Daytona Towers: Where Our Community Comes for Information
Bulletin...August 28, 2008
The Recall is a Success!
All Three Board Members Removed!
We have just received the final decision of the arbitrator, and as of the mailing of his order on
August 25, 2008, board members Charles Mohler, Charles Blake, and Jack Aberman are no longer on the board. They have until August 30 to
return to the office all association records and property, but they are no longer on the board.
We will post the arbitrator's ruling here in full so that all owners can read it for themselves.
As you know, this has been a long and difficult process, but we were confident that we would be successful with this recall because of
the overwhelming support of owners. Special thanks go to Christine Camp, our unit owner representative, who work tirelessly without personal
self interest. She and her family endured a great deal of unwarranted personal insult and criticism, which must stop. Christine, along with
the rest of the committee, worked very hard on behalf of the owners.
106 ballots to recall the board members were delivered to the association on June 20, but we received more
after that date, which we were unable to submit. We appreciate your votes. We had the support of 4 past board presidents and many, many
former board members. We only received a few ballots to retain the board members.
The state has this recall procedure in place so that condo owners can remove board members, with or without cause. We were not required to
state any reasons for wanting these people removed from office and the reasons vary from owner to owner. The bottom line is that the
majority of owners no longer felt confident in having these people on the board and making decisions about the finances and operations of our
association, so a small group of owners took it upon themselves to get these people removed for the good of the association.
There are many details about this recall procedure that we would like to share with the rest of the owners and we will do so on this website.
Right now, however, there are a few things we want to share:
1) The unit owners did this recall at no cost to the association. Owners used their own funds to pay for the printing, mailing, and return postage
of all of the ballots.
2) When the board decided NOT to accept the recall, despite the fact that we had more than enough votes to remove all three people, the board was
required to file for recall arbitration from the state. You can think of this as a double check on the board to make sure they make their
decison in accordance with the very specific rules set up by the state.
3) The state has this recall arbitration procedure set up so that it should be able to be accomplished
with no cost to the association, other than the $50 filing fee for the arbitration.
4) The unit owners wrote and filed all of the required legal documents without hiring a lawyer, because all of the information is available from the state for
anyone who will take the time to read it. While it was time consuming, we did not spend any money on an attorney. We had the cooperation of many
owners who provided the necessary statements.
5) True to form, Charles Mohler used an attorney to handle all of the associations paperwork in this case, to the tune of many thousands of needless
dollars spent. We have a full time manager, and Mohler and Blake spent hours soliciting rescind letters (none of them were valid, by the way). It
would have been far better for the association if Mohler had spent some of that time actually reading the state statutes instead of passing it off
to an attorney, especially one who has a history with this association of missing the big picture (ex. assessment lawsuit). In this case, he missed
a load of small, yet critically important details, too numerous to outline here. Bottom line, the association handed over $6200 dollars at last count,
and perhaps more once the final bills come in, for very substandard legal representation.
6) While we are happy that our recall was successful, as association members, we are very unhappy that a) the board spent money unnecessarily
on an attorney for this (when did the board vote to allocate funds for an attorney for this? Why did they need to use an attorney?
Are there minutes to document a vote to hire an attorney for this?) and b) that the legal representation the association got was,
shall we say, less than professional, IMHO.
7) Personally, the owners who handled all of the paperwork are happy to have this behind them. It is no fun to read a statement in a legal document filed
with the state, written by Keith Broll
on behalf of the association, stating that the board members being recalled KNEW NOTHING about the recall until the ballots were delivered on June 20,
while we had in our hands letters from Mohler to all owners dated May 16 and June 12 when he specifically talked about the recall and pleaded with
owners to rescind their votes. Did he know he was lying? Or did Mohler just forget to tell him the truth?? Or, to read accusations that we committed fraud with a ballot, when it was a simple case of a son not
recognizing his mother's handwriting. Fraud? Get serious. But this is the kind of nonsense that we have been subjected to for some time.
8) In summary, we followed the rules, more than enough owners wanted these people off the board, and the recall was successful. We took the high
road and did not sink to the level of the wild, unsupported accusations written in the board's paperwork to the state.
9) The remaining 4 board members will be allowed to fill the 3 vacancies. If there are people interested in being on the board to work for the
good of this association, we urge you to let the board know you are interested.
10) Hopefully we can put this unfortunate history behind us. We hope that in the future, our board will carefully consider the association money
that is spent and will not needlessly waste it on personal vendettas. We need to further explore the continued and often unnecessary use of
an attorney without board vote and owner awareness and understanding.
11) It is not long until the next election will be upon us. We want this to be an honest election. We, as owners, need to make some decisions about
how we can insure this will happen. There have been many unsettled feelings about how ballots have been handled prior to counting (think "fox in the henhouse").
One option may be to have all the ballots mailed to an election monitor. Let's do some serious thinking about how to best guarantee an honest
election so that owners can once again feel confident in the outcome of their board elections.
If you would like to read the final decision by the arbitrator, click here.
Complete details of how the recall works is available from the State of
Florida website
here.Bulletin: March 27, 2008
The Judge Signs His Order - The Lawsuit is FINALLY Settled!
We have summarized this assessment lawsuit as well as included all of the pertinent court documents on a new
Wrap Up. What Really Happened document and we will
be answering questions we receive from owners on our Questions/Comments From Owners page. The good news is that
those who overpaid WILL be refunded the amount of overpayment. We encourage you to read the court documents yourself.
For those many owners who have helped with this legal fight, we thank you for your support throughout this long, protracted case. Order on Plantiffs' Motion For Leave To Amend Complaint (made the judgment apply to all 4 of the wrongly levied assessments Judges Order, page 1;
page 2 Final Judgment On Plantiffs' Motion (what the judge ruled) Final Judgment, page 1;
page 2;
page 3;
Financial Adjustment Table Mutual Settlement Agreement (detailed account of agreement reached) Settlement Agreement, page 1;
page 2;
page 3;
page 4;
page 5;
page 6;
page 7;
page 8;
page 9;
page 10
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