Ombudsman Meeting, Wendnesday 30 April 2008

I was unable to attend the meeting tonight as other matters demanded my attention.

Therefore I am calling for submissions. Do you remember part of all of the questions and answers from the meeting? Share what you know with the whole community by submitting one or more Q & A's in a comment or an email to TAJResident@gmail.com and I will post it here for everyone to read and learn.

Please include your name. Thank you, in advance, for your help.

Recent Flyers

These are some flyers that were recently distributed by the BOD. Of note is the April 21st meeting to introduce the three new BOD members. Presumably there will be an opportunity for unit owners to ask questions similar to what would happen at a "meet-the-candidates night." Since there is no pending election, however, the relevance of the meeting is to be discovered as it unfolds.

Also worth noting is the April 30th Q&A meeting with a condominium ombudsman representative. Come and ask your questions and hear the answers from an acknowledged expert.

Education, Not Polarization

Una traducción española está disponible en Web site: www.TAJWatchSpanish.blogspot.com

Below is an excerpt from an article in the Sun Sentinel. I thought that the article touched on some aspects of TAJ living that we are currently experiencing.

By Editorial Board Member Ann Carter
Posted February 27 2005

Florida's New Condo Ombudsman Dreams of Simplification

"I get a few people that say, `You're against the boards.' I'm not against the boards. I'm against the boards' acting outside their authority. And I have to impress upon them that `you're a corporation. The board is running a corporation,' for the unit owners. You can't be running it as policemen. You have to run it as corporate officers. These people don't understand that.

"So this brings in the aspect of education. Education is the most important thing, that everybody understands what their duties and responsibilities are. Not only the directors and the officers, but also the unit owners. It's up to the unit owner to notify his director, much like a citizen would have to notify his representative, that we have a problem in our community that you should be aware of and do something about. The unit owners have to notify the directors what the problem is, and then the directors have to get together and resolve it and tell the president, `You issue the order.' Just like the executive branch and the legislative branch.

"And, of course, we want to resolve it ourselves instead of going to court, to resolve issues that we think are important to us in and amongst ourselves. The problem that I've encountered is that there are always two sides to a story.

"Q. At least.

"A. The thing is, like with [a] contract, there's your side, there's your opponent's side, and there's the way the judge sees it. So there's three sides.

"What happens in these communities is that they get polarized. You get a 50-50 split and you have discontent. They shouldn't be fighting amongst each other. They should be together and the board should keep them unified. These people have a lot of energy. This energy should be directed not only to their board of directors to do something, but also toward the city and the county to do things for their association.

"But if you're just going to sit around and fight with yourselves and not tell the senator or representative anything, nothing's going to happen on your behalf. So you should be unified, you shouldn't be polarized.

"This is probably my dream.

"Q. What do you think stands in the way of that kind of understanding that they can act?

"A. Education. They just don't know that they can channel that energy.

"Then you have people who want to be leaders, or are natural leaders. But they want to do it their way, not the way that it really should be done according to Florida law, or according to corporate law, or even according to fairness. They don't want to listen to somebody else's opinion. And that's not a good leader.

"Leaders have to know what their limitations are. It's not so much their limitations. It's that their directives are given to them by their constituents. They don't tell their constituents what to do. The constituents tell them what to do."