Feel the difference

What a difference a year makes. 

Flashback to December 2013: As we all too painfully recall, that was the month the previous Board of Directors approved the 2014 budget that raised our maintenance fees 7 percent, saying the increase was needed despite the previous year’s 18.5 percent maintenance hike and $1.3 million special assessment. When some of us proposed finding savings to avoid digging deeper into owners’ pockets, the old Board told us it couldn't be done, because there supposedly wasn't an ounce of fat in the budget to cut. 

Well, they weren't just wrong – they were dead wrong. As Board President Marcio Jaspan and I announced at our last regular Board meeting on Sept. 23 (see 9/23/14 video here), the association is now coming in $30,000 under budget every month. That means we're spending $30,000 LESS in operating and administrative expenses per month than what the old board said we needed to get by on. And best of all, we've done it without cutting back on maintenance and other services, but by simply operating more efficiently, eliminating waste, and avoiding dishonest contractors and rip-off artists. Since the beginning of the year, we've already achieved a whopping $200,000 in operational savings compared to the spending projections that were built into the budget. That’s on top of the $220,000 we saved on the 40-year certification for our three oldest buildings by getting a second opinion from an honest engineer – Murat Kizikli P.E. of Ace Flood & Inspections. (See my last blog post titled “40-year certification success story.”) When you add those two figures, you’re looking at almost half a million dollars in savings so far in 2014, and the year isn't even over yet! 

As Treasurer, I’m quite hopeful these very significant savings will allow us to actually cut maintenance fees when budget time comes around again at the end of the year. But we must first await the results of the second round of building inspections. Last month, the city notified the association that seven more buildings are now due for the 40-year certification. At our last regular meeting, the Board again engaged Ace Flood & Inspections to conduct the inspections to determine if any safety-related repairs are needed, and once we get the results, we'll be in a much better position to start planning next year's budget.  

In another action on Sept. 23, the Board appointed unit owner Hayden Joseph to fill the seat vacated by former board member Marc Richman.  Mr. Joseph, who also serves as Chairman of the Sales & Leasing Committee, is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a Community Association Manger’s license. His financial expertise and in-depth knowledge will prove a tremendous asset to the association as we continue to explore further ways to save money and achieve even greater operational efficiencies. Please help me welcome him to the Board.

40-year certification success story

I’m very pleased to report that International Village has passed the first phase of its 40-year certification with flying colors. The City of Lauderhill has certified that the association’s three oldest buildings – the Bordeaux, the Yorkshire and the clubhouse – do not pose any safety-related structural or electrical issues that need to be addressed.  That means that – contrary to what the old guard had led us to believe – there will be no need for a special assessment to pay for costly repairs on these buildings.  (The association’s nine remaining buildings have not yet been placed on notice for the 40-year inspection.)

This clean bill of health is in dramatic contrast to the alarmism of the previous Board of Directors, which had used the community’s upcoming 40-year anniversary as an excuse to award Miami-based Criterium Inspection Engineers a $22,000 contract in 2012 to perform a premature and highly flawed engineering report, although the building inspections weren't due yet and wouldn't have to be performed until the city gave us its official notice. (Until recently, we had reason to believe that wouldn't happen until 2019, but the inspections were accelerated by five years due to the actions of a disgruntled cabana unit owner and those who had been pushing the Criterium report.) To make matters worse, Criterium's report falsely asserted that International Village needed to perform more than $1 million in repairs to pass the 40-year certification. The 2012 Board led by former Directors Charles Fitzpatrick and Marvin Tow then approved two huge special assessments – a “Part 1” assessment to serve partly as a “down payment” on repairs, and a $1.4 million “Part 2” assessment to pay for the balance of the projects. Fortunately, the Part 2 assessment was put on hold following a major outcry from owners. Otherwise, we would have been stuck footing the bill for completely unnecessary repair work at bloated contractor prices.

