A better Sun City...IMHO.

Feeling a bit reflective this morning, mom died yesterday and they (my parents) were the reason we moved here to start with. Hell, it took me three years to come visit, i didn't want to be with a bunch of old people. Wonder how many times that's been said eh?

Anyone who has read any of the volumes i have written about Sun City knows how much i value the history of the community. They know the massive effort it took to shake free of the stigma attached to this type of segregated (based on age) living. They know the challenges of being the first of its kind and all of the struggles it took to finally become what we are today.

So we are clear, we were the first of its kind, there was no blueprint or Age Restricted Living 101 to see the right way to do things. Everything was trial and error with missteps being acknowledged and redone. Infighting for what owners felt was the right direction was there from the beginning and massive turnouts for important votes often found 75% to 80% of the population casting votes.

When elections for the 3 largest boards were held, as many as 25 candidates would be on the ballot for the open seats. It was a time of absolute inclusion as the Del E Webb Development Corporation (DEVCO) understood one day they would walk away and the ultimate success or failure of Sun City was directly tied to those living here.

Now some 56 years after its inception, Sun City is still relevant in the massive age restrictive housing market. We have become the benchmark for what builders hope to replicate. Don't get me wrong, there's countless that are newer, nicer and with far more glitz; but from a pure hope to succeed standpoint, those builders lust after what we have and what we have accomplished.

In reflection, there's not one single thing that made us, but i would argue/debate with anyone the most important factor was/is the collective effort by those living here. Nope, not everyone had their hands in the mix, but over the years, we have had far larger segments of the residents being a part of the process of self-governance. The past 10 years we have strayed, become less democratic and more autocratic.

I'm sure some feel that's a better way to run things, more efficient and less time consuming. Obviously i disagree and through the course of this thread, i will explain why and what i think we (Sun City) need do to return to our roots.

It's all been said before, but with this election of 4 new board members revisiting an agenda for change seems if nothing else a timely exercise. Too summarize...to my way of thinking...inclusion is always more favorable than exclusion.

 

Your mom pointed you to the direction of Sun City. That's a legacy you'll always feel around you.

 

Bill, know that although your mom departed this earth she will never truly leave. She will still be alive in your heart and mind and through you she will live on. May you have peace knowing that you are making your mom proud.

Heh, heh --- after living here 15 years I STILL say that every few days... <shrug>

 

Bill and family, Our sincere condolences. Greg and Ida Eisert

 

Thanks gang; one of the oddities of living in Sun City is death becomes as common as living. The goal for all of us is to get here and enjoy what we have for as long as possible. 20 years is a very good run.She died as she wanted, carried out of her own place feet first.

The one constant through the first 45 years has been the tenet of "growing the circle." My good friend Ben Roloff has spent the past 2 years researching Sun City's first 20 years via the local newspapers from that era. they were a constant flow of information.If you think about it, back then, the local papers were the single best way to reach residents; everyone took them, read them.

Obviously times have changed. Now with more options, there is no one way to reach residents. Unfortunately the RCSC has locked into a mantra that if residents don't come, they must be happy. The claim is they hold lots of meetings, they get Sun Views monthly and the website/email blasts are enough.

But, are they? For my 2 cents, we aren't/haven't been growing the circle and in fact have been shrinking it. The changes made over the past ten years has resulted in less participation. Experience taught me the only way to grow the circle was to set it as a goal, a priority. To build it into a part of our strategy with a measurable plan to succeed.

The problem of course lies in whether those on the board understand why it should be a priority. Obviously they haven't for the past ten years. For those just elected, let me conclude this post with a simple statement of fact: It shouldn't matter what the general manager wants, you should be setting policy and she should be carrying it out.

In coming posts we can help lay out a plan, a strategy to grow the circle and become more inclusive.

 

Is that really what the board thinks? That we're happy if we're not attending a meeting to complain? Most of my friends in SC won't go to board and interchange meetings because they feel the board pays little more than lip service if they speak, or that they'll be publicly chastised by a board member or face future retributions -- why bother. So, they remain unhappy. But they do complain -- to other members!

I kinda think the board/management nether know nor care whether the members are happy overall, although I'll concede they try to keep us happy about the little things. But we're usually stonewalled on significant topics. If the board and management want to know the happiness factor they need to conduct a detailed anonymous survey. A real survey, not a simple are you happy. Expensive? Yes -- but maybe not unreasonable when we're talking about $40-million expenditures.

