Quiescent, well-run condominiums are anathema to the union. Without dissention, the union is precluded from the opportunity to add $millions in prospective “dues” to the maintenance assessments of targeted condominium owners.
 | | Senator Jeffrey (Jeff) H. Atwater |
By way of investment, SEIU made a contribution to the campaign coffers of Julio Robaina on June 27, 2003 to help emplace him into office. They also arranged several “Cyber” demonstrations and meetings. They engineered a demonstration at the office of Senator Jeffrey Atwater, the sponsor of a 2004 Homeowner Association bill (SB 2984) in the Senate. Senator Atwater’s bill was consistent with Governor Bush’s objectives, to make Homeowner Associations more responsive to their membership. The demonstrators, a combination of SEIU members and “Cybers”, picketed the Senator’s office. They protested his bill as inadequate because it didn’t conform to Robaina’s radical notion of placing all Associations under the jurisdiction of a prosecutorial Ombudsman with wartime-style search and seizure powers. Wanting no part of the group’s attempt to disenfranchise condo owners, Senator Atwater refused to comply with their demands. The feudal-style bounty hunter Robaina envisioned was ultimately modified by the legislature into an impartial mediator. Since a “neutral” Ombudsman would be insufficient to foment the dissonant environment that SEIU needed to get their foot in the door, Robaina committed to reviving his assault on condominiums during the 2005 legislative session. Representative Robaina said, “I am accepting what they have given us because that’s how it works in the legislature, but I’m coming back with it next year with a complete rewrite.” As a reward, SEIU made another payment to his campaign on July 16, 2004, eight months AFTER he was elected.
Several Miami legislators that participated in the group’s machinations had another incentive. Representatives Juan Zapata and Gustavo Barreiro both own condominiums. Apparently, both of them neglected to pay legal assessments due on their units. Their Associations, fulfilling their fiduciary responsibility to protect its members from having to “carry” those who don’t pay their obligations, took action. Perhaps the legislators felt that they were entitled to special treatment because they were Florida State Representatives. Their Associations did not. The East Atlantic Gardens Condominium placed a lien against Barreiro’s unit on May 29, 2003 after he was legally notified on April 22nd that his $595 maintenance payment was past due. Barreiro claims that he was away in Tallahassee at the annual legislative session when he missed his maintenance obligation. The session was over on April 30th and he wasn’t liened until May 29th, a month later. Juan C. Zapata neglected to pay monthly maintenance for his unit at Elan at Calusa Condominium from June through October, 1989, in the amount of $181. He claimed that the Association was sending his bills to the wrong address. Is it possible he forgot that he owned a condominium for five months until they filed a lien?
 | | Representative Ellyn Bogdanoff |
The legislators might have found a more appropriate way to exact revenge on their Associations for expecting them to pay their bills. To dismantle the entire Condominium Association system in the State of Florida and place 1.1 million condo owners at risk is a severe response to an embarrassment that they brought on themselves. Enlisting the aid of their friends in the legislature to accomplish payback is an abject abuse of their position and the power that accompanies it.
Noting that support for the legislation was limited to certain Miami legislators, Representative Ellyn Bogdanoff speculated that their participation was possibly in response to a problem indigenous to some Miami condominiums that may have behaved inappropriately. However, she professed confusion about why they would attempt to perpetrate their punitive “cure” on all condominiums throughout the State. To disallow self-governance for over a million condominium owners to correct a possible local abuse seemed wildly excessive.
 Not surprisingly, SEIU made a “campaign” contribution to Juan Zapata on October 28, 2004 (eleven months after his election), following his support of the ill-fated “Condo Killer” bills. Incidentally, on August 17, 2004, Ombudsman Virgil Rizzo also contributed to Zapata’s campaign. SEIU didn’t overlook Representative Barriero’s help with their agenda, contributing to his campaign on July 16, 2004. As is often the case in Tallahassee, you can’t tell the players without a scorecard.
Strange  Bedfellows
 The coalition behind the “Condo Killer” efforts, a collection of “strange bedfellows”, has a persistent problem. Their public “call to arms” has been the “empowerment of condo owners”. Their legislative efforts last year ran into crippling grass roots opposition. How could they justify another “bite at the apple” when the “enemy” turns out to be the majority of condo owners throughout the state? This would never do. No sane legislator would “sign on” to seriously damaging 1.1 million homeowners to curry favor with a few hundred disaffected individuals.
