Article Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal

By MICHAEL CORKERY

Published June 7, 2006

After less than two years on the job,  Florida's first condominium ombudsman has been evicted.

"It's a relief," Virgil Rizzo, head of a small state agency set up to mediate the sometimes heated disputes between condo owners and their condo-building governing boards, said after Gov. Jeb Bush's office told him to pick his bags last week.

Dr.  Rizzo, whose office was the subject of a page-one Wall Street Journal article about its efforts to bringing peace to Florida's condos, said his biggest battle was with the state's Department of Business and Professional Regulation, where the ombudsman is housed.  "They didn't like that I didn't play the bureaucratic game," said Dr. Rizzo, a lawyer and retired physician who was appointed to the job in December 2004.

The department's secretary, Simone Marstiller, said the former ombudsman refused to be held account able." For example, she said her department had difficulty conducting an administrative review of his office.  Dr. Rizzo said he cooperated with the review, but disputed the department's efforts to control his office.

Danille Carroll, a lawyer who has worked with the Florida Department of Health, was appointed the new ombudsman.  Ms. Carroll, who will receive an annual salary of $80,800, said one of her goals is to educate condo owners and associations about their rights.

Meantime, Dr. Rizzo is writing a book about his experience.  That way, he'll have more freedom "to tell the story as I see it," he said.