One Man's Opinion (OMO).

With the advent of the internet and subsequently the creation of social media platforms, life as we know it changed. Anyone wired and with a keyboard could become instantly "famous." We suddenly had a platform formerly contained in the Letters To The Editor page of your local newspaper.

Think not? Explain to me, the logic of a social media "influencer" making a 6 figure salary for sharing their opinions on everything from beauty cream ads to butt cheek lifts. It makes no sense. When the net started, some of the folks i used to play with online touted the genius of every day working men and women being able to tell their story. What could have possibly gone wrong?

That is in fact a topic way beyond my pay grade. I've read volumes on it, and in the end, i'm still clueless. Once the keyboard cowboys found their voice and they had no filters and little control, everything went sideways. Jump on any site that allows comments and you will see, read some stuff that is above and beyond what most of us see as the norm. And, that's not even peaking into the "dark web."

But alas, this piece has little to do with man or woman's twisted sense of self worth via their computer or cell phone. This past weekend, members of the Sun City Advocates, shared emails regarding our future and who and what we are. Much of it was driven by a poll we had asked readers to respond to on our website (if you haven't taken it, please do, you do not need be a member).

For the uninitiated, the Sun City Advocates morphed from a group of RCSC members who united to support Karen McAdam when she was fired. Rather than fighting the termination, she elected to run again in the November 2021 election. She won handily and garnered more votes than any candidate in years. Vindication.

From that point we spun off and formed the Advocates. Our initial goal was to help Sun City residents understand how the RCSC worked (or didn't). It was a fluid organization with a handful of advisory members with no dues, no budget and suddenly we are closing in on 500 registered members. The advisory board meets periodically, usually debating direction and course of actions.

At one point someone asked, are we going to speak with one voice. I tend to be vocal and my response was quick and sharp, "hell no." While our website is up and we are sending emails filled with information, we are still sorting out who and what we think our role is. It's never easy defining yourself, especially when the personalities involved are fairly strong minded, are intelligent and committed.

This morning i sent a lengthy response regarding my thoughts. As noted in the header here, they were just one man's opinion (OMO). None of what i said, makes them right or wrong. They are just what i think we should be, do and how we act. It is one of the challenges of trying to work on a collaborative effort. There's always differences of opinion.

Here is the oddity. When i ran for the RCSC board (2012-2014), one of my biggest concerns was they (the RCSC board and management) had become a singular voice. Virtually every vote in front of the community was unanimous. There were never "no" votes from any board member. As i sat in the crowd, it was with stunned silence. How was it possible everyone agreed on every single item before them?

Once on the board, i found out the work sessions were where the decisions were made and the goal was to present a "united front" to the membership. I thought it was pure crap then and still do to this day. Differences of opinion are what help forge better outcomes, make people look beyond the easy and the obvious. From the day i was seated on the board, i refused to become an active participant in "group think."

Worse than the board's close minded approach to governance, they also allowed the community to become less engaged, strip them of their rights protected under the documents and their voices were less likely to be heard. It happened while i was sitting in the room, it got worse as the years went by. I hated it and resented what they were doing to the community and they way it was built.

It wasn't a fast process, it was a slow drip, an erosion where with each passing year, less people participated. The less members that showed up, the more the decisions were made by the general manager and whomever the board was. "Loyalty" to the corporation translated to "loyalty" to the general manager. Little was challenged or questioned. The final straw was when the board came across less than loyal board members (2020 and 2021) they quickly fired them for whatever.

Firing Karen was literally the impetus the Sun City Advocates was born from. Now, as we struggle to sort out our roles/goals, we are seeing and hearing lots of good ideas. Which is really the reason i have written this, it helps me think about why i am involved.

Let me reduce it to this simplistic position: I think the Sun City Advocates exist to give the RCSC membership a voice, to encourage them to speak out and expect to be heard. For too long they have been ignored, It's become the rule of nine board members and the general manager. That could change when the by-laws are rewritten and frankly, that will be one of the first tests this current board will face. We'll see if it's the real deal or just another game to placate and dismiss us.

