Disappointing behavior by a Board member

As you may recall, some months ago the International Village Board of Directors exercised its right of first refusal to purchase a two-bedroom unit in the Bordeaux building for $50,000, for the dual purpose of keeping up our comp values and earning additional income for the association by reinvesting the profits of its resale in the ongoing building renovations and other projects.

After a few months of inactivity and one offer that fell through, the association received a second offer of $76,500 this spring, but a couple of months later the prospective buyers backed out of the deal, and the association is now considering a third offer. However, while the contract with the second set of prospective buyers was being prepared in May, Board member Hayden T. Joseph, who uses the email hayden49@aol.com, sent me the email below, in which he proposed to match the buyers' offer and purchase the unit himself. In exchange, Mr. Joseph, who lives in Miami, demanded a contractual agreement from the Board to pay him at least $15,600 per year to live in the unit, presumably so he could be appointed as Treasurer, since the owners recently voted in favor of a provision that executive officers must be resident owners. Mr. Joseph also demanded that the association purchase him a desk, an executive chair and a side chair.

This outlandish proposal, which would be illegal if approved since state law prohibits compensation for association board members, made me very uncomfortable, and I chose to ignore it (though I later reported it to the Department of Business and Professional Regulation), and I went ahead and authorized the sale of the unit to the prospective buyers who had made the original offer of $76,500. Mr. Joseph was angered by my decision and let me know, and this has led to considerable tension between him and the Board of Directors ever since, which recently deteriorated into a series of disturbing actions by Mr. Joseph to settle scores with the association by feeding International Village’s arch-enemy Ilan Weiss confidential information (and in many cases, misinformation) about ongoing legal matters to help Mr. Weiss with his many current lawsuits against us.

The Board has made repeated attempts to reason with Mr. Joseph privately in the hopes of convincing him to either change his destructive behavior or resign, but our efforts so far have been to no avail. Therefore, we have been left with no choice but to bring his conduct to the attention of the unit owners, and we will be discussing this matter at the Board meeting this Tuesday, Aug. 25 at 7:15 p.m. in the clubhouse. 

Thank you, and may God protect International Village from malicious people.

John Labriola
International Village President
VillageViewpoints.blogspot.com

Unit for sale

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hayden49@aol.com <hayden49@aol.com>	Fri, May 29, 2015 at 9:33 AM
To: John Labriola <jflabriola@gmail.com>
I am considering making an offer equal to the most recent price offered. In doing so I will be acquiring a property which will generate no income but will incur an obligation for maintenance, taxes, phone and electricity. I will therefore require a commitment in the form of a contract where I will be paid for services that exceed my duties as a board member. Such payments should not be less than $1300 per month or $15,600 per year. I would probably need a desk, an executive chair, and a side chair as well. Thanks. www.htjosephcpa.com For Taxation and Accounting Services This electronic mail transmission may contain confidential or privileged information. If you believe that you have received this message in error, please notify the sender by reply transmission and delete the message without copying or disclosing it. Advice contained in this written or electronic communication, including any attachments or enclosures, is not intended or written to be used and it cannot be used by any person or entity for the purpose of (i) avoiding any tax penalties that may be imposed by the Internal Revenue Service or any other U.S. Federal taxing authority or agency or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any transaction or matter addressed herein.

Thank you for saving our employees!

Kudos to all the unit owners who came to the defense of our hard-working employees yesterday by emailing your thoughts to the Board of Directors in response to my email (SEE BELOW). You prevented a grave injustice from taking place. Three of the four Board members who seemed ready to fire at least some of our employees appear to have had a change of heart in the face of your overwhelming outpouring of indignation. Only one Board member, Wendy Hernandez, continued directing her wrath at our loyal staff, but in the end, she was outnumbered and not a single employee was fired. That’s nothing short of a miracle considering that just last week Miss Hernandez was heard bragging that our entire security staff was about to get the boot. What turned things around? Your emails! (See a small sampling HERE.) I thank you, and our employees thank you.

On the other hand, despite the mounting pressure for her to resign from the Board, Miss Hernandez chose not to step down last night. But she must now face the fact that she can’t get her way through intimidation and double-dealing. Nobody likes a bully.

Speaking of bullying, I chose not to discuss the incident that took place in the clubhouse gym over the weekend in my email to owners yesterday, but since many of you have already heard about it and have been asking questions, I feel I have no choice now but to address it.

I walked into the clubhouse gym a little before 5:30 p.m. on Saturday to find Miss Hernandez waiting by the entrance with her arms crossed. She had apparently been eavesdropping on a conversation I was having with a neighbor in the hallway just before walking in. The conversation happened to be about Miss Hernandez’s unethical conduct. After greeting her, I asked her about the behavior and she became incensed and physically assaulted me. The attack, which was recorded by the gym’s security camera, takes place about two minutes into THIS VIDEO.

