I suspect most of us, at least those who liked those Western movies remember fondly the the Clint Eastwood epic 3 part series (is that too strong a term?), A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More and the best of the bunch, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. Wikipedia called the three movies from the 60's Spaghetti Western's and starred Eastwood and launched his career. Oddly enough i came across the final one on cable a month or so ago, and my memories of it were better than the movie was while watching again. What hadn't changed was the haunting theme song they played at every dramatic section of the movie. Sergio Leone had done a masterful job of integrating the refrain letting you know something good, bad or ugly was coming at you. After the February 14, board meeting, i am of the mind the RCSC needs to incorporate that music overlay into the meeting itself. Or, at the very least add it into the video play back. The drama of it would only add to the way these meetings are evolving. What most likely would be in dispute is when and where to insert it. My best guess is we (the management, the board and the members in the room) would see things differently (and that is being polite). Let me give you a couple of examples from the video of the meeting. Clearly the last several minutes would fall under: The UGLY. Music should be mournful and somber. Why? Because for much of the meeting we saw the board taking an active and aggressive role in making sound decisions and not acting foolishly. For example; eliminating the 2 hour time limit on meetings and not acting on the 25 foot Viewpoint lake shoreline rule; The Good. Kudos to them for listening to members. Where the major difference of opinion, i would guess, is when we get to; The BAD. I suspect they (the board and management) will argue this is awesome. For those of us in the room (100 plus) when we heard it, a hush, a sense of say what? fell over the crowd. Even after the meeting as we chatted, we had a difficult time getting our head around it. In fact, the comments by General Manager Cook could fit nicely into the title of the first two Eastwood movies; A Fistful Of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More. And while some may have been giddy by the news the RCSC was awash in cash, many of us in the room saw it as what a good Catholic might call a mortal sin. It was that bad. I know, some folks see cash as king, and if you are in a for profit business, it truly is. Their goal is to be profitable, make money for the owners and stock holders and continue to grow bigger and be even more successful. Non-profits are wholly different. They exist for a defined purpose and that reason is contained in their Articles of Incorporation. The RCSC is there to serve the membership, not build a war chest of cash reserves. In June 2006 the Sun Dial roof collapsed. The insurance company was screwing with the RCSC and trying to get out of paying the claim. It took two years to reopen and the glaring weakness was the RCSC didn't have the cash on hand to fix it immediately. The new GM cut costs where she could and finally a settlement came. The board came to understand having reserves for emergencies was needed. In the following years a Capital Reserve Fund was started with desired goal of setting aside 5 million dollars. They reached that figure quicker than planned and today it sits untouched to the tune of 5.5 million dollars with the investment returns adding a half million dollars; play the song again, The Good. It is there in case we need it, a very sound practice for an organization of our size. Here's where The Ugly comes in: In December of 2009, before the creation of the Capital Reserve Fund, the RCSC had available in cash and assessments a total of $7,549,007. Not a bad number by any means. After the general managers big reveal the other day, i started digging out these figures. I just don't pay much attention to anything other than the PIF (which is at 27 million dollars by the way). Imagine my surprise when i looked at the Finance and Budget Information on their website for December of 2021. We now know over the past 12 years, from Dec of 2009 through Dec of 2021, they have increased that 7.5 million dollars to a whopping 17.5 million dollars. And to be clear, during that time period they set aside the additional 5 million dollars in the Capital Reserve Fund. I would argue that 15 million dollar set aside is not only The BAD, but also The UGLY (cue music). Seriously gang, if we were a for profit business, we would be calling our leadership brilliant. Let me remind you; we're not. Our goal isn't to have yearly set asides money. You can call it carry-over, you can call it a slush fund or a rainy day fund, but what is has done is impact the community's needs by saving it rather than spending it on those who paid their annual assessments. Every year clubs submit requests for things they would like. In many cases they buy stuff with club funds and when they do, it becomes the property of the RCSC. In many cases, their requests have been denied. Most often the argument was the RCSC couldn't afford to do it. Let me be blunt; that was pure unadulterated bull shit. They (the management team who makes these decisions) elected to save the money rather than spend it. My old friend Norm Dickson, while serving his 6 years on the board, used to argue with new board members who wanted to be conservative with spending, told them our job as board members is to spend money wisely. He was right. But that was back in the day when the board members were more than just the rubber stamp for the general manager. There's way more to discuss here. If you missed the RCSC meeting you can watch it on line on the RCSC youtube channel. If you would rather, you can read our in depth commentary on the Sun City Advocates page, found here. Love to hear your thoughts. You can post them here or on the Advocates website. If you are not a member you can join by going to the website and signing up. We are nearing 500 members and our goal is to have 1000 or more by years end. We are focused on Communication, Education and Participation as we return Sun City to it's roots grounded in a sense of community, ownership and accountability. Who could possibly be opposed to that?