That's on the RCSC board end. From the Advocate's perspective, we desperately want and need your feedback. The SCA shouldn't be voice of a handful of advisory board members, but a myriad of opinions that are heard and appreciated. The poll mentioned above has been tabulated and the results will be posted soon. As you read them, you will see we have not filtered any of them. We value the comments and as we move forward they will help us continue to shape our future.

More to come, but for now, i for one am delighted we exist and continue to grow into a better place through communication, education and participation.

 

I find this discussion almost surreal, as men, women and children in the Ukraine are fighting for their lives, we are worried about how we (the Sun City Advocates) are doing and whether the board is being responsive enough? I've always boiled it down to the basic premise: while living in Sun City, nothing that goes on is much more than a 1 on a seriousness scale from 1 to 10. It's actually one of the reason's why part of promotional pieces DEVCO did claimed people lived longer in Sun City.

Life inside our "white walls" is pretty darned good. Taking the stress out of the daily grind has been a long standing exercise in this community of seniors. Of course, there's always issues; health, family and whether to go to the pool, the golf course or the gym, but for the most part life is good; in fact, really good. It's one of the reasons those living here pay so little attention. Life is too busy to worry about the minutia of governance.

Invariably i find myself smiling when writing and wondering; how much do people really know? I think back to an old friend who has moved back to Canada, and when i asked him about our lakes in Sun City, he grew wide-eyed. Lakes? He isn't/wasn't alone. All too often those living here stay close to home. If they go to a rec center, it is the one closest to their home. If they join a club, they may know about it, but do they know there are 130 more of them?

My point here is simple; i've come to understand people aren't all that well versed in much of the Sun City way of life. There's nothing wrong with that, it's the way people chose to live. Life is easier when you don't pay attention to all of the details impacting Sun City; how it is run and managed. When they look around, they see it's an amazing place to live with great amenities and unbelievably low costs. Compared to where they came from, life most often is much better here than there.

Which is ultimately why i inject our history into everything i write. Not only do people not understand the nuances of self-governance, all too often they know even less about how Sun City was built and why it was so successful. From my limited perspective, that is tragic. Once you get your head around the energy and effort to forge from nothing this amazing community, you begin to appreciate why maintaining the tenets and values built into it is so important.

Besides, if i can focus on Sun City it helps me take my mind off how i grow more angry by the day about what is happening in the Ukraine and how much i despise Putin (and those who have been touting his genius) Yet again, OMO.

 

Let me get off my soap box, but before i do, i don't care if you are right, left, dead center or a political agnostic. With the "war crimes" Russia is committing and slaughtering innocent civilians, he (Putin) needs to be held accountable. "Peace keepers" my abundant back side. Only a fool would buy that stinking pile of horse manure.

Which is the perfect segue into one of the roles of the Sun City Advocates; accountability. In fact, for some strange reason, accountability and responsibility have both become non starters. The idea any of us can just do stuff that impacts others without being held responsible for our actions is the new normal. The greatest generation, the folks who built Sun City were willing to take ownership. Their actions were what made us what we are today.

The battles over the feed lot, the school board, the mini-Berlin wall and incorporation were larger than life and drew intensity far beyond anything we see today. There was polarization on all sides and came close to hurting Sun City in ways most people wouldn't begin to comprehend. The uglier it got, the more people clung to their views, their values. In the end, every struggle was resolved and the community came away better for it.

It is why i have so often written; Sun City is a sum total of its parts. While some only see the RCSC and the amenities, i have always looked at the bigger picture Sun City. The incredible infrastructure that was built in our formative years was a model that will never be repeated. It simply is and was too expensive, other than for Sun City West where Meeker's handiwork lived on even after he was gone.

New age restricted communities want to build homes and amenities and sell them out as soon as possible In many cases there are no golf courses, they are too expensive and the trends show no long term value. If anything, they will become ugly problems for the community to sort through, so most developers avoid them. The rare exception is when there is a golf course, it is privately owned and there are no deeded rights to it staying one into perpetuity.

