A report from 2010 indicates that then Governor Charlie Crist signed a condo repeal bill, which is now being investigated for playing a role in the Surfside condo collapse, to “woo” democratic voters in his race for the U.S Senate.
The report, published in the Palm Beach Post on June 25th, 2010, stated that “Gov. Charlie Crist was on the photo-op express Thursday signing the same bill three times in a two-hour period.”
The bill, SB 1196, was sold as a way to “help distressed condominium associations” during a down real estate market by repealing certain regulations that were put in place in 2008.
Crist told the condo residents at the bill signing events that the legislation was important to him and would empower “condominium owners to make their own decisions about their associations.”
But now, over ten years later, reports indicate that there were provisions repealed in SB 1196 that may have contributed to delayed action related to structural deficiencies at the Champlain Towers South.
Based on a report by NBC 6 South Florida, the 2008 law required condo associations to hire engineers or architects to submit reports every five years about how much it would cost to keep up with repairs.
However, SB 1196 did away with these requirements.
Why is this important?
NBC reported, that a year before the collapse “the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association began a desperate search for $16.2 million to fix major structural damage that was slowly threatening the Surfside high-rise.” At the time, the condo board documents indicated the association had only $770,000 in reserves.
“If the owners would have had a reserve study, if the board was proactive and had funded its reserves, this never would have happened,” said Julio Robaina, a former Republican state legislator.
According to the NBC report, Robaina sponsored the 2008 law requiring condo associations to hire engineers or architects to submit reports every five years about how much it would cost to keep up with repairs.
SB 1196 was sponsored by former state Rep. Gary Aubuchon, a Republican real estate broker and home-builder. The bill overwhelmingly passed the House (111-3) and the Senate (39-0) before being signed by Crist.
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Report: Crist Used Condo Repeal Bill to “Woo” Democratic Voters added by Steve Stewart on
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To those desperate partisans trying to blame the spike in COVID-19 on Gov. Desantis and the GOP – please remember that Florida continues to far outperform key Democratic Party bastions like New York when it comes to fatalities per capita (54,000 in the Empire State vs. 38,000 in Florida while New York has nearly 2 million fewer residents)..
It is obvious some structural elements were at fault. However I have to ask myself, why would any human being want to live 12 floors up in a concrete box squezzed in among a bunch of folks they do not know in the first place??? Must be from the North where that is a common way to live………not for me(a good old boy from the heartland (open spaces) of the SOUTH !!)
And DeSantis and Rick Scott have been governors for how long?
But, sure, let’s blame the guy who was governor decades ago.
And here’s a fun fact. Florida now accounts for 20 percent of all new COVID-19 infections.
But, DeSantis is selling anti-vax tshirts.
Killing 37,000 Floridians by COVID neglect.
Great call, GOP!
Commenters seem to be ignoring the fact that Christ was a Republican, as was both the House and Senate. This bill was the final piece of the dismantling of Condo Board regulation that was started by Jeb Bush. No one members when Bush cancelled elevator inspections claiming “There are no elevator accidents, so inspections are not needed.” Shortly afterward, 2 people died in elevator accidents in Florida. The deregulation was started by Jeb and is 100% owned by Republicans.
@ S. Whiplash = They did not demolishing the second tower, it is a Block away. What they demolished was the rest of that Building making it fall away from where the rescue was taking place. They did that because they building was making noises to the point they thought it might fall and with the Hurricane heading that way at the time, they didn’t want it to fall on top of where they were working. They emptied the second Building just to be safe and they are re-inspecting it and the Third Building as well.
The other half was demolished precisely for that reason Snidely. Who in their right mind thinks that bringing down the second half of a collapsed building will help find possible survivors in the rubble of the first half’s collapse.
It’s like chumming the water to help search for the remains of a shark attack victim.
If there was government corruption involved in bribes taken or given that green lighted shoddy construction, maintenance, or whatever in the Surfside buildings then demolishing the second tower before the rescue mission became a recovery mission then demolishing the second tower would certainly put an end to anyone ever finding out about any government corruption.
Had Surfside been built in the 1970’s we might expect to finally locate Jimmy Hoffa inside one of the concrete supports that held up the building.
To be fair, it’s not all Chuck’s fault. Since Castro emptied his prisons onto our shores in 1980, and Bob Graham welcomed it… Miami/Dade (aka: North Cuba) has become a cesspool of corporate and government corruption.
The Dementia Joe Biden Sadministration is doing the same thing via our southern border… crime and Covid are going up again due to the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of unvented criminal diseases-infected illegal aliens invading our country and being spread throughout the Nation. What’s worse, the Republicans are too weak to do anything about the clear and present treasonous acts being perpetrated by the DemoKKKrats.
Things are gonna get a lot worse before they get better folks. Be smart, be safe, remain aware of your surrounding at all times… and watch your six.
Bigger question is why are Charlie Crist’s pants up so high in that picture?
Miami/Dade has been a hot bed of organized crime and corrupt local government officials since before Jackie Gleason packed up his entire crew and left NYC on the booze train to Miami. Due to this many State agencies carved out separate regulation exclusively for Miami/Dade. In theory to provide Miami/Dade its own regulatory office. But in practice to provide a legal degree of separation from officials in Tallahassee and the criminal and corrupt public officials in Miami/Dade County.
It is not out of the realm of possibilities that local Miami/Dade officials accepted bribe money to look the other way on local building code violations in the initial construction and ongoing maintenance of many buildings down there in that separately regulated portion of Florida known as Miami/Dade.
Bravo to conservatives for lobbing the first round of mud slinging on Christ. I dont know how effective this historical condo related mud will be on knocking Good Ole Charley out. But offense is always the best defense. Bravo.
I can’t think of a more well tanned dirt bag to blame the condo collapse on… It’s all your fault Charlie! yeah, that’s the ticket.
too funny
New campaign slogan for Crist:
Sorry Charlie
I don’t like Crist one bit and I surely hope he doesn’t become our Governor again BUT, since the Bill overwhelmingly passed the House (111-3) and the Senate (39-0) Crist pretty much HAD to sign it, that’s why we have a Legislation.