Police are looking for two suspects they say attacked and seriously injured a man at a shopping center parking lot in West Palm Beach Wednesday afternoon.
The incident occurred just before 4 p.m. near the Publix parking lot at the Southdale Shopping Center located in the 800 block of Southern Boulevard.
The 49-year-old victim was stabbed, cut with a machete and beaten with a baseball bat, according to West Palm Beach police spokesman Mike Jachles.
Yes please everyone make your voices heard as now we are discovering the current BOD has not had our best interest in mind and lacking the determination to save us hard earned money. We know other like buildings are not spending on ELSS and fire watch regarding this matter so basing decisions via fear based tactics is not appropriate. Read the link I provided below.
Also in the upcoming state elections vote NO on the housing referendum that the county is introducing on behalf of special interest groups like developers and builders. ELSS in case you did not know was also pushed through by special interest groups!.
ELSS: read to the end listen to what the fire Marshall says, contact the numbers provided to ask that this be tabled or abolished altogether.
https://www.condoassociation.com/blog/can-florida-condo-buildings-opt-out-of-elss-requirements
PS I am getting a reject on this particular email perhaps it should be removed?
Thank you.
Pamela Martin
214 336 0379
South Florida Sun Sentinel
By Ron Hurtibise, South Florida Sun-Sentinel,1 day ago
Is it OK for members of a condominium board to interpret record access laws as it wishes if it decides that unit owners making the requests are working against it?
That’s one of the questions that will be answered by a Palm Beach County circuit judge in a contentious trial underway between the longtime officers of the Boca View Condominium Association and unit owners Eleanor and Edward Lepselter over a request to inspect how money is spent at the four-story, 72-unit complex, located just a few blocks west of the beach in Boca Raton.
It’s the same association that secured a $395,554 judgment last spring against another unit owner, Eileen Breitkreutz, a single mother it sued over her 2016 record request.
The trial, which started Thursday in a West Palm Beach courtroom, stems from a Feb. 6, 2019, request by Eleanor Lepselter, also signed by Edward, appointing attorney Jonathan Yellin’s law firm, Backer Aboud Poliakoff & Foelster as their representative authorized to conduct a record request on their behalf.
On the same day, Yellin, one of the firm’s attorneys, sent his own letter advising that he was representing Eleanor Lepselter and planned to conduct a “forensic audit” of the association’s financial records. His letter said the couple planned to file a petition for arbitration with the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation if the board failed to make the records available.
The state’s Condominium Act obligates condo boards to provide records access “to an association member (unit owner) or the authorized representative of such member.”
On Feb. 22, 2019, the association’s property manager, Eric Estabanez, emailed Eleanor Lepselter, setting the following Monday as the date that the records would be made available. The email stated that only Eleanor, and not Yellin, would be allowed to inspect the records.
When Eleanor Lepselter showed up at the property manager’s office with Yellin at the appointed time, Estabanez said that only she would be allowed into the room where the records were assembled.
Yellin protested, telling treasurer Giuseppe Marcigliano, who was also present, that state law required access for unit members or their authorized representatives.
Eleanor Lepselter and Yellin testified at the trial that Marcigliano told them, “That’s your law. Not my law. I don’t give a s— about your law.”
When asked about the statement in court, Marcigliano told the Lepselters’ attorney, Christopher Salavar, “You’re a liar.”
But then Marcigilano said, “I said that to terminate the conversation. I didn’t want to talk to [Yellin] anymore. He’s obnoxious.”
Circuit Judge John Kastrenakes isolated the dispute over what “or” means in the condo record-access language of state law as one of the primary issues that will determine his ruling in the case.
The association’s legal position, the judge said, is that it’s the association’s choice — and not a unit owner’s — to provide records to a unit owner or an authorized representative. “You can look at them and he can’t,” he said. “That’s the dispute.”
Kastrenakes’ ruling could set a legal precedent that could affect how associations treat similar record requests by its members.
The lawsuit, which has generated more than 300 court filings, is the latest skirmish in an exhaustive series of legal conflicts involving the association, including civil lawsuits and arbitration cases before the Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s Division of Condominiums, Time Shares and Mobile Homes.
In those actions, Boca View’s president, Diana Kuka, and members of the governing board have accused the Lepselters, Breitkreutz and another couple, David and Dganit Shefets, of working together to try to oust the board members.
Since its conversion from an apartment complex in 2004, the association has been the subject of 27 complaints to DBPR, Kuka said Friday.
The association leveled similar allegations in documents filed in the lawsuit currently at trial. Addressing the Lepselters’ attorneys, Andrew Schwartz and Christopher Salavar, board treasurer Giuseppe Marcigilano said on the witness stand, “You guys represent all of the troublemakers in the building.”
The conflict goes back nearly a decade, when the Shefets transferred ownership of their two condo units to a limited liability corporation they formed, Cool Spaze LLC, for the purpose of renting out the units. The Shefets sued in 2015 after the association refused to process lease applications, stating that the Shefets did not seek board approval for the transfers. That case is still pending.
Around the same time, a once-cordial relationship between the Lepselters, who work as real estate agents, and Kuka soured.