The entire mantra of tenets and values has a storied history in Sun City well beyond the battles mentioned above. As Sun City expanded north of Grand Ave, other problems surfaced. The larger the community, the more need for events that drew those living here together. John Meeker saw literally everything he did as an opportunity rather than a problem. Every model home grand opening was filled with festivities that engaged the residents. He created monthly celebrations with events that drew the RCSC membership from across the community.

He understood, one day DEVCO would reach build out and the community needed to be built on a foundation where it would not just survive, but flourish. The Articles of Incorporation and the By-Laws were carefully crafted to create a balance of ownership, responsibility and accountability. While written by the membership, the corporation's attorney's helped shape them in a way where the community was essential by being involved.

One of the biggest decisions that had to be made was in the early 80's. By then, Sun City West was fully underway, the massive Sun Dome was the new entertainment capital of the two communities and the Sun Bowl had outlived its usefulness from a marketing perspective for DEVCO. Initially the plan was to give it to the Home Owners Association (we now know it as SCHOA), but when time came to take it, they got very nervous about the potential to become a white elephant.

The cold feet resulted in a state of limbo. DEVCO explored selling it off as a private venture, but that would have been less than ideal. The RCSC was offered a trial period for ownership and a subsidy to help run and maintain it. When that ended, the RCSC sent a mail ballot to every member and asked if the community (via the RCSC) should buy it? Included in the vote was an increase in yearly fees from $40 to $42 with the $2 to go towards the cost. It was a fairly close vote, but the membership supported the purchase.

The best part was, they had skin in the game with the increase they supported. Today, the Sun Bowl has stood the test of time and we are all better off for that hard fought decision to own it. There isn't another like it in the country, at least owned by a community of seniors. There was some push back by those who didn't want it, but in time, it went away. Just another example of how and why Sun City was so successful. We were community owned and operated by those willing to step up.

All of which begs the question; what's changed?

 

I mentioned above the Articles of Incorporation and the By-Laws and when reading it back, caused me to smile and reflect: What percentage of the RCSC membership would i guess has ever looked at them/read them? Which translated to the mental ping pong match in my head as it bounced back and forth, 1%, 4%, 3%, finally resting at 2%. After all that, i second guessed myself and decided i was being overly optimistic.

To be clear, it doesn't make one whit of difference. The point simply is this,barely nobody really gives two-shits about what they say. The only ones that may care are those of us have to argue policy, board actions or the dismantling of them. Unless a member is accused of some type of violation, they just aren't required reading; and to be honest i would be hard pressed to suggest anyone try to read them.

There was a time when the by-laws were readable, when they were 16 pages and simple to digest. Over the past 15 years, they became a document that has doubled in size and quadrupled in confusion. Changing them is a pretty easy exercise, especially when one person is trusted to do it all. Once the quarterly membership meeting with quorum's of 100 was gone, membership participation shriveled away to nothing. With 20 members in a room and by-law changes becoming a massive exercise in confusion, the easiest thing for boards to do was just approve them. Who cares what they say? Who cares if they make any sense? Apparently, no one.

The good news is, the Articles of Incorporation are much more difficult to change, so they've been left alone. They are the highest order of document and in fact state that by-laws cannot be passed that are in conflict with the Articles. Too bad someone didn't pay attention to that clause.

Enough with the doom and gloom of the murkiness of the community documents. The good news is, and i mean that, there is an ad hoc committee being formed to rewrite the by-laws. Any number of RCSC members who have experience with by-laws have offered up their services. We should know who is on the committee by the end of the month and we'll quickly see if their goal is serious or just posturing by the board.

Committees used to play a valuable role in the community's governance. The past 15 years they were held in low regard by too many in positions of authority and the goal was to minimize them to the point of near extinction. With the change in leadership, hopefully committees and our documents will become more important. People wonder why i refer to the past so much. As i have written too many times, the past is our blue print for the future.

Just one man's opinion.

 

WELCOME BACK! You’ve been missed. I look forward to hearing more from you. You bring much valued experience and insight. Thank you for sharing with us.

