A former municipal official in Florida who assured condo board members that their building was in “very good shape” three years before it collapsed has left his new job, a city spokesman said Wednesday.
Rosendo “Ross” Prieto is on a leave of absence from his temporary job with a contracting business that provides building services for the city of Doral, a city spokeswoman said in an email statement Wednesday. Doral is located about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of Surfside, where the Champlain Towers South is located.
When he was a building official in Surfside in 2018, Prieto told members of the Champlain Towers South board that their condo building was sound. His assessment came a month after an engineering firm identified key structural deficiencies requiring major costly repairs.
The Doral statement said Prieto works for a firm called C.A.P. Government Inc., which provides building services to governments. That firm notified Doral that Prieto was on a leave of absence, the statement said, with another person taking over on a temporary basis.
Efforts to reach Prieto by telephone and email since the Surfside condominium collapsed last week have not been successful. He left his Surfside job in November.
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The Champlain Towers South collapse has left at least 16 people confirmed dead and more than 100 others still missing.
