Happy Thanksgiving / Send in your Budget Proxy

On behalf of International Village and the Board of Directors, I’d like to wish all unit owners a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving. As we approach the end of 2015, I’m thankful for a great year of being able to serve you as president. As a community, we have a lot to be grateful for this year – including continued progress on our building renovations, new efficient washers and dryers, improved landscaping, and saving more than $400,000 on the third and final phase of our 40-year certification. And to top off a fantastic year, International Village unit owners can now look forward to lower maintenance fees for an unprecedented second year in a row!   

If you haven’t already done so, please return the budget proxy you received in the mail. If you want maintenance fees to go down, you must vote YES to waive reserves and mail back your proxy or drop it off at the association office as soon as possible. If you never received the proxy, you can download and print one HERE. For detailed instructions on how to complete the proxy, click HERE.

In addition to saving more on maintenance, many unit owners will have the opportunity to save hundreds of dollars on Hurricane Wilma special assessment payments by paying off the balance before the end of 2015. By making a lump sum payment no later than December 30, 2015, a one-bedroom unit owner can save about $350, while a two-bedroom unit owner could save well over $500.  To find out your exact payoff amount, visit or call the association office at 954-484-9106, or send an email to manager@intlvillage.com with the subject line “Wilma Payoff” and include your name, phone and unit number in the email. Be sure to act before the end of December to take advantage of these savings.

Once again, happy Thanksgiving! 

John Labriola

International Village President

Our deepest sympathies

On behalf of International Village and the Board of Directors, I wish to extend my deepest sympathies to all those with family or friends in Paris in the wake of Friday's horrific terrorist attacks. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of France as the world stands in solidarity with them against the threat of radical Islam. God bless France, and God bless America.

John Labriola

International Village President

Welcome back, snowbirds! / 2016 Budget Preview

I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome all the snowbirds back to International Village. I hope you’re enjoying our warm South Florida weather as well as some of the improvements we made while you were away.  As you can tell, we’ve been pretty busy, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to recap just a few of our accomplishments over the last several months:

- First, we continue to make significant progress on the building renovations, as residents in the Orleans, Grenoble and Zurich buildings can attest – all, as promised, without a special assessment.

- Second, our newly installed Maytag washers and dryers are saving money by operating better and more efficiently – without the need to put your clothes through a second dry cycle. And because we decided to purchase the machines instead of leasing them, we’ve more than doubled our laundry revenues every single month. 

- Third, I’m sure you’ve noticed the improvements to our landscaping, thanks to the hiring of an excellent new lawn company, which also restored the ficus hedges at our entrance and throughout the property by treating them for whitefly, and did a very thorough job of trimming overgrown trees throughout the property. 

- Speaking of landscaping, you’ve probably also noticed the beautiful new bougainvilleas along the Inverrary Boulevard wall courtesy of the Inverrary Master Association. These attractive plantings, which came at no cost to International Village, were the result of significant lobbying by former property manager David Friedman, and they’re not only increasing our curb appeal but also improving safety by deterring wall jumpers. 

- As I announced recently, we’ve also had significant success on the legal front, including securing $71,000 in settlement money from our insurance carriers after we sued them for wrongly denying us coverage in a lawsuit filed by Ilan Weiss. 

- And finally and most importantly, I’m pleased to announce that just last month we passed the third and final phase of our 40-year certification by completing the inspection and certification of our last two buildings at a cost of about $4,000. That’s a savings of over $400,000 compared to what it would have cost us if we had gone along with the now infamous Criterium Report recommended by AMG, which called for hundreds of thousands of dollars in unnecessary repairs. Let me repeat that: the association saved over $400,000 on the third and final phase of our 40-year certification by getting an honest second opinion. Combined with the approximately $800,000 we saved on the first two phases completed last year, that brings our total savings on the 40-year certification to more than $1.2 million!!! 

The bottom line is we’ve been keeping our promise to save money by doing a lot more with a lot less. We also recently finished crunching the numbers for the 2016 budget, and I’m happy to report that thanks to all the savings, International Village unit owners can look forward to a modest cut in maintenance fees for an unprecedented second year in a row! 

Check your mail in the coming days for your 2016 budget and proxy. Be sure to vote Yes in favor of waiving reserves and mail back your proxy or drop it off at the association office as soon as possible, because we’ll need it to approve the maintenance fee reduction.

John Labriola
International Village President

Legal victory!

I’m happy to announce that International Village has reached a settlement with its insurance carriers in the case we filed against them for wrongfully denying coverage in one of the lawsuits filed by Ilan Weiss (the so-called “defamation” lawsuit he filed against me as a Director). The carriers have agreed to pay the association $60,000 as well as provide us with legal defense going forward, which means the insurance company will pay all our attorney fees going forward to defend against the Weiss lawsuit. The $60,000 settlement reimburses the association for all of the fees and costs the association incurred in suing the insurance carriers and also reimburses the association for its fees and costs while defending against the original lawsuit filed by Mr. Weiss. In a separate agreement, the association will receive an additional $11,000 from our insurer to reimburse us for our legal fees and costs in defending against several other cases filed by Mr. Weiss and his attorney F. Blane Carneal.  Most of those cases have now been dismissed.

