A better Sun City...IMHO.

Good comments gang and exactly why we need work within the community to see and hear what those of us living here want or need going forward. I've listened to the arguments regarding apathy most of mu work life and i tend to blame those running the show rather than those who fail to show up.

As i have written, growing the circle won't happen by accident, but because the board and management set it as a priority. Getting people involved simply because they bought a house here is a fools game. In our formulative years there was a whole different connection within the community. Today there's a disconnect, mostly due to technology. That's why it's so important to use technology to grow the circle.

As far as the quorum, i'd be delighted to see it go back to 100, but it will never happen. The funny thing is when it was 100, nothing bad ever came of it. Any motion from the floor was kicked back to be studied by the board in accordance with our By-Laws. What it did do was hold the board from making stupid decisions that would get people up in arms. Now days, there's no repercussions for foolishness.

And anyone who thinks this all happened by accident is smoking something. Hopefully the new year will bring about a more responsive board willing to listen.

We'll see.

 

I'm still trying to process that 100 residents is not enough but 9 board members are.

 

So it must have been the fog of flu that had me read this wrong:

4). Reduce the quorum for the annual membership meeting to 500 (or less).

For some reason I thought in terms of 100. I could go for 500 and think it's doable.

 

Equally mystical/inconsistent is that those 9 can call a special member meeting whenever they choose, but if members want a special meeting it requires petitions signed by "one-tenth (1/10) of the votes entitled to be cast" -- ie, 3500 give or take, not the current quorum of 1250?

Section XIII of the AOI state "The Members of the Corporation shall be provided with the opportunity to vote by proxy", but there is no By-Law or Board Policy I know of that alludes to requirements/procedure to vote those proxies at, for example, a member meeting. It would certainly be entertaining to try, though.:biggrin-new:

 

The rabbit hole...

 

Just so you know; the argument from the board/management is we elect those 9 to represent us. Yet when they are sworn in, they pledge allegiance to the RCSC as a corporation. It's always been one of those items that seems illogical to me.

We heard this past year it should be a "symbiotic relationship" where each part works in concert with one another. As we have discussed ad-nauseam, that's hardly the case when over the years the protections to insure that relationship have shifted to one side. Clearly the board holds the power, as members show up to protest, the board votes without concerns for any repercussions.

Good to hear aggie you were heavily medicated when you left #4 off the list. I will tell you, we couldn't reach a quorum of 500 unless the board/management put on a full court press to get folks to the annual meeting. It could be done, but it would take a commitment far greater than in years past. The safety net of course is most people living in Sun City love it so finding a majority of 251 (50% + 1) disgruntled owners would be near on impossible. The bigger picture is about starting to rebuild the process of involvement in a community that was built through self-governance.

Who knows, new board, maybe some new energies eh?

 

Again I ask, if 9 can represent the corporation why can't 100 can represent the community? It's that simple. I know you say it's unlikely to happen but I don't understand the reasoning. Can someone on the board please explain it to me?

The population of Arizona is 6,795,500 with 2 Senators and 9 House members.

 

Yes Sun City is great, most agree. I'm happy I found it. The hope is to keep it that way. Not everyone will want to get involved but those who do need support to do it. The board has their vital function but as Bill said, they take a pledge to the corporation. Community input needs to balance that out. Every group that controls the money needs a watchdog. That's just reality.

 

We are indeed a work in progress E, and that is exactly why those of living here should pay closer attention. The devil is always in the detail, and way too often the detail is lost to even those who are paying attention.

One only has to look back over the past years to see how we have become golf-focused and wonder how that happened? My real concern is we have lost the edge we had over other age restricted communities because we have put some much of our PIF revenues into golf. We can only speculate what we would have looked like had we only spent half of that soon to be 50 million dollars on golf and the other half on something more community centered.

 

What always strikes me as odd is more money is not alocated for services as people age. I understand it is considered active community, but if course people stay through aging. I wish more services were available for that. I'm not even certain what that would be right now, I just know when I read about what services are available it seems something is lacking in that area for aging in place.

 

Great points Emily; Sun City's infrastructure on aging is truly a hidden gem. It's not one that gets much attention as there's not much pretty about getting old (from a marketing standpoint). That's one of the reasons i was so pleased with the new RCSC website; they took the time to post a good number of those outreach services available for our older population. I also liked they added a section on housing styles and options.

Very impressive.

 

I will definitely look at it again then. Maybe I was not giving it enough time. I do know about most of those services you mentioned. But I wonder sometimes about the personal touch. Does anyone visit homebound people just to say hello how are you? Or maybe that's a pie in the sky idea that's not needed. Maybe it's difficult to even know who would want or need it. Or maybe not knowing that is the issue.

 

There was a day and age when that was common place C; everyone knew their next door neighbor. Back in the day, there were neighborhood watches and multiple organizations that seniors could contact and they would be called at least once a day to insure they were alright. There's still some pockets of that in Sun City, but alas, societally we have changed. Technology has allowed us to evolve to a"higher" place...but has it? Does the fact we have less direct human interaction make us better or worse off?

When i ran for the board, i printed a 4 page paper talking about my goals for a better Sun City. In part, i talked about the past on one page, because i think many of those basic tenets that made us special should never be lost. We always should move forward, but that doesn't mean we have to lose the human touches that got us here.

 

Technology is good for homebound and/or lonely people in that many required items can be delivered and for contact with far away family, if they have them. But too often people won't ask for help even when needed. It can effect overall health.

 

The meeting was interesting today, a better crowd than normal, hopefully a sign of things to come. The meeting should be posted by tomorrow sometime. Don't get excited by the coats and ties, it was picture day for the new board so next time around they should be back to a more leisurely look.

Finally, i made some comments congratulating the board for recording the meeting and said it was a good first step.

Conversely, another long time Sun City resident from the "greatest Generation" admonished the board for their derision, claiming it may well come back to bite them. Clearly the difference from that generation compared to boomers. Time will tell who was/is right or wrong.

 

Regardless of who it bites it's still the right thing to do. Everyone cannot attend and all residents should have the opportunity to know what is said.

 

I applaud the YouTube video of the meeting. I watched it when I got home from work this afternoon and found it useful and informative. As time passes I hope they can improve camera angles and sound, but all in all it was a great start !

I have always wondered why one's rec center number needed to be announced from the speakers podium -- can't it be gotten for the board record by whomever is managing the list of speakers/calling their names. For walk-up speakers it could be captured off-line immediately before/after they speak. It's kind of a time waster/serves no purpose to the audience in general, and now that these videos are public is their any security reason to not wish one's rec center number released to the world ? Just wondering.

 

Thank you Emily, that's so kind. I hope I can do something good.

 

Old thread, but pretty darn good.