 They had to fashion a “straw dog” upon which they could blame their “empowering” legislation’s disappointing result. Since they couldn’t admit that it was the vast majority of condo owners that opposed their legislation, they created an alternative rationale for its unfavorable reception. Representative Robaina stated that, “the owners were misled by their condo board attorneys.” That became their battle cry... a handful of attorneys deliberately confused over a million “naïve” condo owners. The thousands of emails, letters and phone calls to legislators and the governor were “engineered by a small cabal of unscrupulous lawyers.” Whether full-time resident owners or snowbirds visiting a Florida home, condo owners are almost “generically” passive, wanting primarily to get on about their lives. Every year they vote for representative board members to let them worry about running the building. Anyone that lives in a condo knows that the only thing that could have elicited last year’s overwhelmingly negative response was a direct threat to their lifestyle. The fact that the vast majority of condo owners don’t even know who their condo attorney’s name wouldn’t matter. By claiming that their opposition “didn’t know what they were doing”, Robaina found the perfect scapegoat. After all, attorneys already suffer from a curiously suspect public perception. Robaina’s contention that since these average condo owners had been hoodwinked by their lawyers, legislators should ignore their input and pass his damaging legislation over their objections. They should, in effect, protect condo owners from themselves.
YOU are the Problem!
This deliberate misrepresentation demonstrates this group’s intention to win at all costs. Their problem is you! They can only “sell” the insulting proposition that condo owners as a class are “incompetent” if we remain silent. The target of this deception is not condominium residents - as they generally consider themselves to be no less rational than any other class of homeowner. The primary audience for their propaganda are fellow legislators. By using a group of disgruntled owners as "props" and feeding the media a few examples of anecdotal abuse, these legislators aspire to mislead their peers into harming a large but generally silent group of homeowners. Tallahassee operates under an adversarial set of rules and constraints. If an offering is uncontested, despite its inherent absurdity, its momentum will often carry it through to enactment. Should it encounter enough obstacles, it will fail. Although Robaina has insinuated that our “uninformed opinions” should be ignored, our legislators will be primarily guided by direction from their constituents - us. If we want to avoid being steamrolled by this year’s version of last year’s “Condo Killer” bills, we will again have to contact our legislators to communicate our objections.
The reworked agenda currently being proposed contains threats to any Condominium Association’s operational underpinnings. Representative Robaina has indicated that he intends to promote mandatory full reserves every year, removing an Association’s current right to waive full reserve assessments in favor of partial reserve assessments. If an Association has to replace a roof unexpectedly damaged by a hurricane, they might normally consider offsetting the expense of the impending assessment by temporarily lowering their reserves requirement. Until now, this decision has rightfully been left to homeowners - those affected by its consequences. Robaina has stated that he intends to expand the “grandfathering” of rental rights to pets and parking. Currently, condo owners have the right to make rules governing their homes. These rules are constitutionally guaranteed to have universal application. Grandfathering rules that only apply to certain members will create two classes of condo owners with differing rights. These rights are to be determined by when a unit was purchased or the number of months it is annually occupied, disenfranchising snowbirds. The legislation blatantly dispels equal protection under the law!
The issue is not pets, parking or leasing, but the right of homeowners to govern themselves. Robaina has revived his call for two-year term limits for board members, guaranteeing that board decisions will always suffer from the board’s chronic lack of experience. Ironically, similar term limit proposals for Statehouse Representatives like Robaina, in contrast, were for eight years. Not surprisingly, Robaina also expects to expand the powers of the Ombudsman, changing the office from an even-handed moderator to last year’s originally envisioned bounty hunter with dictatorial powers. Many other provisions that hurt condo owners have been promised, their common denominator being the transition of governance rights from homeowners to Tallahassee.
 | | SENATOR GARY SIPLIN |
We had hoped that many of the worrisome issues would have been responsibly reviewed and effectively refined to meet their stated objectives without the disastrous repercussions that plagued last year’s legislative efforts. As this would have likely aligned universal support for the legislation, we incorrectly assumed it to be a “no-brainer”. Unfortunately, our suspicions were recently justified. On February 28th, Representative Robaina filed House Bill HB 1229. It is a disorganized attempt to rewrite many of the provisions of Chapters 718 (The Condominium Act), 719 (The Cooperative Act) and 720 (Homeowners Associations). Consistent with last year’s poorly drafted “Condo Killer” products, the new version is 106 pages of ambiguous, confusing provisions. By way of example, the bill states, “Residents with disabilities shall not park in a disabled guest parking space unless their assigned parking space is in use illegally.” As each Association has different parking regulations that vary according to their size, layout, space position and space availability, this provision is unintelligible. The entire bill is laden with provisions that are either incomplete, unworkable, financially onerous or dangerous.