The animosity led to a pair of 2013 suits filed by Edward Lepselter. The first claimed Kuka spit on him and called him “white trash” during a board meeting. That complaint was later dropped. The second suit, filed in small claims court, sought $1,364 for damage to the couple’s unit that Lepselter said was caused by a broken water pipe that the board failed to maintain.
The association prevailed and litigated so heavily that it originally sought $120,000 in legal fees from the couple. The judge in that case reduced the debt to $32,900 and accused the association’s law firm, Becker, then called Becker & Poliakoff, of compiling time records that were “duplicative, unreasonable, unnecessary and excessive.”
The Shefets filed their request to inspect the board’s financial records in 2016 but the association denied it, saying that the couple were no longer association members because they had transferred ownership to their company.
Yellin’s partner Ryan Poliakoff later acknowledged in a deposition that after the Shefets’ request was denied, the law firm looked for “other concerned owners” to seek access to the association’s records. And Breitkreutz acknowledged in a deposition that the Shefets agreed to pay legal fees incurred in her 2016 record request. Yellin represented Breitkreutz, who lost the case when a judge ruled that the association complied with the law despite the short inspection notice.
On the stand Friday, Eleanor Lepselter said the Shefets loaned the couple $15,000 to help pay the $32,900 legal bill ordered in the small claims case. But she said all of that money had been repaid since 2014 or 2015, and that the couple owed no money to the Shefets when they filed their record request in 2019.
After Yellin was denied access to the records, Eleanor Lepselter filed a complaint for non-binding arbitration by the DBPR.
The arbitrator agreed with Lepselter, stating that the language in the statute requiring access to records be provided to association members or the authorized representative of the member was “directly contrary” to how the association interpreted it.
“The Association does not get to make the choice of who will be the member’s authorized representative,” the arbitrator’s ruling determined. Further, it said that use of the word “or” is inclusive because “it is anticipated that the member and the member’s attorney “would review the records together.”
The arbitrator’s ruling required the association to make all records available and to pay $500 in damages.
Instead, the association sued Eleanor Lepselter, in what is essentially an appeal of the arbitrator’s decision.
On Friday, Kuka acknowledged that one of the reasons the association denied Yellin access to the records is that officers were concerned that Yellin would give copies to the Shefets.
She recounted numerous conflicts with the Lepselters, including calls for police service, election recall efforts, conflicts over planned repairs, and complaints to the city of Boca Raton about alleged code violations.
At several points during the two days of hearings, Kastrenakis cautioned the Boca View witnesses and their attorneys — Adam Cervera and JoAnn Burnette — not to veer off into issues not cited in the complaint or other evidence not filed in the case.
Among numerous arguments, the association’s suit alleges that the Lepselters’ request violated a provision of a separate state law governing access to nonprofit organizations’ financials. The statute says that nonprofits — and homeowner associations fall into this group — must provide access to members if requests are made in “good faith and for a proper purpose.”
In its complaint, the association stated, “There is not doubt that the Lepselters’ request for documents was made in ‘bad faith’ because it was made on behalf of the Shefets, and/or Cool Spaze.”
Kastrenakis said on Thursday that the association waived its right to use the bad faith argument to deny release of the records — because it had previously agreed to provide them to Eleanor Lepselter.
The judge has set Tuesday morning for final arguments in the case, likely to be followed by his ruling, which the association would be entitled to appeal.
Ron Hurtibise covers business and consumer issues for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He can be reached by phone at 954-356-4071, on Twitter @ronhurtibise or by email at rhurtibise@sunsentinel.com .
October 18, 2022
I was very happy to receive the first email from Lucia about investigation of issues facing our building now being handled by our board and manager exclusively. She and a few other owners decided to look into alternatives and information that would be helpful to the board for them to have more information than they had.
Besides the email alert she was in the audience of the recent board meeting and voiced her concerns and the information she had found. I know as I was on the phone listening and was happy that everyone was aware of what needed to happen to go forward.
But I just received the latest email this morning of how the manager and board do not want any advice or help from condo owners that are concerned.
“Jack Buyarski contacted the consultant with FFPS to assist in scheduling the meeting with Greg, Robert and himself, then notified Greg and Robert of an available date and time. Jack was then advised by Robert ‘It is inappropriate for you to contact vendors regarding association business or commitments as you are not a director nor an employee of the Association’.”
This group of condo owners now has a facebook page
We have also started a Facebook page for the community. Click https://www.facebook.com/groups/1247310069439476 to join or search Portofino South West Palm Beach.
I did go on it and was greeted with our dear doorman’s face but it has turned into a place for real estate ads. I have never liked Facebook but if that’s what everyone wants I’ll go along but this is a blog that I can give over or monitor that is much more private and could be centered on our issues only.
Just letting you know this option. I will be coming down to the building mid Nov so unfortunately I will miss the meeting on 10/17. If someone wants to take notes and add it to this blog that would be great.
I thank Lucia and Jack for all their hard work and I want to be as much help as I can.
Vicki Ross
#902
Portofino South 3800 