Finishing out the calendar year 2022
After a nice summer, we are ready to get busy. How about you?
It all starts on September 12th Member/Board Exchange and culminates with the December Election of Board Candidates. There's lots in between. None more important than the November 1, Membership Annual meeting. See our handy calendar page for upcoming events.
But wait, we are getting ahead of ourselves. We think it is important to let you inside our heads and to do that, we want you to hear the discussion 6 of us had on Tuesday.
What is to become of the Sun City Advocates going forward?
The first question asked was this: What is to become of the Sun City Advocates going forward? We spent an hour or more on that and came away with one single thought; Nothing is more important to the SCA than this coming RCSC board election. NOTHING!
Finding our voice
While the firing of Karen McAdam was the impetus, we always understood unless and until the board was comprised of members, who believed that RCSC members were entitled to a voice, we would always be second class citizens. We witnessed that first hand at last years annual membership meeting when we met the quorum requirements. They really didn't give a damn what we thought or said. After 15 years of making us "card-holders" they had become believers they were right and we were wrong; we weren't entitled to what the provisions the Articles of Incorporation guaranteed us. Read Tom Malone's letter to the Board addressing meeting decorum.
We heard all of the platitudes and sermonizing about working together as we entered 2022. We had high hopes they meant it. They sounded good. Let's be very clear, you have to look no further than the Member/Board Exchange Meeting in April of 2022. 3 golfing members spoke to what was happening on our golf courses. They weren't members of the SCA, they were frustrated RCSC members who were unhappy because non-members were getting tee times ahead of members.
Protecting Our Amenities
You can read about it here. The reality is non-members buying full play passes are enjoying the benefits all RCSC members are paying for, They are paying less and getting better access than most RCSC members. It is insane. When the board had a chance to fix it in June, they did nothing. Director Collins made a motion to begin to address it, they voted it down. Come the September member/board exchange, it will be your chance to tell board members not to give away our amenities.
RCSC Board of Director Elections
Following that discussion, we talked about potential board candidates. The RCSC are the only ones who know who the candidates will be. They don't share that information until after the packets have been submitted and the date closed. Sometime in early October. We only know of one candidate for certain; Jean Totten. She has been a driving force in the SCA and has decided she would take a leave of absence to focus on her candidacy. We'll miss her involvement with us, but she feels it is important to be committed to getting elected. You can read her reasons here,
The Sun City Advocates is in an interesting place. Our future, your future is intricately tied to how and who you vote for. We don't know exactly, what our future holds. You will decide that based on how you vote. We do know over the next 4 months, you will see us doing and saying things in a more aggressive manner. Nope, not hostile, not angry, just very blunt and on point. Our real hope is there is a flurry of quality candidates committed to the process of self-governance. Potential board members who both understand and believe in listening to the membership.
While we don't know who the candidates are, we are planning to be in a position where the membership is given clear choices in the directors they elect. We will not be leaving anything to chance and come this election, you will have at least 3 quality candidates who believe in the tenets this community was built under and around. A sense of community: A sense of ownership; A sense of accountability and responsibility.
We'll try not to clog your mailbox with information, but we know how important this election is to the future of our community.
Bill Pearson - Advisory Panel - Sun City Advocates
10 comments:
Bill, as you are aware I am unable to post on TOSC so here I am posting a comment that has nothing to do with the subject listed here.
I would like to personally thank Gary Cotton for that fine explanation of the facilities agreement being a contract of adhesion. Looks like that real estate training has paid off. The problem with this type of contract is the party offering the terms and conditions, the contract still can be open to interpretation, like a claim that has been denied under homeowner’s insurance. Think of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and whether the property damage was the result of wind or water.
As for the facilities agreement, Mr. Cotton cites a clause that the RCSC operates for the benefit of the members as an argument regarding outside golfers. Taking away the kerfuffle over tee times, cost and groups, does permitting outside play, which generates few hundred thousand dollars per year in a way “benefit” the membership as management devises ways in an attempt to reduce the year end deficit which fold alleges generates. Taking it one step further, would the revenue generated preclude an increase in the recreation fees? I am not trying to solve the problem as I have not golfed in years. I do realize that it would entail annual passes without carts, increase in greens fees, the policy that outsiders are relegated to leftovers on tee times and so forth.
The thrust of my argument is that Mr. Cotton citation gives the impression that golf should be for members only. If my assumption is incorrect, please advise. One other thing Bill, tell Gary who I really am, he should be thrilled.
A couple of quick things in response. I don't know if Gary Cotten reads these pages but if he does, C de P is in fact Dave Wieland. It's important not to describe giving away our amenities as a "kerfuffle." Because the brunt of the argument is specifically about prime time tee times, rates lower than members and renting them golf cars for less than members can rent them for. That's no small deal.
