Ex-official who said Surfside condo was sound leaves new job

MIAMI (AP) — A former city official who assured leaders that a Florida condo building was in “very good shape” three years before it collapsed has left his new job. A statement from the city of Doral says Rosendo “Ross” Prieto is on a leave of absence from his temporary job with a contracting company that does business with governments. Doral is located about 20 miles west of Surfside where the Champlain Towers South condominium is located. When he was a building official for Surfside in 2018, Prieto told Champlain Towers South board members that their building was sound. That was a month after an engineering firm identified structural deficiencies needing repair. The building partially collapsed last week.