How We Spend Money Matters

I believe Anita has gone on record that she supports only a sloped floor fixed seating building for a theater. If you listen to Director Richtmyer's resignation speech, she very clearly states she regrets not being able to be on the board when the sloped floor fixed seating theater is built. I know you and I disagree on the need for such a building (versus and auditorium with a stage and retractable seating) and I just want members to realize there are very large tradeoffs between the two approaches in terms of cost and functionality.

 

I am not sure how many people read this blog. What I do know is I have gone back to the beginning, 2013/2014 or so, and a cyber cafe was being talked about. It's still being talked about today in 2025, as well as other things.

What is the point of TOSC? It's like an endless loop of the same conversations with politics thrown in every 4 years. It appears to be an online gathering place to talk, which is fine, but nothing ever comes to fruition. Hiring a consultant has been thrown around forever. Same with Torch. About a year ago I was almost crucified for mentioning SCW, Torch and their interactive website where homeowners can zoom into any meeting they want to. All documents are right there on the site.

In the short time I have paid attention I saw massive member involvement with the libraries and the PAC. I doubt that was due to TOSC, more like word of mouth, Facebook and Nextdoor.

I guess my question is what is TOSC for? Just talk with no actions? Is that because the only people that can actually do anything are the board members? Will all this talk of getting members involved change anything the board does? When I am out and about in SC (usually waiting in line at Walgreens Rx, MD offices or grocery store lines I always chat with people about whether or not they go to meetings. I am still waiting for a "yes: answer.

 

It has been the argument that has raged for several years now; sloped/fixed seating or flat floor/retractable seats? Obviously the Players and others doing performances want the fixed/tiered seats. It isn't really (to me) a question of comfort, but more about who uses it. We know the minute they build a flat space with retractable seating, the potential utilization grows 5 or 10-fold.

Which is exactly why for years i have been arguing for a committee to study flat space utilization. We know we have huge percentages of the 27 flat space venues that are under-utilized. We know it, and we do nothing about it. I'm sorry, it makes no sense to me to add another venue (in either case) until we figure out how to better use what we have.

Goodness, i hate being the practical one in the room...but somebody has to.

 

It's just talk.

 

I agree we need to have a good handle on how we use existing space before we build more of it. That would come through the master plan, but I understand many want Mountain View "done". It is my hope that we have the bandwidth and system engineering mindset in the LRP to do some parallel processing. I have argued that the "elements" of mountain view redo should be a first step in the master plan process. Therefore, each element should be justified by its value to the community as a whole. I hear members say they don't use Mountain View so they say let the 1% of members that use Mountain View decide what to build and how much to spend. IMHO this is like asking the fox to guard the hen house. IMHO the best way to approach this is to let the users of Moutain View state what they want, have the architects give ballpark cost figures and then look at the actual and projected use of the facility. Let the data play a big role in what the elements of the Mountain View design is.

 

This!

 

Yeah. and if you need to raise assessments due to what they want raise only on the 1%. I don't use that facility, never have.