From my viewpoint the board has intentionally manipulated the by-laws to preclude member involvement via changes in quorum, disbanding committees, suppressive rules regarding petitions, proxies, etc., etc. It's a blatant defense designed to demotivate member interaction and preclude members from proposing/enacting anything which differs from the board. There's no issue that the RCSC provides significant amenities, but whether they are the ones members want and whether they're provided in the manner they wish is simply unknown.

Also, people are less “social” than they used to be – most don't even know their neighbors anymore. So they're not as likely as in the past to attend a meeting in person. But members will speak their minds anonymously. Perhaps that's why the board/management resist video/recording of meetings – it could be the precursor to members wanting to participate semi-anonymously. It's hypocritical in a way -- the board won't accept making meetings available via podcast but they accept being elected over the internet?

I've always wondered -- since the members elect the board, why isn't a quorum required to to elect them? 1,100 ballots cast isn't a quorum, just saying.

AMEN to that!

 

Thanks again for the condolences, solace is almost always found in the idea of a "life well lived."

Seems only reasonable to start with this qualifier: Anything i write/post is always just my opinion and i have no sense it will work in making Sun City a better place to live. Years of experience of trying to fix things have taught me i error as much as i succeed. The problem for most folks in positions of authority is they fail to try to get creative, and if they do, they feel they alone can get it right (just ask the Donald eh?).

During my years of running a non-profit i came to understand the most important tool in the tool chest was the ability to listen. The more i talked to and with people, the better i understood what it was they wanted/thought was important. My job became easier, because then my task was to sort through it and find ways to get it done.

During my three years on the board, i/we were faced with some difficult decisions. Some i was willing to buy into, others i voted against. Hated getting rid of long range planning and voted against it. Agreed with reducing the board/member exchanges from 2 down to 1...with the idea we would replace it with board/club visitations (never happened). Finally i voted to go from 4 membership meetings per year to 1. The reality was we were never going to reach a quorum (1200+ people) so by going to 1 annual meeting i was sure the board would see the error of their ways and reduce it to something more attainable. God i was foolish.

During these closed door work sessions, i assumed logic would see the light of day. Again, i wasn't saying i was right or wrong, just that residents in the community would love weighing in and give us some guidance. More naivete, as the majority of the board feared the idea we should ask the community how they felt on topics affecting them. Go figure.

In an effort to get buy-in with board members i wrote a lengthy piece on how i saw Sun City evolving to a more open relationship between the board and the community. You can read it here in this thread entitled Committee's and Sun City's future. I doubt most of the board members at the time bothered to read it, as clearly the pathway to Sun City's future was being driven by the GM's vision for a more efficient organization.

I get it, getting things done without committee's and without community involvement is without question easier, but it begs the question: Is it better if the gang of 9, in concert with the general manager, make all of the decisions?

 

Speaking of the quorum. I watched the candidate videos before I voted. A question was asked if 9 people should make all the decisions. Then some mention that the quorum used to be 100. The candidate deflected (in my opinion) and emphatically said she thought it wasn't too much to ask for 1200 people to attend in order for the quorum. The questioner said that 1200 had never happened. She still thought it was not too much to ask for. Then if 1200 won't show its ok for 9 people to make the decisions? Either 1200 or 9...take your choice. To me it's silly to have a quorum of 1200 if 1200 have never, ever shown up. Where was the magic number derived from? If it went back to 100 is it possible that number could be achieved for some meetings of importance? Have 100 ever shown up?

 

To the best of my recollection, the last time the quorum was met was Sept of 2009. The board was in a state of panic with some foolishness about how if they had monthly board meetings a hundred angry residents could come in and overturn everything. Pure crap because the documents said a motion could be made from the floor whereby the board would then have the opportunity to take the motion back and study the impact and respond by the next meeting. It had never happened, but why let reality get in the way of conjecture.

Shortly thereafter the board moved the quorum to 10% of the card holders, which put it in excess of 3500 members for a quorum. A couple of years after that they reduced it to 1250. Still a number we have never come close to.

When we moved from quarterly meetings to a yearly, i argued to reduce the number to 500. Pretty simple argument because not only does the quorum number come into play, but a simple majority would be needed to advance a floor motion. Hence, if there were 500 members in the room, they would need 251 of them to pass a motion from the floor. Yet, they all clung to the stupid because (that's what the attorney said we should do.")

Funny how Sun City survived all those years with quarterly meetings, low thresholds for quorums and residents who were far more engaged and involved than today.

