Condo calls newsletter a nuisance

A resident faces fines for distributing his own newsletter.

He calls it free speech. The condo board calls it clutter.


 

Article Courtesy of The St. Petersburg Times

By JACKIE RIPLEY
Friday, July 30, 2004

TOWN 'N COUNTRY - Henry Ludwig doesn't like the way the board of directors at Tudor Cay Condominiums does business, and he's not afraid to say so.

"There are important things going on that people don't know about," said Ludwig, who has lived in the condominiums on W Hillsborough Avenue with his wife, Lorraine, for 12 years. "They're doing things like putting in cheap stairways, and they're not going out for bids on projects."

Those kinds of comments have created problems for the 79-year-old retired engineer. The condominiums' board of directors has fined him hundreds of dollars for refusing to stop distributing his newsletter, which sometimes criticizes board members.

The question is, does Ludwig have a right to deliver his newsletter door-to-door throughout the condos' 262 units?

Ludwig sees it as freedom of expression. The condo board views it as a nuisance, something akin to littering.

* * *

Ludwig types up his one-sheet newsletter and leaves it on his neighbors' doors at the beginning of every month.

"It's a matter of freedom of speech," said Ludwig, who argued his case before a state arbitrator last year and won. "It's freedom of the press."

The arbitrator for the Florida Department of Professional Regulation decided that the Tudor Cay rule that Ludwig was accused of violating actually prohibits only the distribution of commercial advertising, not newsletters. The arbitrator said Ludwig didn't have to pay the fine because his communication was personal.

"Now they're saying I won on a technicality, and they've changed the rule to include newsletters," Ludwig said. Consequently, he must again appear before a fining committee, made up of Tudor Cay residents, to argue why he should not be penalized for continuing to distribute his newsletters.

According to the condominiums' five elected board members, the problem is not what Ludwig is saying but how he is saying it.

"I admire the guy," said Tampa lawyer Steven Mezer, attorney for the Tudor Cay homeowner's association. "He has a right to push the First Amendment, but the law doesn't apply" here, Mezer said.

Mezer said freedom of speech does not apply in the Tudor Cay case because homeowners associations concern themselves with private property, not public property.

"Most condos have an antisolicitation rule of some type," Mezer said. "It's in their declaration of rules and regulations." He argues that those rules supersede even constitutional rights.

The reasons most homeowners associations prohibit door-to-door solicitation have mostly to do with safety concerns and aesthetics, Mezer said, explaining that piled-up newsletters or fliers can attract criminals.

"They also deteriorate the appearance," Mezer said.

Mitch Turner, the board president, said, "The rule is clear." Residents "are not supposed to place any literature on doors," he said.

"It's pretty clear that the rules were enacted to prevent all kinds of notices from being posted," Turner said. "But he's still going door-to-door and ignoring" the rule.

Turner said the board has offered to include Ludwig's bulletins in its quarterly newsletter - but he added that they would be edited for content and length.

He also said that Ludwig could post a copy of his newsletters on public bulletin boards in Tudor Cay's laundry rooms. Or he could e-mail his newsletters or send them by the U.S. mail without violating association rules.

"We tried every way to give him access without putting his newsletters on doors," Turner said. "Henry just doesn't want to spend his own money to mail them."


READ: FINAL ORDER ON MOTION TO REHEARING