 

CM, I give you a great BIG standing ovation!!!! Great Truth and on the money. Love it! Don't ever apologize for posting your feelings. You hit the nail on the head.
Thanks for the read! Great writings!

I will add one thing: Ek needs to be brought in front of the community to answer why she lied and deceived us all these years. Why documents cannot be located, and since she is a resident of Sun City, she owes us truthful answers good or bad.

 

The former GM will "never be brought before the community" SW, nor should she. To do so would also put every board member ever serving/volunteering in harms way. The simple reality is, we were all complicit in the outcomes we are now caught in. Hell, even the membership became willing participants in the movement away from a community founded on the principles of self governance. We all allowed it to happen. It is why accountability, ownership and responsibility are the cornerstones of the Sun City Advocates.

I was going to start a new thread, but this one is aptly titled; one man's opinion (OMO). The old adage; "opinions are like assholes, every one has one," is so spot on. We all are entitled to our opinions, nothing makes them right. If you look back over the times i have stepped to the mic at board meetings, i usually share a historical perspective. Those aren't opinions, they are simply a matter of record. I try not to tell people what they should do. I am more focused on getting buy-in to listening to what those living here want.

One of the memories of my earliest report cards was what one nun wrote to my parents; "doesn't play well with others." Damn, still true to this day. When i get involved in stuff, i will share my opinions, but i've always understood, they are just my opinions. In fairness, they are steeped in having served in more capacity than most, but nothing about what i say makes them more right than anyone else. Time is usually the best measuring stick for that. It's why accountability makes so much sense. When mistakes are made, learning from them is critical. When people won't even take ownership for them or worse yet, admit them, most likely they learn nothing from them.

I've made more than my share over the years and that ability to understand and admit usually makes me a better person for it. Tragically, as we have watched the RCSC function during the previous GM's tenure, there were never mistakes, never any admission of bad choices, everything was brilliantly done. As i have written repeatedly, the most glaring was boards who embraced that loyalty to the gm in the same manner they felt loyalty to the organization. The most obvious example was the two board members fired, Barbara and Karen. Their sins were failure in being loyal to the general manager.

Old ground, but always just teachable moments. 2022 is the one of the most critical years in Sun City's history. We cannot go back and erase the past 15 years, but we damned sure can learn from the failures. We have a new general manager, though one groomed by and endorsed by the old one. We have a board of directors where at least four of the board members understand the value of listening to the membership. And, we have a myriad of very expensive issues directly in front of us.

The questions at this point are easy to identify. Will the board listen? Will committees once again become integral to Sun City's success? Will the general manager become the one employee working for the board, or will he follow in the footsteps of giving the board all the answers and never being questioned or challenged...or worse yet, never being held accountable?

As always, this is just one man's opinion (OMO).

 

Re: The former GM will "never be brought before the community" SW, nor should she. To do so would also put every board member ever serving/volunteering in harms way.

I disagree, because she was a paid servant and not a volunteer.

 

I'm not sure what the "I need to get a new license for my Microsoft" really means. If your version of Microsoft Office or 365 had expired, I do not know if you will be able to retrieve any file created with the version that expired. My current version of Office is about to expire tomorrow so I will know what happens. I don't believe Microsoft would delete any data created by their product, but you probably would not be able to open anything.

In any event, it would be prudent to immediately stop using the computer. If the data indeed had been deleted, it will most like still be residing on the hard drive.
The more you use the computer, the more likely it is that the missing data will be overwritten by new data. If it were me, I would take that computer to a specialist and explain what happened and see if the specialist can retrieve any data at all. Have them bit level copy the drive(s) before doing anything.

Also, for the future, you should consider doing at least weekly backups of all your disk drives. Preferably to external devices. Time consuming - possibly but at least you would have a backup of your data. I say external so that once the backups are done you disconnect the backup drives from the system. Depending on your computer, you could also backup to internal drives that can be ejected once backups are complete.

Good luck.

 

Again, for the future - Backup, Backup, Backup.