I called the police and I plan to press charges because this kind of behavior on the part of a unit owner (not to mention a Board member) should not be tolerated. I have discussed the incident with an attorney and have been told the chances of obtaining a felony conviction on Miss Hernandez are very good, especially since the incident was captured on video.

Save our International Village employees

From:	John Labriola <jflabriola@gmail.com>
Sent:	Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 8:25 AM
To:	John Labriola <jflabriola@gmail.com>
Cc:	Marcio Jaspan <marciojaspan@hotmail.com>, Duv Wolff <guitarharm@aol.com>, Wendy Hernandez <wendy_hernandez@ymail.com>, Frances Mesirow <fmkmbm@gmail.com>, Marc Richman <mwr2020ou@gmail.com>, Collette Goslin <colletteg@comcast.net>, MANAGER INTERNATIONAL VILLAGE <manager@intlvillage.com>, Assistant Manager International Village <assistant@intlvillage.com>

Some of you may be wondering why a closed Board meeting is posted for tonight. Unfortunately, although I serve as the Association’s Treasurer, all I can tell you about the meeting is what I've managed to gather from second-hand sources. That’s because the Board members who decided to organize it haven’t bothered telling their fellow Directors exactly what the purpose is. All we have received is an agenda with a few vaguely worded items and no explanation.

The meeting, which will be conducted behind closed doors with no unit owners permitted to attend, was apparently the idea of Board Secretary Wendy Hernandez, who prepared the agenda with the help of Board members Frances Mesirow, Collette Goslin, and Marc Richman without consulting her fellow officers President Marcio Jaspan, Vice President Duv Wolff and myself. This may come as a surprise to the 200-plus voters who thought they were voting for change when they filled out their ballots for Wendy Hernandez in February. Why, you might be asking, is she now working with the team that she ran against, the team she blasted in her candidate bio for their “constant maintenance fee increases and special assessments”? 

The answer is because over the last few months Miss Hernandez has made a number of unethical, immoral and sometimes illegal demands of her fellow officers that Mr. Jaspan, Mr. Wolff and I have refused to go along with. In retaliation, she has apparently sold herself to the other side to see what she can get from them in exchange for promises of putting them back in power – and they have welcomed her with open arms.

Here’s a partial list of Miss Hernandez’s outrageous demands which the Board President, Vice President and I refused to give in to:

• Fire the Association’s maintenance chief, security manager, entire security staff and others for no apparent reason other than personal animosity and envy. 
• Put her on the Association’s payroll as office manager while allowing her to remain on the Board (in violation of Florida law) despite her obvious lack of qualifications.
• Provide her with keys to the association’s office so she can come and go and snoop around the office as she pleases after hours. 
• Grant her unfettered access to unit owner accounts and files, including highly sensitive personal information. (See HACKING VIDEO.)
• Allow her, in her position as Sales & Lease Committee Chairwoman, to bully staff into letting her deny leases to qualified tenants who happen to rent from owners against whom she holds a personal grudge, thereby exposing the Association to costly litigation.

Miss Hernandez has abused her power and created a hostile work environment for our employees by treating them with open contempt and disrespect while threatening to fire them if they fail to carry out her unethical demands. Mr. Jaspan, Mr. Wolff and I have given our full support to our hard-working staff. But unfortunately, Board members Frances Mesirow, Collette Goslin and Marc Richman have decided to act as Miss Hernandez’s enablers, and they appear ready to throw our dedicated employees under the bus in order to bribe Miss Hernandez over to their side so they can seize back control of the Association.

So tonight’s agenda includes the item “Personnel Matters,” which understandably has employees terrified of losing their jobs in light of Miss Hernandez’s stated desire to fire nearly everyone. 

Some unit owners have warned me not to expose Miss Hernandez’s treacherous and unethical behavior, saying it might provoke her to join forces with her “new friends” on the Board to remove me from the position of treasurer. I guess they don’t realize this title involves no salary, benefits or perks and very little real authority, and losing it would be a very small price to pay for telling the truth. But I will not stand quietly by in the face of injustice while a shameless, unscrupulous group of Board members sacrifice our loyal staff on the altar of power. Our employees deserve better.

Finally, I want to apologize to all the unit owners for recommending that you vote for Miss Hernandez this past February. Now that I am fully aware of her lack of integrity, principle and honesty, I regret ever giving her my support. Miss Hernandez has proven herself untrustworthy, unqualified and temperamentally unfit to serve in any position of authority, and we as an Association deserve better. I encourage you to call her at 954-612-6018 to urge her to resign. You may also contact her and the rest of the Board by email to let us know how you feel by simply “Replying All” to this email. 

John Labriola
International Village Treasurer