The Culture of a Community...

I know this will be hard to believe, but i like to listen. Not just to answers from candidates, but from the phrases they use, how they weave those responses into the fabric of what Sun City should be. On the other hand, i resent when people tell me what they did for a living a dozen times or more in a two hour period.

Anyone who has read anything about Sun City's first 60 years will know some brilliant people worked tirelessly to shape it. Here's the kicker, it didn't matter what they did the first 60 years of their life. The only thing people cared about was what they did once they came to Sun City. Experience is great, tell me once and then be able to articulate your vision for the community; something other than, "working together" which is nothing more than a euphemism for don't vote for Karen.

By now you know this is a reflection on the two candidate forums we just held and i willingly sat through both. I went through a period where i pretty much tuned out the RCSC governance. I knew what we were getting because the gm had taken control and there was nothing those of us looking in could do. The board bought into her mantra and it was simply what it was.

Last night's candidate forum was far better than the first. That is to be expected. Half the candidates were doing it for the first time the other half have sat on the stage before, but even the most tested improve with each effort. What i fail to understand is why one candidate didn't make either session and is still on the ballot? That is crazy. If she withdrew, just take her off.

Two candidates last night spoke to me, touched me. Both went to that special place that gave birth to Sun City's amazing success. Culturally, Sun City was founded on the principles of self-governance, ownership and volunteerism. It was based on when you moved here you had an obligation to be involved, at the very least pay attention. Both Kat and Karen were spot on.

That is so important. As i said in my question last night, Sun City is at a moment where there will be a sea change. For the first time in 15 years, we will have the opportunity to restore the values and the tenets we were founded under. For some, it may not matter. For many, just giving the gm the ultimate authority and then electing a board who swallow it all up is okay. For me it's not.

That's why when those on the stage touch a nerve, i jump. I get excited by the prospect of electing people who listen to the community. Who won't let management make things up as they go along to fulfill their vision for the community.

Sun City belongs to all of us, it always has. For some reason we've allowed it to drift away. We need to return to our roots. We need elect people who are not marching in lock step with the gm but will listen to the voices across the community. Who understand the "culture" of the community. Who appreciate differing opinions and are willing to find the best answers, not just the easiest.

Governing is hard, serving on the board is hard work. The new gm has a boatload of issues on his plate. I'm still not sure who i will vote for after Karen and Kat. I wish i had heard more regarding our culture, our values and the need to appreciate our history.

Love to hear others thoughts regarding the candidate forum's.

 

Love to hear others thoughts regarding the candidate forum's.[/QUOTE]

BP, you probably should have called this What are your opinions on the Forums? Everyone else has chimed in on who they like over in Board Candidates and you are over in Board Candidates all by yourself!

 

Here's my comments;

How do you think the youtube participation went.

My take aways -
1. The first 14 or 15 minutes of the video were lost to be offline.
2. The lost time was not made up for questioning.
3. All Hoffers up front comments and directions on how the forum was to be run shoud have been covered in the MANDATORY session before the forum.
4. The lightening round is a total waste. It's more important to hear from the members.
5. Hoffer should ask the questions as they were posed on youtube (even though there were only 2 I believe). He should not be expressing his opinion on what the question.
6. Members wishing to ask questions at the podium should be queued up well before they are called. Wastes time.
7. Not really sure , but I think there were more viewers on youtube than there were in the audience. Last time I checked while watching the live stream there were 39 viewers. How many were in the audience. I don't think it was that many. I will have to look at the video to see if they show the live attendance.
8. Not enough questions to the candidates from the youtube viewers. There were several that were not asked.
9 Hoffer picks and chooses what he want to hear.

 

I would be willing to bet that if there aren't 4 candidates with 100 votes, Stella will become the next retread.

 

Stella's a drama queen if you can find a board meeting recording on youtube look at the way she conducts herself during voting. She's a F.. ing clown

 

There were approximately 60 Members in the audience and that doesn't count any board members or staff.

The forum on Monday faired out a little better. I counted roughly 100 in attendance.

Some say "nice turnout", but I guess that's all relative and compared to the previous years! I think it's pathetic when you consider the population of Sun City at about 38,000!

You know what they say, "You get the government you deserve." If you're not engaged then you have no right to bitch about it!

 

SCR: “ Not enough questions to the candidates from the youtube viewers. There were several that were not asked.”

There were 13 questions for candidates submitted in the live chat Wednesday night.
I copy/pasted the list.

ONLY ONE was asked!! Question: Explain your committment to making the membership meeting happen with the current quorum.

Online Members we’re ghosted by Director Hoffer’s rotation choices between in person and online!!

 

I approached this thread from the perspective of the two candidates and their comments regarding the culture of the community and my intent is to develop the topic down that path. For example last night we talked about how meetings might evolve next year. Interesting concept of a blended board member exchange and open work session. I've been doing these for so long i love testing candidates to see how open they are before they get elected and what actually happens when they get into office. In this case some of it has a chance simply because there are so many candidates.

