The year was 2009 and we had lived in Sun City a scant 6 years. By then, i had served on 2 boards (Sun City Visitor Center and SCHOA). I had just become a board member at the Sun Cities Area Historical Society (we changed the name in 2010), and by years end was buried deep as a member of the 50th Anniversary committee set to begin in 2010 that would enjoy a year long run. At that same juncture (2009) the now former, former GM from the RCSC had a 100% turn over in board members and that old guard holding her in check were all gone. The new board (made up of primarily golfers) loved the idea of her taking the reigns and driving the ship. They also by then knew her focus was golf and that added to their loyalty. I watched from the sidelines and suffice to say, what i saw was a horror show of epic proportions. Our RCSC documents filled with safeguards of any one group of individuals becoming the dominant player were dismantled. It began a year or two earlier when the Legal Affairs Committee was kicked to the curb. It was on purpose as the GM understood if she had to run the changes by them she had planned, they would quickly be squashed. Her argument was with a quorum of 100 and quarterly membership meetings, a small group of radical RCSC members who hated the RCSC could take control and ruin the community. While it sounded terrifying, the reality was our documents contained safeguards against that happening. Hell, they still contain that same language and they still protect us from that happening. At the end of 2009, the board changed the quorum to 10% of the membership (roughly 3500 at the time). The counter argument by those opposing the number asked where the RCSC could even hold a meeting of that size? The only answer was the Sun Bowl which wasn't realistic or practical. In an effort to quell the dissent, they quickly formed a committee and arrived at a new, more fair number; 1250. Was that number realistic? There were about a 10 to 20 of us serving on the 50th anniversary committee and we worked our butts off with monthly events. The exposure we got was exceptional and one our banner tagline was: "An Extraordinary Past, A Brilliant Future." By then i knew our history inside and out but what i saw happening was far afield from how and why Sun City was so successful. The march forward triggered something in me i said i would never do; in June of 2011 i picked up a RCSC board member packet and ran for the board. It was a heated contest with 3 candidates for 3 open positions. Shows you how smart i was; my campaign material included a 4 page newsletter. Included were my views of the past, for the present and looking to the future. What can i say, i was an optimist. It might have been the worst 3 years of my life. What i found was the board operated in a vacuum of what the GM wanted, the GM got. I've written it before, the board was a place new ideas went to die. Carole Martinez and myself often voted against the stupid. It simply meant a 7/2 vote. When i left the board the end of 2014, i wrote a thread on here (if you search you can probably find it); "Free At Last, Thank God Almighty, Free At Last." I was that happy to be away from the constraints of a board trapped in group think (yes, we taught it in leadership 101). My biggest gripe was how close-minded the board was. If i had one goal, it was to reduce the quorum to a manageable, reachable number. I even voted to do away with the quarterly membership meetings and have one annual meeting. The first one was an 8 hour exercise in futility. Even with donuts for breakfast, hot dogs for lunch and loads of entertainment (all free BTW), by days end, we hadn't registered 500 members in attendance. I just knew the board would understand the error of their ways and reduce the quorum to something more attainable, you know, like 500. In 2013 and again in 2014 (after another failed effort to reach 500 members), they would see the wisdom of actually holding a membership meeting. Duh, not a chance. As time marched on, it got worse. Year after year we held our annual membership meeting and within minutes the board secretary would announce we hadn't reached a quorum so there would be no meeting. 12 freaking years with Sept of 2009 the last official board meeting held by the RCSC, stunningly pathetic. One year, a board president actually wrote and article for the Sun Views and the Independent telling us not having a membership meeting was no big deal. Along with that travesty, came the push to push members away. Just move here and have fun. Cool, we were going to become like every other age restricted community; only way cheaper. And that became our mantra, Cheaper. But did that make sense? Especially now as we look back to where we are. In 2021 the arrogance of the RCSC board of directors made the most fatal mistake of their existence. We know in 2020 they fired a board member who rather than making an issue of it, moved to Florida to be near relatives. The next year, they figured (wrongly) they could do the same to Karen McAdam. Oops, wrong person to treat like something stuck to the bottom of their shoes. She came back with a vengeance and ran for the RCSC board in the 2022 election. Along with a small group of members we created the Sun City Advocates. We had one goal and one goal only; to win the majority of seats on the board over a two-year election cycle (2022 and 2023). The only requirement for our support was those running had to believe the members had a right to have a voice in self-governance of our community. It wasn't a litmus test, it was simply a concept foreign to what had been happening over the past 15 years. The straw that broke the RCSC's back was in December of 2021, where at our annual membership meeting, the quorum was met with 1400 plus members (in person and proxies). I'm still shocked at the turnout. The board was terrified as we had submitted motions for bylaw changes in accordance with our documents. Rather than letting us vote on them, they told us we didn't have the right. Then we found out at exactly 9 am, they locked the outside doors to Sun Dial so members couldn't get in. Then the shirt really hit the fan when 3 days after the meeting, they announced the recording of the 3 hour long ordeal had been lost to a bad SIM card. Oddly they found the last half of the meeting, but the hotbed of commentary had flamed out by then. So we are abundantly clear, 2021 and 2022 vote totals for Sun City Advocate candidates were double than that of non-supported candidates. While that sounds impressive the simple reality is only a tiny majority of RCSC members vote. It's what happens when you drive members away and just tell them to have fun. With all of that out of the way, here is the Hallelujah moment (tip of the hat to Leonard Cohen; still one of favorite songs of all time, RIP). Yesterday at the the June RCSC board meeting, 8 of the 9 board members voted to reduce the quorum to 500. It was the first reading and they will need to vote it again at the September meeting that will put it in place for the November (29th i think) 6 pm annual membership meeting. If you watch the video from the meeting, i made a fairly passionate plea to the board. I had my arguments in place explaining the protections in both the Articles and Bylaws, but abandoned both for a much more practical selling point and it was this: "Either you trust the members and you vote for it, or you don't trust the members and you vote against it." In the end, the majority agreed, the members deserve a voice in the community we all love. Hallelujah!
Once it passes, as it was written, it's a done deal taking immediate affect. Now....we, the Members, need an issue to vote and win on at the Membership Meeting so that once the Members begin to see that THEY can make a difference they will attend more meetings and hopefully start taking more serious their responsibilities to be a governing part of the community.
If 500 passes in September, what exactly is the process to submit a suggestion for member vote. I was curious to see how that worked at the last annual meeting…..but learned nothing.
If you want to make a motion to change the Articles of Incorporation you have to submit your motion to the corporate office by Friday, October 13th at noon. If you want to make a motion to change the Bylaws/Policies you have to submit your motion to the corporate office by Friday, November 3th at noon. Other material motions have to be submitted to the corporate office by Friday, November 10th at noon. If you're collecting proxy's they have to be turned in to the corporate office by Monday, November 20th at 12 noon.