On March 8th, Senator Gary Siplin filed Senate Bill SB 2632, seeking to severely limit or eliminate an association’s right to lien or foreclose when members ignore their financial responsibility. This will seriously interfere with an Association’s ability to pay its expenses. Florida is already infamously reputed as a debtor’s paradise. When Association members don’t pay their obligations, it acts as an unfunded mandate on every other member. The condo has to pay its bills whether or not the individual members pay theirs - forcing the scofflaw’s neighbors to make up the resulting shortfall. It is unconscionable to legally force homeowners to pay their neighbor’s debts!
A Suspicious  Contradiction
A strange contradiction surrounds the legislation. Last year, the legislation’s supporters frantically accused the Division of Florida Land Sales, Condominiums, and Mobile Homes of gross inefficiency bordering on criminal neglect. This was the basis for their demanding an “Ombudsman” to perform the functions already ascribed to the Division. Their rationale for forcing us to fund two entities doing the same job was simple. According to them, the Division was so “inept” and “corrupt” that this duplicate office was absolutely necessary. While the bill contains provisions that hurt homeowners living in condominiums and cooperatives, HB 1229 is primarily devoted to bringing Homeowners’ Associations under the aegis of the same “inept” and “corrupt” Division. If the Division was inadequate to supervise condominiums, why are the bill’s sponsors suddenly demanding that they also oversee thousands of Homeowners’ Associations? Ironically, the legislation also seeks to bring Community Association Managers under the wing of the supposedly “inept” Division. After insisting that condo owners pay for a duplicate office - the Ombudsman - because the Division was incompetent, they now recommend an expansion of the Division’s responsibilities to include Homeowners’ Associations and Community Association Managers. The Division’s name would be changed to the Division of Florida Land Sales, Condominiums, Homeowners’ Associations, Community Association Management, and Mobile Homes. This glaring contradiction beclouds the credibility of those supporting the legislation; it implies an agenda inconsistent with their legislation’s claim to “empower condo owners”.
After a full review of text in Representative Robaina’s HB 1229 (bill text) and Senator Gary Siplin’s SB 2632 (bill text), a comprehensive assessment of the inherent damage to condominium owners will be forthcoming. Hopefully, the sponsors will respond to the input of condo owners and offset the legislation’s flaws. However, in view of their repeated rejection of input other than from their small radical group of disgruntled owners, this appears unlikely. If only life - and politics - were that simple! More to come...
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Condo Killer Bill – 2005
First Anti-Condo House Bill HB 1229
March 26, 2005 - A bill filed on February 28 in the Florida House of Representatives is part of an ongoing assault on the rights of Condominium owners in Florida. A 2005 version of the infamous “Condo Killer” legislation that was eviscerated in House and Senate committees last year, HB 1229 is a confusing blend of disjointed regulations that seem devoid of purpose, fraught with contradictions, disabling in their effect on Associations and extremely expensive. Miami Representative Julio Robaina, whose “Condo Killer” bills elicited statewide opposition from angry condo owners last year, has fulfilled his promise to “return with a complete rewrite.” Strangely, his rewrite does not prevent or correct any of the “ills” he claims as the grounds for his bill. The bill is a random compilation of expensive regulations supporting the belief that Tallahassee, not resident homeowners, should govern Condominiums, Cooperatives and Homeowner Associations.
 | | GUEST PARKING ONLY - NO RESIDENTS ALLOWED |
Many of the bill’s provisions are virtually incomprehensible. The bill states that “Residents with disabilities shall not park in a disabled guest parking space unless their assigned parking space is in use illegally.” Parking regulations and spot assignments are ordinarily constrained by an Association’s size, premises layout, space positions and space availability. Notwithstanding these factors, the bill demands that Associations provide parking spaces for every guest with disabilities. In a cynical twist, disabled residents are specifically precluded from parking in these spaces! The bill also states, “Reserves shall maintain a minimum level of at least 10 percent of the yearly operating budget.” Reserves are determined by the replacement cost of critical building maintenance needs such as painting, replacing the roof, resurfacing the parking deck, etc. over the projected lifespan of these building components. The annual cost of reserves has absolutely no “percentage” relationship to an Association’s annual budget. Condominium Association members currently have the right waive full reserve assessments or opt for partial reserve assessments through a vote of the homeowners. The legislation negates this right - uniquely for condominium owners.
