Vote for continued progress and savings

Only one day remains until the Feb. 24 International Village annual meeting and Board of Directors election. If you have not already done so, this is your last chance to choose between continuing to move forward and returning to the shady past. 

The three candidates who represent continued progress are Colbert “Carl” Simmonds, Luis Jimenez and myself, John Labriola. Each of us wants to continue saving money in order to keep lowering maintenance fees while investing in improvements like the building renovations that are now under way. With last year’s $1 million in savings and historic maintenance fee reduction, we've proven it can be done. 

The other two candidates – Ilan Weiss and Petrina Smith, who appear to be running as a team despite claims to the contrary – have made no promise to cut spending or maintenance fees. In fact, Ilan Weiss – best known for repeatedly filing frivolous and malicious lawsuits against the association – is running on a platform of defending the record of the association’s former management company AMG, which engineered a $1.3 million special assessment and 27 percent maintenance fee increase in 2012-13 and gave us a convicted felon, Jason Levy, as property manager before AMG and Mr. Levy were fired last year. Incredibly, Mr. Weiss is now claiming that Mr. Levy was “framed.”  That will certainly come as a shock to Mr. Levy, since he pleaded guilty in November to first-degree felony grand theft and money laundering in the face of the overwhelming proof of his guilt. It’s now obvious that Mr. Weiss wants to be on the board to undermine our current efforts to get our money back as we continue working with the authorities and our legal counsel to go after these crooks. 

Let’s continue moving forward, not backward to the crooked dealings of the past. For continued progress, please vote for John Labriola, Colbert “Carl” Simmonds and Luis Jimenez. Please drop off your ballot at the International Village office today, as it is too late to mail it in.

John Labriola
International Village Treasurer