Another area they started chattering was about all of our documents being posted online and readily available. Let's start with this; they should be. They aren't; can that change? I'd love to explore in this thread how we would like to see the community evolve under the new gm. Is it all fools gold? Maybe. One of the museum board members came over and whispered in my ear after each candidate filled us in on all their Sun City activities, not a one mentioned any connection with the Museum. I would argue long and hard, that's their first problem.

 

First, we need to get to a place where the board and management allows the Members to be interactive/proactive instead of reactive! By the time we find out about things the damage has been done.

It all gets back to transparency. Don't just tell me you spent X total dollars on supplies, tell me how much each supply cost! Stop burying costs like the maintenance cost of golf with the maintenance cost of all the rec centers! What percentage of our assessment goes for salaries and how much goes towards insurances, how much goes to...?

What future projects are you considering and how much will they cost? Was there a cost benefit analyses? What's the timeline? Is this a "must" project or a "wish-list" project? What funds are available for this project without jeopardizing another?

Member Exchanges immediately followed up with a board work session would be a good start.

One Board meeting a month requiring only one vote to pass a motion.

Amend the Bylaws so Member participation isn't so restrictive. Allow Member petitions, referendums and recall petitions as well as Proxy vote forms to be signed on RCSC property.

Remove the 3 year Limitation Period on Membership meetings. (see Article IV, §6)

Reduce the Membership quorum to 300-500 with 3 or 4 Membership meetings a year. This will allow that if any dilatory or destructive motions were passed by the Membership there would be time at the next Membership meeting to undo the damage before it happened. I believe if 300 Members passed a damaging motion, the next meeting would attract 600 Members to undo it! The more that gets accomplished at the Membership meetings the more interest will be generated among the Members creating a desire to attend. Nobody attends the meetings now because nothing ever gets done! The quorum is obviously to high considering we haven't had a Membership Meeting since 2009!

How about a Constitution and Bylaw Committee to review the current Bylaws and make recommendations for amendments?

Look, we all understand that you're never going to please everybody with your decisions but if both the board and the membership were involved, or at least informed, the current relationship between the board and the Members wouldn't be so contentious! All's we're really asking for is to learn about things before they happen, not after it's too late! It's our money...remember?

to be continued...

 

Good responses gang, easy to say hard to accomplish. I'll add another one so you understand why we are facing an uphill battle. Sun City elections for board members has become an act where special interest groups dictate the terms of the outcome. Typically, that would be the larger clubs who select their candidates of choice and then circulate the names of who to vote for. The easiest to identify is the golf community, which is one of the reasons golf has received preferential treatment.

Back in the "good old days" ideas, platforms and the ability to communicate and articulate your vision was far more important. The two Sun City newspapers were read by everyone. Obviously that isn't the case any more. As FYI pointed out, the two candidate forums had roughly 150 people in attendance and another small number watching live. I suspect before election day, more people will watch one or both forums than were there or watched live. In the end, the number will be lucky to reach 1000.

It all begs the question? How do we get people to pay attention and even care who runs, who wins? I've many times written it all starts at the beginning; literally at the point when people first buy in Sun City. It's an education process where there is a commitment to nurture both the fun side and involvement side of the Sun City way of life. Sadly the exiting gm only wanted to promote the fun side. Leave the hard work of governance to us.

Mike, and others have pointed out, how the evolution of communication by the RCSC has become one dimensional. Everything is one way, from them to us. Newsprint is all but dead and the only area they have enhanced the concept of technology has been in how they reach us. Emails, recorded meetings and the new video format is all contained in them telling us what is going on. Our one opportunity is at board meetings where the keeper of the clock is all that matters. I can't tell you how many times members came to the mic, expressed their opinion and then crickets, nothing. Maybe that was for the better because all too often it was a response that was short and not sweet.

I will give you the best example i can think of. 2020, the pandemic year was awful; for everyone. There were no easy answers, no go-to book to tell anyone how to function. I refused to be critical of their actions, it was all trial and error. Except, in this case: The cold and impersonal communication to the membership was atrocious. They simply said, pay your assessments or else. They posted security around the rec centers and fences around various amenities. They took no interest in the memberships problems and only looked at all the challenges they faced. It was simply short-sighted and impersonal.

One of Sun City's greatest assets was the bond that grew between those who were elected and those living here. It would be pure BS to pretend there weren't problems and at times chaos. The defining difference was just this: Before the current gm, the board was elected to serve the membership and the management team was hired to run the day to day operations. Clearly a definition of duties. Over the past 15 years that culture has changed and evolved to one where management has all of those duties and responsibilities. Board members are just there. That's why when the shit hit the fan, they were clueless.

There's more, but i will come back later and explain where i believe this should go.