 | UNDER HB 1229 - ASSOCIATION MEMBERS PAY
TO TRAIN 162,500 BOARD MEMBERS EVERY YEAR |
The legislation suffers from several damaging contradictions. It demands that Board members undergo unspecified “training”, supposedly to increase their effectiveness as Board members. Concomitantly, it mandates that the newly “trained” board members can only serve for one term, guaranteeing that the Board will always suffer from inexperience, thereby decreasing their effectiveness. Ironically, a term limit proposal restricting Statehouse Representatives such as Mr. Robaina to eight years of service was defeated by the same legislators supporting a single term limit for board members. Last year, the legislation’s supporters frantically accused the Division of Florida Land Sales, Condominiums, and Mobile Homes of gross inefficiency bordering on criminal neglect. Their demand that another entity be created to perform the functions of the Division, the Ombudsman, was based upon the premise that the Division was so inept and corrupt that they couldn't be trusted to fulfill their mandate. As a result, taxpayers now pay for two governmental bureaucracies with identical responsibilities. In HB 1229, these same legislators insist that Homeowner Associations and Community Association Managers be brought under the jurisdiction of the same Division that one year ago they characterized as unable to administer condominiums. Is it possible that the legislators’ “change of heart” inures to some remarkable improvement that the Division underwent during the past year, earning the respect of their detractors of a year ago? Actually, the opposite occurred, the bill’s sponsors engineered an investigation into the Division’s operational shortcomings, contending that they failed to meet their responsibilities. Adding 14,000 Homeowner Associations to the Division’s 18,500 Condominium Associations would effectively double their jurisdictional authority. In a monument to schizophrenia, the sponsoring legislators are simultaneously demanding that the Division’s responsibilities be both reduced and increased!
 This contradiction is further clouded by another provision in the legislation. By mandating an overnight doubling of their responsibilities, the legislation’s sponsors have exhibited a renewed confidence in the Division’s capabilities. Since they created the Ombudsman to duplicate the duties supposedly “neglected” by the Division, their rekindled trust in the Division’s prowess contradicts the need to continue subsidizing two offices with identical responsibilities. However, the bill increases the Ombudsman’s powers to include the monitoring and reviewing of procedures and disputes concerning all types of community associations. They are, in fact, expanding the powers, duties and cost in tax dollars of both entities.
In addition to expanding the Division’s jurisdiction to include homeowners associations and Community Association Managers, it accords the Division significant new police powers. The Division was originally developed to aid in the seamless transfer of condominium operations from a developer to the homeowners who purchased units. The Division’s responsibility was to insure that the developer turned over control of the new Association to these new owners. To prevent an unscrupulous developer from “packing a board” with “shill” representatives, thereby retaining control over the Association’s operations, regulations governing the behavior of elected board members were included in the Division’s authority. In HB 1229, the Division is mandated extraordinary police powers over individual condominium owners. It seeks to imbue the Division with unprecedented authority over anyone purchasing a condominium. This changes the Division’s purpose from an agency designed to protect the rights of new condominium owners to a bureau empowered to police and prosecute every condominium owner. The bill states, “Any condominium owner found to be in violation of this chapter shall be notified by the department by certified mail, return receipt requested, at which time the condominium owner will have 30 days in which to respond in writing.” Never before has any State agency been used as a punitive organ against a class of homeowner.
| Rep. Julio Robaina - Regulate
Condos, Coops, HOAs, CAMs |
Until last year, homeowners living in condominiums had the right to set policies governing the leasing of units within the Association. People renting their homes rarely exhibit the same level of commitment to maintaining the premises as owners. When a disproportionate number of transient “neighbors” threatens homeowners with a lowering of their living standards (and unit values), they had the right to prevent or restrain further abuse by voting to adjust their leasing policies. Last year, Mr. Robaina’s legislation eliminated that right - only for condominium owners. In HB 1229, he seeks to eliminate that right for owners of cooperative units as well. Condominium owners currently have other rights enjoyed by all homeowners. They can set policies for parking and pets that meet the needs and wishes of the unit owners. Mr. Robaina has promised additional legislation that will also negate these rights, replacing them with “one size fits all” regulations usually reserved for public housing. HB 1229 also demands that Associations pay for an expensive audit every two years. Because of the cost, audits are usually ordered for some specific purpose. If, for instance, there were cause to doubt the integrity of a budget or a conflict interpreting the budget, people might agree that an audit may clarify the confusion. Smaller Associations will have to postpone necessary repairs or improvements because they have to pay for audits that nobody wants, needs or will ever use.
