A Weiss special assessment?

In the last two Board of Directors elections, International Village unit owners have made it abundantly clear that they want to spend LESS, not more. This year, when one candidate ran on a platform of higher spending, higher maintenance fees and more special assessments, he barely received 20 percent of the vote.  Your overwhelming rejection of his agenda, however, hasn't stopped him from trying to achieve it through his incessant bogus lawsuits, collusion, sabotage, and outright bribery. 

Last night, a number of you received a “blast” email from that failed candidate – Ilan Weiss – in which he revealed his seedy financial arrangement with disgraced board member Wendy Hernandez. (For those of you who may not be aware, Miss Hernandez is currently under criminal prosecution for battery, and she is still looking to “get back” at the Board for rejecting her outrageous demands last year to put her on the association's payroll, grant her access to all unit owner files and accounts, and fire virtually all our employees.) In exchange for Mr. Weiss’ promise to pay her legal bills (which he openly admits and even brags about), Miss Hernandez has been acting as his personal stooge by busily doing Mr. Weiss’ bidding – including violating board member confidentiality by feeding him sensitive information about ongoing legal matters; engaging in defamatory and false accusations against the association, its employees, Board members, and other unit owners; and even contacting the association's insurance carriers to urge them to NOT cover us after AMG – the company that gave us convicted embezzler Jason Levy as property manager – vindictively sued us for firing them. 

Most recently – again at Mr. Weiss’ behest – Miss Hernandez, joined by another disgruntled resident and Weiss follower, invited the City of Lauderhill’s code enforcement department to visit International Village to look for violations of the City’s aesthetics code. (This from a city which – with the exception of Inverrary – is best known for its blighted conditions and elevated crime rates). Bureaucrats being what they are, the code enforcement officer was more than happy to oblige Miss Hernandez and issued the association a violation notice, instructing us to re-paint the building outside walls and address a number of other cosmetic issues with the building exteriors.

It’s important to note that as part of last year’s 40-year inspections, the City certified that all 10 of the buildings that were inspected by the engineer are structurally safe and sound. That means the only issues the City could technically cite us for on those buildings would have to do with aesthetics (despite the irony of being cited for cosmetic issues by the City of Lauderhill). But to address all these aesthetic issues at one time on a tight City-mandated schedule – instead of in order of priority and within the framework of the budget – would not only require a substantial special assessment (Mr. Weiss’ number one goal), but it would also force the Board to cancel or postpone the renovations currently underway in the interiors of the buildings. (So if your building hasn't been renovated yet, and if this latest trick forces us to divert our resources to other projects, you can thank Mr. Weiss and Miss Hernandez for their vindictiveness.)

So we are faced with a choice: We can either fight the City over its ridiculous selective enforcement of its aesthetic codes, or we can allow Mr. Weiss and Miss Hernandez to get away with their malicious scheme to make us dig deeper into our pockets to cough up another special assessment.

How do YOU think we should proceed? And what if anything should be done about Miss Hernandez’s repeated and blatant breaches of her fiduciary duties as a board member? 

The best way to let us know is to show up and speak up at our Board meeting tonight (Tuesday, April 28) at 7:15 p.m. in the clubhouse. If you are unable to attend the meeting, please share your thoughts by replying to this email and copying the Board of Directors. We need to know how you feel!

Thank you,

John Labriola
International Village President
Villageviewpoints.blogspot.com