Questions raised about simultaneous condo directorships

The media, lawyers, and condo owners appear shocked at the news that condo board elections were won by candidates who are not owner-residents, who are alleged to have forged proxies and signatures, faked parts of their campaign literature and appear to have used their positions on the boards to advance private interests over the best interests of the condo corporations.

Old news
Let's look at the "shocking" issues that are being raised:

Condo board elections were won by candidates who are not owner-residents. This is common and in many cases condo communities are well served by renters, relatives of owners or retirees who have great managerial skills and the time to volunteer.

Fake resumes on campaign literature. This is so common that campaign literature should never been taken at face value.

Forged proxies and ballot stuffing is far more common than you would think. At times property managers engineer crooked elections. Sometimes the directors do it and sometimes the candidates play games.

Why not? Most of the time they don't get caught and if they do get exposed, there are no penalties.

One of the group, Darryl McGregor was convicted in 2013 of breaking into a condo unit at Icon and stealing items belonging to a resident.

This may raise eyebrows but there is nothing to prevent convicted criminals from serving as condo directors if the owners will elect them. (I suppose Darryl forgot to include this conviction in his campaign literature.)

Advancing private interests. Is anyone surprised? It is not unusual for directors to award contracts to relatives, friends or countrymen.

At other times, the newly elected directors want to settle old grudges with the property management company, the corporation lawyer, cleaners, superintendent or security guards. Perhaps all of them.

Of course the new directors are rewarded in some way or manner.

The Las Vegas model
In 2002, Wanda Murray thought that buying a condominium in Las Vegas was a pretty good idea. That was before she got tangled up in and eventually help unravel a complex criminal conspiracy involving strangers taking over the boards of several condo corporations and ripping them off for over a quarter of a billion dollars.

That was the first time that I know of where outsiders seized control of several condo corporations.

Anything novel here?
The only thing that makes this condo election scandal stand out is that the persons and the condos involved are named. That is extremely rare. Condos love to hide their secrets and loath bad press. (Got to maintain property values you know. Mustn't let prospective buyers know they're purchasing flawed goods.)

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