8/15/2008

John "sweet jelly roll" Carona is a slumlord???

Senate Transportation Chairman's property management company skimps on maintenance and endangers property owners.

State senator involved in controversy over condos in danger of collapse.

By Lee McGuir, KHOU-TV (Houston)

For three years Dan Seluk and his wife Andrea have paid maintenance fees to the Park Memorial Condominiums. The same complex city inspectors now warn is in imminent danger of collapse.

The city says the parking garage might simply fall apart and take the dozens of condos that sit above the garage down with them.

But the condo’s management teams had been collecting those maintenance fees for years.“So you’re probably talking in three years about $15,000 in maintenance fees,” said condo resident Dan Seluk.The issue even had Houston’s mayor Wednesday wondering what had gone wrong.“The whole situation seems odd to me,” said Mayor Bill White.But he wasn’t the only one having doubts.“There’s a big question. Where have all our maintenance fees gone. Where have they gone?” said Andrew Seluk.

For a long time the money went to a company called Prime Site which was later absorbed by Associa Principal Management Group. In April that company ended its management agreement and copied at the bottom of the letter the company’s CEO, John Carona.

Carona is a state senator, but his day job is CEO of one of the largest property management companies in the nation. Until this summer his group managed the now-hazardous condominiums. He also wrote the Texas Residential Property Owners Protection Act.

“To think that someone in public office is running these companies and is perhaps making a lot of money. And the service of these companies is so terrible and the homeowner’s hands are tied.” said Dan Seluk.

Read the whole article HERE.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

impeach. incarcerate.

Anonymous said...

Keep up the fight. We can win
http://thenewspaper.com/news/25/2501.asp

Anonymous said...

Don't buy in to Houston mayor Bill White being the answer to our problems, especially as Governor. His administration has been all about collecting fees for permits, but as you can see, precious little is done for those the law is supposed to protect. Caveat emptor.