 

My dear friend Ben Roloff has spent a goodly portion of the past 5 years at the state archives. He has sifted through micro film detailing and documenting those early years through the lens of the daily and weekly papers. It's been a herculean task but the payoff has been spectacular. Not only did he take fantastic notes, he printed out page after page of stories of interest. I have one of his many folders and am sifting through it looking for the stories regarding the sale of the golf courses to the RCSC. It was the news of the day, not a gm's 45 year old interpretation of what she thinks they meant when buying them. Guess what? Big freaking difference.

But that's not the point of this thread is it? Nope, we are talking about the culture of the community. We are looking at how Sun City changed, evolved. If i told you there were Letters To The Editor back in the early 80's where writers were angered by the crappy turnout of voters for the RCSC elections would you be surprised? Probably not. But if told you that frustration was fueled by only 12,500 voters casting ballots, my guess is i would get your attention.

Now days we see a norm of a 1000 voters with a high water mark of something well short of 2000 ballots and one quickly comes to understand how times have changed. Hell, watch the video from the candidates and tell me what the differences are in the platforms? Nope, not being critical of them, there are several good options. The problem is we have become watered down to a point of getting excited more by the number being elected than by what they tell us they are going to try and do.

Please spare me the platitudes of "working together," Seriously, we've spent the last 15 years working together, unfortunately it has been with the general manager. Very early on in her term she made golf the target and we simply kept electing golfers to be the majority of the board. They in turn rewarded the golfers with incredibly cheap rounds of golf via the full play pass and now we are in the hole we are in. Talk about a freaking conflict of interest.

Yesterday's news. As we turn the page and go forward, we need grow the circle, increase the numbers who participate and pay attention. Sorry, i know it is way easier to ignore what is going on, but there are some really daunting questions as we face the water issues plaguing both the state of Arizona and all of us surrounded by golf courses in Sun City. If we don't get our head around it quickly, it will simply engulf us.

Sun City's culture was involvement and commitment. Let's be clear it wasn't that way without an enormous amount of energy and effort by those who were elected to serve. They wanted feed back, they want members showing up and speaking up. They understood the best results were forged by the masses, not by a handful of people at the top of the food chain.

Can we get it back? Not without a massive movement away from the culture developed over the past 15 years. When you push people away, it should come as no surprise when they stay away.

 

It literally has to start the day new owners move into the community. There's an old advertisement from 1962 on the wall of the Museum and the header is: "From The Very First Day." It speaks to people arriving here and becoming a part of the community, of being welcomed and engaged. Really not all that difficult, at least if you make it a priority. Every knew buyer now gets a bag of information, but is that enough? I think not. My preference would be to have a club or group that greets new buyers and shows them around the community, tells them how it works, the history and why we were successful.

We know the RCSC is big on one way communication. How about two-way? How about an effort to let folks ask questions, share their thoughts and interact with those freshly arriving? Monthly new comer coffee's and a push to recreate the "City of Volunteers." How about re-configuring the visitor center and making it something more user friendly? There's so many ways to reach and teach people, but if you haven't set it as a goal, there's no commitment to do anything different.

There's no question, Sun City is a great bargain. I always ask myself, can it/we do better? If we look back over the last 15 or 20 years, as we have evolved. Was it for the better or the worse?

 

I often occurs to me that far to many SC residents equate the RCSC as the de-facto provider of community governance. It's not. Frankly, the RCSC has chosen to be nothing more than our Gym/Senior center which we pay $496/year for membership dues. Sad, but that's the decision they made.

In reality, community governance is vested in Maricopa County, with a smidge in the SCHOA -- otherwise we're lacking. Until the community creates an organization which they themselves control, it's unlikely our community wants and needs can be satisfied, especially by the RCSC which has essentially told us in oh so many ways to piss off. Certainly the SCHOA could take a more active role, but to me they historically seem entrenched in the enforcer mindset with occasional contact with the County on safety issues, etc. All the other things that make a community a community are left to chance or dictated by some curmudgeon complaining about something.

In all honesty, I'd join and pay dues to a community group (whose goal is to provide information exchange and lobbying of the RCSC, SCHOA, and County) which makes decisions by popular vote of the community. In today's world of smartphones, iPads, Zoom, etc. there's really little need for a physical meeting venue, little need paper document distribution, little need for voting mechanism any more sophisticated than Google Forms -- so, other than website development related fees and creation of whatever is needed to make collecting dues legal, cost is fairly low to get started. Since we're talking "community" there's little need to care whose name is on a deed, etc... just that they reside within the boundary of SC. A radical idea, perhaps, but maybe one whose time has come?

 

Interesting idea IC and oddly enough one suggested (kind of) at a meeting just last week. The problem of course is in gathering data and first time buyers. When we started the Next Gen club we hoped it would morph into a mentor arrangement for new home buyers. Eventually we got out of the way and those who built the club had a vision of more of a fun club with gatherings and the like.

Back in those early days every month the new buyers would gather and have coffee and become part of the community. When we first bought here there was a new member club or something like that at Marinette but it too became very clicky.