This dangerous trend can only continue as long as condo owners fail to speak for themselves. As homeowners began to distinguish the media hype emanating from the bill’s sponsors from the actual legislative text, they decided to reclaim that right. Two events finally brought this shadowy legislation into the light - Community Association Day and an Analysis assembled by the House Staff.
C. A. Day - The Truth Emerges
On March 30th, hundreds of homeowners from all parts of Florida converged on the Capitol with a mission. They wanted to disabuse legislators of the spurious claims made by the bill’s sponsors that their legislative efforts were on behalf of condo owners. Despite the sustained masquerade conducted by a political coalition assembled to misdirect legislators and the media, the objection to HB 1229 by hundreds of visiting homeowners during the Community Association Day event upset the sponsor’s plan to slip the bill through committee review. The Condominium Advisory Council voted on March 31st (the following day) to NOT support Representative Robaina’s HB 1229 in its original form!
Mr. Robaina and the “Cybers” had another problem. An Analysis of HB 1229 performed by the House of Representatives Staff confirmed several serious consequences of the legislation. It pointed out the significant cost of the bill to both homeowners and the State. Since the “per home” cost increase created by the bill’s demand for full reserves depends upon each condo’s documents, they were unable to ascertain the full fiscal impact to homeowners. Similarly, the “per home” fee of the new parking requirements will depend upon the number of spaces each Association may be liable to create. Mandatory audits can range from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars depending on the size and complexity of an Association’s budget. While the estimated costs of these provisions are variable, the Staff Analysis more accurately assessed the expense of training 162,500 board members at almost $18 million annually. They also focused on the expense of imbuing the Division of Florida Land Sales, Condominiums, and Mobile Homes with special police powers over the 1.1 million condo owners living in 18,500 condominiums and the millions more residents in 14,000 Homeowner Associations. By changing the Division’s responsibility from regulating “the creation, sale, and operation of condominiums by developers and associations” to investigating “violations of the statute and rules by individual owners,” the expected cost of the bill could exceed $50 million and require a police resource that would dwarf the State Police.
The House Staff Analysis also explains HB 1229’s blatant contradiction of existing law as, “(1) Section 720.302(2), F.S., provides, in part: The Legislature recognizes that it is not in the best interest of homeowners’ associations or the individual association members thereof to create or impose a bureau or other agency of state government to regulate the affairs of homeowners’ associations. This bill arguably creates a ‘bureau or other agency… to regulate the affairs of homeowners’ associations.’” This objection is consistent with the findings of the Governor’s 15-member strong Homeowners’ Association Task Force, which conducted public hearings across the state in 2004 and recommended reasonable changes that were subsequently implemented. The Task Force voted down a proposal expanding the regulation of HOAs (Issue #12) by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
Bait and Switch – The Secret “Strike All”
After a bill is filed in the legislature, it is scheduled for review by an assortment of legislative committees to examine its inherent advantages and disadvantages. HB 1229 was referred to the Civil Justice Committee, the State Administration Appropriations Committee and the Justice Council for review. Because the hidden consequences of his bill were revealed by the House Staff Analysis, Mr. Robaina cancelled the bill’s consideration by the Civil Justice Committee on March 23rd. After the CA Day event, he developed a clandestine plan to navigate the obstacles created when the truth about the bill’s consequences became public. On April 11th at 4:18 PM, he added his bill to the Civil Justice Committee agenda for April 13th. Public notice wasn’t posted until the morning of April 12th, the day before it was scheduled to be heard. This last-minute agenda addition would preclude any condo owner who wasn’t from the Tallahassee area from testifying against the bill at the hearing. Members of the Committee expressed concern about the legislation, in part from the 1000+ emails they received from homeowners protesting the bill.
On April 13th, Mr. Robaina revealed a secret Committee Substitute to the Civil Justice Committee for consideration. To mute the recent criticism, he offered a “Strike-All” amendment that removed references to regulating Homeowner Associations, the $18 million “training” extravaganza and the 1-year term limit the bill mandated for condo board volunteers. After hearing from Mr. Robaina that his new version “cured” their concerns and those of homeowners, they |
