Dan Haberman, president of the club, and members of the entire Pickleball Board were seated at a table in the front of the stage.
o
There
was no microphone, but there was a podium.
o RCSC Board members Dale Lehrer and Kat Fimmel were in attendance.
· Dan announced that the purpose of the meeting was to take a vote to see if the majority of those present were in favor of new Pickleball courts being built
at the Lakeview Center. Only Dan, the president, and Lynda Skaggs, the vice-president, were aware of what was about to take place. The other PB Board members did not.·
There
was 1 slide shown on the screen
o It showed 14 Pickleball Courts with a walkway between 7 courts on one side and 7 courts on the other.
· Dan
opened the floor for members to ask questions.
o
Had
the RCSC Board of directors informed the president of the tennis club that they
were eliminating the four tennis courts at Lakeview?
o
Was
there any discussion with the Tennis Club on the repercussions of this action
with the tennis program?
o
Dan
Haberman said he did not know the answer to the questions.
o
Later
it was determined from talking with Dale Lehrer that she was planning on
contacting the president of the Tennis Club to let him know
§
They
were eliminating the two tennis courts at Mountain View.
§
They
would also be getting rid of the four tennis courts at Lakeview.
o
Another
question was asked if they were planning on using just the area where the four
tennis courts were or if they were also going to use the two buildings directly
east of the tennis courts that formally housed the vintage car club?
§
They
did not know the answer to that, as no one had drawn up any detailed plans on
how much space would be needed.
·
At
this time, Karen McAdam introduced herself to the Pickleball members that were
present and let them know that she was an RCSC Board member.
o
She
mentioned that she was very disturbed and disappointed with this news.
o
She
also mentioned that this was the very first that she had heard of these plans.
o
She
was shocked that this idea was presented to the Pickleball members present without
any involvement or discussion with the other RCSC board directors.
§
After
the meeting was over, she determined that another RCSC Board director, Steve
Collins, confirmed that he knew nothing about these plans and that director Kat Fimmel, who accompanied president Lehrer, was not aware of what the meeting was about.
·
Before
the vote was taken, those present were told
o
Whether
they voted yes or no, there was to be no discussion about the plans for
Mountain View.
o
This
was an “all” or “nothing” proposal.
o
If
they voted no, that they didn’t want the courts at Lakeview
§
there
would be no new courts anywhere else and
§
Mountain
View would be demolished
§
This
would leave 20 courts for the entire community
o Dale Lehrer then promised the members that there would not be one single spade in the ground to dig up Mountain View until the new courts at Lakeview were up and running. She also claimed that she had asked other Board members for input but hadn't received any.
·
All
but 2 members present voted Yes and no absentee vote was recorded.
We welcome a response from anyone who
attended the meeting in person.
Advisory Panel Responses to this report:
- Thanks
for the update.
- It
is always amazing these decisions just materialize out of thin air.
o
They
claim there are no work sessions and clearly several of the board members
haven't been involved in the planning of any of this.
- It’s
been pointed out previously that talking to the affected clubs is the correct
way to deal with the clubs and having a frank discussion is the right way to do
it. We agree with that.
- The
tennis courts at Lakeview have been virtually unplayable for years.
o
Not
sure how they get 14 pb courts on that site.
o
If
it is true, that would be a solution.
o The biggest problem is knowing what is true and what is just dribble in an effort to placate.
- Threats and ultimatums - an all-or-nothing proposal???
- Unilateral power - there is a board of 9 members, why is one person making the decisions?
- Not
informing Tennis people beforehand
- This is atrocious and egregious behavior that cannot be left unchecked.
- We
just heard at the last Board meeting that there are over 900 members in the Pickleball Club. Is 80-150 (guess estimate of members present) members a true indication of what the
pickleball players want?
- And
no work will be done at Mountain View until the Lakeview courts are up and
running? That is hard to believe.
8 comments:
This is not the first time I've heard that only a select few board members get to know what's going on?
I thought it was the responsibility of the ENTIRE board to make these decisions an not simple the preference of what 1 or 2 board members decide? Who died and made them King?
and Queens!
Right, Tom? Our Board of 9 members is down to one decision-maker - just like that. This doesn't come off well at all.
It is a total mystery to me why the full RCSC board is so far behind the eight ball when it comes to racquet sports. Do all 9 members not pay attention to the facility usage? The most recent Facilities Activity Report shows usage for Jan+Feb: 16,770 for pickleball, 2,894 for tennis, and 418 for hand/racquetball.
Yes, all stakeholders should be consulted and involved. However it is absurd to see little used tennis courts at both Mountain View and Lake View while the pickleball courts are full with many players waiting. It is not at all unusual to see all 7 Mountain View courts full with 12+ waiting while both tennis courts are empty. The pickleball utilization will be significantly higher if the number of pickleball courts is increased!
Let's do some simple math. RCSC has 2 tennis courts at MV, 4 courts at LV, and 10 courts at Bell. Total 16 courts for 2894 uses or 181 uses per tennis court. RCSC has 202 courts at M and 7 courts at MV. Total 27 courts for 16,770 uses or 621 uses per pickleball court. Basic math says that the court assignments to tennis and pickleball are wildly out of whack!
For those of you new to Sun City (past three years or so), the board relinquished those duties to management. I remember the meeting well because i was livid and told the board so. They thought it was perfectly normal for a single individual or two to make these kinds of decisions. I thought it was complete and utter nonsense. Apparently this was the case, though converting the courts is a budgetary action that will or at least should be decided by the board (and in my opinion before someone offers them to the pickleball club) It’s what happens when you give management control. No accountability, just the paid help doing what they want. Adding the courts for pickleball is a good thing, the way it was handled was God awful.
Darn that spell-check!
What I wanted to say was; what's really out of whack is the fact that there are 9 members of the board (10 including the parliamentarian) but only 1 member of the board knew what the meeting was about?
Nothing will change until the BOD is changed. The only focus OWNERS should have is to recall misfit BOD members, whatever the effort, whatever the cost. BOD and Management have stacked the deck against the OWNERS, so it won't be easy or fast, but making a recall happen should be the primary mission of the Advocates
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