 

IMHO it all comes down to what is most important to me attitude.
I'm guilty of it just as much as the next guy.

The other theme that seemed to appear is that if you can stay un-involved then it is easy to blame the things you don't like on someone else, aka: the board or management. Again, I'm guilty of this one too from time to time.

I served on our architectural committee for 10 years, just got burned out. I'll be back some day, just not right now.
Right now I have a few new goals... get through a health issue, then focus on getting ready to get out of this frozen tundra and get to Sun City.


In our community here in CO we have 835 homes and the only way we get quorum is by residents sending in a letter of proxy and most times the board has to beg to get enough of those.
Even when the HOA fees are making a big jump we still struggle to get an angry quorum. Why?
I decided to do a personal survey of a dozen friends in the community and here is what I got.
Just for reference most of those surveyed are still working, 2 of the 12 are retired.

In response to the question of why don't you attend the community meetings?
- It doesn't matter if I go or not, "they" are going to do what they want anyway.
- When was the meeting, I might have gone.
- I don't have time for that nonsense... when was it?
- I went to one of those meetings one time, no one cared what I had to say.
- The board seems to be doing an OK job of keeping my home values up, that is all I care about.


In response to the question of why don't you get involved with the board or a committee?
- I don't have time.
- I just want to live in a nice community and this one is nice, there are other people that like to do that kind of crap.
- I work all day and just want to come home and relax, I don't want to have to deal with my neighbor's petty complaints.
- I'm a stay at home mom, but I run my kids to and from school, then to all their activities, I even volunteer at the school a few times a week. I don't have time to get involved. The board doesn't need me.
- Why would I want to do something like that, what's in it for me?
- Ugh, I hate that kind of stuff, as long at the neighborhood stays nice I don't really care what "they" do.


Bottom line... that attitude seems to be that someone else will do that. OK, there are a few things I don't like and I will complain to who ever will listen, but don't ask me to get involved.

 

Excellent comments BW; kudos for taking the time to conduct the survey. Most folks aren't that willing to do the legwork to get their arms and head around what is happening and why. There's always reasons/excuses why things are the way they are, the bigger question becomes are we willing or interested enough to change them.

There-in lay my frustration with the RCSC. Clearly they are of the mind the less intervention by the community, the better able they are to run the corporation. Think not? Just look at what they have done over the past ten years and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the strategy they have elected to follow.

That of unto itself doesn't make them bad or evil; what it does do is drive residents away from the process of self-governance. And that is reflected in some of the survey you had done Bruce...why bother when what you say, think or do doesn't matter.

It's why i always go back to the historical perspective of Sun City. Virtually everything done here was by the bigger picture community, not smaller picture board/management.

So i am clear; what i have been advocating for was growing the circle of members who were willing to get involved. Doing that doesn't happen by accident, it need become one of the RCSC's short term and long term goals. Because without that happening, we get what we are seeing now; decisions being made without community input. Choices of how and what we invest in made by 9 board members and led by the general manager and what she feels is most important. Sorry, but that's not how and why Sun City succeeded the first 50 years.

This thread has taken a number of turns before we even came close to reaching it's point, but in my humble opinion, time well spent.

 

I wholeheartedly agree Bill.
In our currently frozen CO community there are lots of young busy families and they are fine with letting someone else run things because they just don't have time. plus they feel like their input wouldn't matter that much anyway. People tend not to get involved unless they have an agenda to drive. After their issue is resolved they tend to fade away. Obviously this is an over generalization, but we see it here way too much.

In the case of Sun City it seems that it has morphed over the years to become a place of the golden rule... he who has the gold makes the rules. In this case the board has the gold, aka: power. I would hope that at some point that would turn around and the power go back to the community, or at least more acceptance to community involvement/input.

I would like to believe that the 9 + management have good intentions, their willingness to be involved shows that. However, how can the 9+ know what is good for the community unless they truly listen to the community. They may think they know and maybe they are mostly correct, but unless they ask and actually listen (not just hear) the concerns of the community they are doing a disservice to the community and lying to the community and themselves. Just my humble opinion.

 

I know each of the board members and the general manager well BW and all have only the best intentions for Sun City. I get it, they want to run the corporation more efficiently and in their eyes more effectively. The question is, are they? Has the direction to dump 40 million dollars into golf (and still growing), the best course (pun intended) of action? Was raising the fees the only solution to prop 206? Was there really a need for a for profit corporation? How did eliminating committees help grow the circle of members involvement? How did removing the safeguards written into our By-laws enhance the Sun City lifestyle?