The other thing that needs be made clear is, selling unfilled tee times at the going rate to what outsiders would pay on a non RCSc golf course isn't a problem. Sun City West sells unfilled tee times to non-residents in far greater dollar figures than the RCSC does. The difference is, they don't sell them cheaper than a member would pay, and members have first option at those tee times.
The real genesis of this complaint, so i am very clear, is non-resident full play passes. Throw in allowing them access via our web portal on an equal basis to that of a member and their ability to join with a small group and override the system with pre-booking and it is a disaster waiting to happen. Then compound it all by letting them guarantee a golf car for $500 and let a non-golf car purchase full play pass player jump in the car with them and see how little they are paying for that golf car.
Here's the problem Dave; every Sun City resident subsidizes golf; let me repeat, every Sun City resident subsidizes golf. It's one thing to argue we should help members pay as little as $5 for a round of golf (insanity by the way), but it's another thing to say my 100 year old neighbor who hasn't been in a rec center for 20 years or more should subsidize some 45 year old living in Peoria be able to play for less than $20 per round.
Hope that helps.
Dave Wieland interesting backstory:
https://talkofsuncity.com/threads/dave-wieland-resigns-from-rcsc.3622/
Thank you for that good tough journalistic research. Google is wonderful as it can make anyone a Woodward or Bernstein. If you are trying to “out me” or something, it’s not working. Try the Independent the week or so after I resigned for a nice story, “I bought five copies for my mother.” Better yet try TOSC in about May or June of 2015 and my efforts on the PIF. Interesting back story.
Deus illud vult!
Dave, it is a very positive reflection of your character. I think it is worthy of sharing, especially with those who do not know you. Regret you don’t agree.
I agree Anon, i reread the comments on TOSC, many of them written by me and they were all complimentary of Dave and applauded his actions. Unfortunately i couldn't find the article Dave mentioned from the Independent. I do recall we were all stunned when he quit.
He's not the first to have walked away frustrated and he won't be the last. The whole point of group think is to have everybody think and sound alike. Most of us understand, that's not how life works. Why should the RCSC board be any different?
Bill, the point I was making was the subjective nature of the word benefits. That could mean banning outside play or could mean the revenue generated once this golf mess is cleaned up.
Too bad that the person could not find your posting over the PIF raise to $3.600 a few years ago. Jan essentially presented figures that showed that PIF would be negative after the solar payoff using houses sold (1.500) was not enough. I challenged her housing numbers and asked for something that was based in reality. Presto chango the new numbers showed that the projections were a fallacy. I tried to convince the Board that the increase was unnecessary, but failed. One Board member said that they had to vote for it was because a sitting Board member at the time helped secured signatures on their candidate petition and felt that they had an obligation to that member.
The most recent increase was based on the same houses as the previous request which I called management out on, but they sold the Board on the same crappy projection and argument as before. Essentially Board passed an increased based on a lie.
Couldn't agree more regarding the whole argument about "budgeting conservatively." It was Jan's mantra. Hell, when i was first on the board (2012), they weren't even using 1500 homes sold per year. It was something less. Jan loved to tout how much better they were doing than what they budgeted. Budgets they under-write are nothing more than patting themselves on the back on how good they are doing.
My hope was Bill Cook would come in and be realistic. Same old, same old. Real numbers are just that, budgets are meaningless if they know they are being "conservative." Clearly they haven't changed a thing.
I've been waiting to see the July numbers. They came out today; no surprise. The alleged "fix" to the abuses by selling full play passes to non-residents got worse. July sales in 2021 was $19,166 and in July 2022 it was $25,993. And please don't try to tell me the nearly $6000 in revenue was from the $250 increase in price.
The reality is they raised the price and they sold even more passes than the year (1 or 2) before. It didn't slow it down and now we are living with them taking our prime time tee times, paying less than members are paying to golf and are being guaranteed golf cars for a fraction of what members are paying to rent cars. It's shameful.
I'm fine with outside play as long as it's open tee times after members have first choice and they never get on a course for less than what the members pay. Never.
Anonymous, I apologize for totally misunderstanding your post. Thank you for putting me in a positive light as it hasn’t happened much over the of posting on TOSC and sometimes on this site. Hope we can meet sometime and chew the fat on various topics..
The word floating about the community is the Sept 12 Member/Board Exchange meeting will be well attended. Apparently the membership has gotten a taste of having a voice and have come to understand the importance/value of making their wishes known. We'll see if the rumors are true, or just rumors.
I would encourage anyone attending that wants to speak, stay on point and be concise. Rambling will lose those in the rooms attention and allow the board to drift as well. I know, speaking personally, i need to work at that as i tend to belabor an issue.
Really looking forward to Monday, it appears the board unleashed the beast and that's, in my humble opinion, a really awesome thing. Better than just the number in the room (still lots of folks gone), watch the number of views of the video by months end, i'll predict close to 1000.
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