As you may recall, last year I raised serious questions about the reliability of the Criterium report and demanded that we get a second opinion before beginning any work on the buildings. You may also recall the April 2013 town hall meeting in which Fitz Harris, a local professional engineer and 40-year certification specialist, informed us  that the Criterium report did not follow the format of a 40-year inspection (see video starting at 8:04) and that most of the work it recommended was not necessary to pass inspections because it dealt with cosmetic issues and not safety problems, which are supposed be the sole concern of a 40-year inspection as explained in the law that governs the County-mandated program. We now know that in April 2012, just two months before the previous Board hired Criterium to perform the inspections at International Village, Criterium’s president Douglas Mercado was issued a citation by the state for using an unlicensed subcontractor to perform concrete restoration work at a Fort Lauderdale beachfront condo.

Fortunately, after International Village received the city’s official notice a few months ago that our three oldest buildings were due for the 40-year inspection, we got the second opinion we needed by hiring respected professional engineer Murat Kizikli, who works as a structural building inspector for the City of Boca Raton and is the owner of Ace Flood & Inspections, which performed International Village’s insurance inspections two years ago. For a small investment of $1,500 per building to obtain the required professional re-inspections that needed to be filed with the city, the association ended up saving more than $220,000 – which is approximately what we would have spent on unnecessary work on just those three buildings if we had relied on Criterium’s report.  (See the cost comparison chart prepared by our Property Manager David Friedman HERE.)

Last Tuesday, the Board of Directors ratified the re-inspections and formalized other actions taken during our summer hiatus. (See 9/9/14 meeting video). In other actions, the Board:

• Appointed unit owners Colbert “Carl” Simmonds, a retired database manager for Citibank and Vietnam veteran; and Richard “Rabbit” Young, a former equipment and machine design engineer for Sylvania, to fill two of the Board vacancies created by the recent resignations. Please join me in welcoming these two highly respected and involved owners to the Board; their experience and expertise will be a huge asset to the association. 
• Appointed Director Simmonds as Board Secretary to replace Wendy Hernandez following her many unprofessional and unethical shenanigans. 
• Terminated the association’s collections contract with Alliance CAS due to the company’s dismal performance since 2012, when it was hired by the Fitzpatrick-Tow board to take over collections – resulting in a dramatic increase in our delinquency rate over the following two years. 

Call for honest volunteers for Sales & Lease Committee

I'm pleased to report that International Village Board member Wendy Hernandez has been removed from the association's Sales & Lease Committee as a result of her unprofessional and unethical antics, which have included attempting to bully staff into letting her deny leases to qualified tenants of owners whom she dislikes, demanding keys to the office so she could snoop around after hours (which she was denied), threatening staff with their jobs for failing to carry out her unethical demands, disseminating false and defamatory accusations against staff and other board members, physically assaulting a fellow Board member, and apparently attempting to gain unauthorized access to unit owner accounts.

The association is seeking honest, trustworthy unit owners to help the committee's remaining hard-working members do their jobs. If you are interested, please call the office at 954-484-9106, or send an email to assistant@intlvillage.com.

On a related note, a number of you have asked me to shed light on the reasons for the recent spate of board resignations. Because these resignations appear to have been the result of these former board members' improper involvement in an ongoing legal matter (in which Miss Hernandez appears to have been a co-conspirator), I am currently not at liberty to disclose details, but rest assured that these resignations were in the best interest of the association and that a full accounting of what transpired will be forthcoming.

Update on Board resignations

Marc Richman on Tuesday became the latest International Village Board member to resign, following on the heels of former Board members Frances Mesirow and Collette Goslin, who stepped down on Monday. We wish them farewell as we continue to weigh our options regarding what to do about the three vacancies.

Board resignations

Frances Mesirow and Collette Goslin on Monday announced their resignations from the International Village Board of Directors, effective Sept. 1. I thank them for their service and wish them well. The question of how the board will handle these two vacancies is under discussion. Stay tuned.

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

Good riddance to AMG

A hated symbol of tyranny in International Village came down this Monday afternoon. ENJOY THE VIDEO as the AMG plaque is removed from above the association's office door after two years of runaway spending, huge special assessments and massive maintenance fee increases under AMG's mis-management. Good riddance. We won't miss the fleecing.