In the end, maybe their actions were all good, or maybe not. Only time will tell. The one thing we know for sure is, less people are involved in the process of self-governance than ever in our history...and speaking only for myself...that is troubling.

 

I do believe some apathy has to do with residents input not be considered or even acknowledged. I've never been able to attend a meeting but even I feel that frustration. The questions in my mind is how to get the board to care about what people want. Yes, it is a corporation but it's also a place where people live. Have they ever addressed to the community the excess expenditure on golf when only a minority play? They must be cognizant of many residents concerns about it. That's a question I would have asked if I had attended a candidate forum.

 

There's all kinds of questions asked at the board meeting yesterday C and the new pat answer is this isn't the place where we answer questions. Seriously, that's how they avoid having discussions and simply let people ramble on for their three minutes and shuffle up the next one. Go figure.

Moving forward; here are my suggestions to reinvent the board and make them more user friendly:

1). Record all board and member exchange meetings for playback on the RCSC website.

2). Reinstate a permanent Long Range Planning Committee.

3). Send blast emails before every member exchange with a summary of resolutions that will be discussed.

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

5). Make all RCSC meetings open to card holders.

6). Create some form of interactive communication on the RCSC website between members and the board.

I'll be the first to admit, a very aggressive list. That said, the first two suggestions most of those elected this year committed to get done.

Should be fun a year from now to see how folks did eh?

 

I'd be delighted with the first two E, and they should be easily attainable given the new candidates responses during the candidate forums.

We'll see eh?

 

I agree with 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. Starting in 2017 1 and 3 are being implemented. for # 6 a blog would be good on the RCSC web site. I have a #7 .... Having a two way discussion at the BOD monthly meeting should a Board member want to discuss any topic at hand with a member or vise versa. This would also move to correct any misunderstanding sooner than later.

 

I'm thrilled with #1 and hope certain individuals don't cause this to be suspended. #2 may already be in the works as the ad hoc Grand Avenue Committee has had to take into consideration much more than just what the options are for construction at that site. #3 I have pleaded for in many emails and personal requests over the years. This may also be resolved this month. #4 I don't agree with because of the apathy that exists. If we can't even get 1250 cardholders to vote for Board Members over a 3 week period and 3 different ways to make it possible......no sympathy from me. #5 I'd be willing to give this one a try but if it becomes too disruptive to getting business done it may have to be discontinued. No need to worry about sensitive material being discussed as that could be done in Executive Sessions. #6 YES. Too bad we have to resort to a 3rd party forum for these important discussions. OK....down off my soapbox.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with Bill -- the quorum (#4) needs to be lowered – my preference would be back to 100 for now. Why? Because the Quorum needs to be an achievable number without having to create a crisis. Before I moved to SC I lived in a large residential development with an HOA non-profit corporation. Meeting attendance was always a problem. The board got very aggressive to encourage attendance – letters, posters at the cluster mailboxes, etc. At one point we even had a fine if you didn't attend unless you gave someone your proxy. This was due to the necessity of having a member quorum to conduct HOA business. Ie, no quorum, no budget approval, etc. The difference (problem?) with the RCSC is that the “corporation” doesn't need membership attendance for anything. Not having a membership meeting quorum is not a handicap to the RCSC in any way shape or form.

I suspect that wasn't the case in the early days of SC. But as SC grew and factions developed, boards had egos and changed the by-laws to give themselves more control and minimize the chance any factions which sought change could succeed. Today the board and management can conduct all their business even if no member ever attended a meetings, no members ever visited/used any RCSC facility, amenity, or function. Other than electing a board and paying our assessment money, members are completely unnecessary for the continued existence of the RCSC. Literally, SC could revert back to being the Marinette ghost town and the RCSC could continue to exist pretty much as it does today w/o a single user -- facilities sitting idle but staffed, maintained and ready.

So, it's not much of a mystery to me why members aren't involved more – and why a quorum is so hard to achieve. Members have no incentive -- no real stake in the game that they can realistically control. I realized a number of years ago it was simply a waste of my time and energy to attend RCSC meetings to voice an opinion -- simply to be ignored and/or castigated by a board/management with a superior attitude which flaunted that they could "do anything they wanted regardless of what members say." It was often all too apparent that the board had made up their minds long before member input was solicited. AFAIK that situation still exists. Until that changes there won't be a quorum -- and the catch 22 is that it likely won't change until a quorum IS achieved. Thus the board has us in a check-mate situation.