We’re very pleased we were able to achieve a very satisfying settlement with the insurance carriers that not only makes the association whole, but also helps ensure that this Board of Directors and future Board members are protected against malicious and meritless lawsuits by Mr. Weiss in the future. If it was Mr. Weiss’ intention to bankrupt the association or this board member with his groundless lawsuits, he has clearly failed. There is no question that this outcome is a great victory over Ilan Weiss, and it calls for celebration.

In other news, the Board of Directors recently appointed unit owner Murat Kizikli to fill a seat left vacant by a former director. Mr. Kizikli is a professional engineer who owns the engineering company that saved the association nearly $1 million on our 40-year certification last year by providing an honest second opinion after an earlier engineering report commissioned by AMG called for hundreds of thousands of dollars in unnecessary spending. Mr. Kizikli, who fell in love with our beautiful community and recently decided to purchase a unit here, is an exceptional asset to International Village, and we’re thrilled he has agreed to volunteer his time and talents to the Board of Directors. Please join me in welcoming him aboard.

John Labriola

International Village President

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.

Legal update

It’s not often that I discuss association legal issues in a public forum, because as Board members we are usually advised to keep information about ongoing litigation confidential. But since the person responsible for most of that litigation has been using his extensive email distribution list to spread misinformation about these cases, some unit owners have asked me to help them sort out the facts.

Most of you know Ilan Weiss as the vulgar, vicious author of the unending barrage of slanderous blast emails he has been directing against the association and members of its Board of Directors for the past several years. What you may not know is that over the last year alone, he has caused the association to spend tens of thousands of dollars in litigation expenses as a result of the many frivolous and malicious lawsuits and complaints he has filed. Mr. Weiss and his lawyer Blane Carneal currently have no fewer than six cases pending against the association or members of the Board of Directors. That means that association funds that could otherwise be going toward speeding up improvements to the property or further reducing maintenance fees are instead being spent on legal fees thanks to the insatiable greed and spitefulness of Mr. Weiss and his attorney. 

In one of these cases, Mr. Weiss sued me for accurately calling him “dishonest” in an email/blog post in which I refuted some of his many false accusations regarding the association. All owners, especially anyone who may be considering joining the Board of Directors, should know that the association’s governing documents and insurance policy indemnify Board members and provide insurance coverage against lawsuits arising from the performance of their duties as Directors. Without such coverage, members of the Board of Directors – and our entire association – would be at the mercy of lawsuit-happy bullies like Mr. Weiss, who has often stated his desire to bankrupt any Board member or association volunteer he dislikes or disagrees with by dragging them to court. But last year a former board member, in an email in which she claimed to be speaking for the association, urged the insurance carrier to deny me coverage as a Director. When the rest of the Board found out about her conduct, she resigned from the Board along with two other board members who may have been involved in the scheme. But their resignations came too late: the insurance company decided to use that email as an excuse to deny coverage, which forced the association to sue the company for breach of contract. It’s important to note that under Florida law, when an insurance carrier is successfully sued for improperly denying coverage, the carrier must pay all the plaintiff’s attorney fees in the case. And several weeks ago, in a very positive development in the case, the judge entered a preliminary order essentially stating that the insurance company was wrong to deny coverage. That means the association can expect to get all its money back in one of two ways: either as a result of the judge’s final ruling in the case, or from a pre-trial settlement in which the carrier opts to avoid trial by agreeing to reimburse us for all our fees.

Regarding board member Wendy E. Hernandez, she is currently under criminal prosecution for physically assaulting a fellow board member last year. Mr. Weiss’ claim that the association is paying for this prosecution is just another example of his extreme dishonesty and ignorance of the law. As any fifth-grade social studies student could probably explain to him, criminal prosecutions are paid for by the state, not by any private individual or entity such as a condo association. The state attorney’s office decided to prosecute based on the facts and evidence in the case, not because I or anyone on the Board asked them to. Their decision had nothing to do with the association, and International Village is not involved in the case in any way, shape or form.  Mr. Weiss’ idiotic and defamatory claim that our association attorney Elaine Gatsos represented me at a deposition in that case just demonstrates what a contemptible liar he is. I have forwarded Mr. Weiss’ email to the state attorney since there may be criminal and/or civil penalties for interfering with, obstructing, or deliberately disseminating misinformation about an ongoing criminal prosecution.  A few years ago, Mr. Weiss was sued for defamation by a former board member and lost. He may have to be sued and/or prosecuted again to learn his lesson.

John Labriola
International Village President

Welcome International Village’s new property manager

The Board of Directors last week voted to hire Gilbert Martinez as International Village’s new property manager.

Martinez has served as a property manager at a number of associations in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. He has also worked as an accounting manager in the airline industry and served 20 years on his own condo association board.

John Labriola

International Village President