I’m pleased to announce that International Village has been approved for a two-year refinance of our Hurricane Wilma loan, which had been set to balloon this month. Home Federal Bank will be taking over the loan from Wells Fargo at an interest rate of only 4.375 percent. That’s less than the 5 percent interest we were paying Wells Fargo. The loan will run through the term of the existing Wilma special assessment, which ends in August 2018, allowing the association to continue meeting its obligations without having to cut into its operating funds to pay off the loan two years early. This is really good news, and it’s thanks to the association’s strong financials and the current board’s very proactive approach to reducing our delinquency rate, which put us in an excellent position to obtain approval for our loan refinance application.I’m also very happy to report that Ilan Weiss has lost his latest frivolous lawsuit against the association. As you may recall, Mr. Weiss was beaten badly when he ran for the Board of Directors in 2015, receiving only 20 percent of the vote. Not willing to accept the clear mandate of the owners who overwhelmingly rejected his candidacy, Mr. Weiss sued the association claiming election fraud, earning him the well deserved label of sore loser. The association’s insurance company (as usual) recommended that the board give Mr. Weiss money to drop the case, but the board stood firm and decided to fight instead. The decision paid off. After losing his case at the lower level, Mr. Weiss appealed it to the circuit court, dragging the case out for well over a year in the hopes that the board would eventually give up and offer him a settlement. It didn’t happen, and Mr. Weiss finally saw the handwriting on the wall and dropped his bogus lawsuit. As the twice-over loser, he will now be required to pay ALL the association's attorney fees in the case. His bill will run in the tens of thousands of dollars. Maybe this will teach him to think twice before filing another frivolous lawsuit.
In other news, the association recently hired a new security manager. Donnahue George, who started early this month, possesses an impressive background in security and emergency management, including working as a corrections officer in New York City. Over the last few weeks he has been hard at work addressing past shortcomings and implementing a number of important improvements to our security system here at International Village, including identifying and evicting unauthorized tenants and working with management to provide the guardhouse with computerized access to resident information. Please join me in welcoming him to the association.
John Labriola
International Village President
