Well, I’m the OP on this old thread. I’ve been meaning to come back to it to give it closure, and now is as good a time as any.
To answer the above question, I can’t recommend an attorney. Plus, you have no Florida law on your side so I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish. You may have some city or county ordinance, but I doubt it. Florida continues to be a remarkably un-environmental state.
However, if you would like to send me a PM, we can talk about it on the phone. I feel like I have a minor in FL condo law after going through the last couple of years with my building. I have one idea that may work, depending on how sharp your Board is.
Here’s a recap and conclusion.
I asked to put in an outlet in my parking spot, which I would pay for, of course. In short, the Board President refused and was not interested in common area, either. The President was the Board in my building. That is their prerogative, unfortunately. What bothered me wasn’t that I was told no; it was that the President and building manager lied to me continuously.
I was the definition of “uninvolved” in my ten previous years in the building. What I came to realize was this was standard operating procedure. I was unaware several people before me had tried to take on the President and gave up. Sooo . . . I decided it was my turn. I completely dropped the EV charging issue since it wasn’t going to happen anyway, and decided to address the overall problem.
The EVSE issue took several months to come to an end so I had plenty of time to think about it. Lucky for me, the Pres was the most linear thinker I’ve ever seen. He couldn’t see past the next step or even to the next sentence.
Step one was to run for the Board. I didn’t I feel I had a right to complain if I wasn’t willing to step up. This not only filled that square, but it forced my campaign letter to be included in the big annual mailing. I got to state my qualifications, and more importantly, to lay out our problems in a professional nature. People loved it.
But since I was the only nonincumbent candidate, I knew my chances of getting on the Board were not good. In any election, the incumbents almost always win, and that’s what happened. I kind of thought it would, but it was a necessary step before I could do what I really wanted to do. By the way, I still get asked to run again by various owners about once a week.
I waited until the first Board meeting after the election to see if the Board behavior changed. It did—for the worse. The Pres now felt he had a mandate and led the year off with a $60,000 waste of money.
I assume he thought because I didn’t get on the Board, it was over. His linear-ness didn’t realize that was the worst thing that could have happened. If I had gotten elected, it wouldn’t have been proper for me to operate outside of the Board. It’s much better to be Bill O’Reilly than Barack Obama. Plus if elected, I never would have sought to put in EV charging as I view that as self-serving, which would make me no better than some of them.
But since I wasn’t encumbered by any Board responsibilities, it was time to start working on a private website for the building. I had never done that so it took a couple of months to build. Once it was ready, I submitted an official records request for mailing addresses to send postcards, which the office refused. This is a violation of FL law, and it was the third time I had been denied records. For each offense, the Assn owes me $500. However, I would have to go to small claims court to collect, which I didn’t do. Plus, I had no desire to harm the Assn. The people in my building are great.
The website interest was underwhelming, but a lot more people were on it than went to the meetings. And that was enough. I attended all of the Board meetings and posted a detailed account of the shenanigans every month. Needless to say, the Pres and manager hated this. Many more people were aware now and started confronting the Pres routinely. A couple of times, it almost became physical.
The Pres not only did not seek reelection, he moved out of the building. His chief enabler, the VP, said he wasn’t going to run again, but he just beat the deadline. I pulled one Board member aside and explained to him how it was in everyone’s best interest if the VP were to withdraw. The details aren’t important, but the VP withdrew. The manager will be leaving soon.
The new Board Pres was one of my website subscribers and is basically perfect. I shut down the website last Jan.
I never brought up EV charging again. After a few months, the new Pres asked me if I would help them with putting in a common area EVSE because I knew the most about it. I told him I would be glad to as long as he wasn’t doing it for me as I was ****ing over it. He said, no, it was just something we needed to do. He still wouldn’t let me put an outlet in my spot.
We formed a committee. I did some research, came up with a proposal to be voted on. We now have a common area EVSE with very reasonable rates that cover the electricity costs with no ridiculous condo “overrides” or ridiculous commercial fees. I actually told them we should up it by $5 per month, which they agreed to. Our overall rate is only 8 cents/kWh. The EVSE has a meter they can look at any time, but of course, no one has.
During this time, my charging was a nightmare. It very slowly got better. I can’t say enough good things about the gracious staff of the Victoria Park Hotel. They have the only 80-amp charger in town.
It got dramatically better for the last 2-3 months once the grossly delayed Plantation supercharger was finished. I haven’t been to it since, btw. For the few people that crap on local supercharger users, some of us are really trying!
Well, that was easy! I know it doesn’t look like it, but I left a lot out. As a lawyer bar friend told me, you never want to piss off someone so badly that they make you their hobby. I’m really glad my almost two year long hobby is over.