One of the biggest challenges over the years has been for board members and RCSC management to overcome the idea we are a not for profit organization. Most often those hired and elected have come out of for profit businesses. Two wholly different and complete animals. Some have done better than others. Some who have come out of education and others who have worked for non profits more easily adapt to our environment. Others steeped in the secrecy of for profit companies look at transparency with disdain. Perhaps the worst of all are the ones who simply enjoy being elected and love the power and control that comes with it. From an educational perspective, there are several types of non profits. Nope, not going there, way too much minutia to sort through. Suffice to say, in most cases whatever the designation, the tax advantages associated with being identified as a non profit are beneficial to the group of people the organization exists to serve (emphasis, to serve). That is the very point of non profit organizations. The IRS has specific rules that govern how they are able to function. My good friend Ben Roloff continually reminds those of us serving on boards that we don't exist to build up war chests of money. He's right, though often times board members with business back grounds, see cash accumulation as a good thing. This discourse took me goggling and love this comment from wikipedia: "The key aspects of nonprofits are accountability, trustworthiness, honesty, and openness to every person who has invested time, money, and faith into the organization. Nonprofit organizations are accountable to the donors, founders, volunteers, program recipients, and the public community." Now overlay that with how many of us see the RCSC and how they have acted over the past 15 years. Sorry, but is is so far removed from what it should be. The documents should never have been allowed to strip members of their rights. Which again takes us into the tall grass of learning the differences. Without boring you with the details, when Sun City was built, the state's statutes governing us were covered under Title 10. As Arizona grew and new communities were built Title 33 was written and passed to protect homes owners in communities and the organizations that governed them. The general manager and the boards she worked with wanted no part of being covered by it. They went to court to prevent it and found two local legislators to draft legislation to stop it. I could write a chapter on it, but suffice to say, Title 33 forces an organization to function in the harsh light of day, while Title 10 gives them refuse behind closed doors. It is exactly why our founding documents were crafted so carefully over the years; to force the board and management to be held accountable for their actions should they stray. In my humble assessment it is exactly why management has shown so little interest in our history since 2006. Think not? If you watched the board meeting video from Monday, you may have heard Ben Roloff' summation regarding the 2011 actions by the board to remove the massive sun dial at the Sundial recreation center. It was a cost thing as it needed repairs and the board and management decided to just rip it out. Several of us rose in protest and after some heated debate, cooler heads prevailed. Such a foolish decision was the folly of those who have no interest in our history; or our documents. Anyone knows who reads my writings over the years understands how much i value our history. You know i am a firm believer in using our history to be a blueprint for our future. Sadly, we are nowhere near achieving that, as board members, at least till now have simply relied on the general manager to direct the course we take. Hopefully over the next year and inspired by the actions of the Sun City Advocates, we shift gears and learn from our past. We'll see.
If you search through the archives of TOSC, you will find several threads i started with direct ties to the header...History matters. With each passing year, i saw us wandering further and further from our roots. It was fairly clear to me, while i wanted our history to play a part in our future, others wanted to run from it. They saw it as an impediment to where they felt Sun City should end up. At one point a couple of years back, a board member who used to post on TOSC under an alias, lambasted me for starting dozens of threads with all the same theme. He suggested, implied everything i wrote was thinly disguised as an effort to get readers to buy into a sense of community. That everything was talking about ownership, accountability and responsibility. I laughingly responded; "guilty as charged." His lament was we couldn't look forward by looking back. I disagreed. Oddly, after that exchange he stopped posting. He knew, i knew who it was and the tone of his comments were disgust for my attachment to the past. It was one man's opinion and who am i to say it was wrong? After all, he along with a boatload of other board members, were more than happy to let the general manager dictate every move they made. During my three years on the board i watched it up close and personal. It was one of the most challenging periods of my life (2012-2014). As i have stated too many times, the RCSC board is where good ideas go to die. To be clear, that was not how Sun City was built, why it was so successful. Not even close. There's always been elected leadership, there's always been paid staff. Each had their role, with the board setting the course and the staff running the day to day operations. The subset of the board's actions was their default; they were there to represent the membership and to do so, meant involving them every step of the way. In 1982, after DEVCO had left and the Sun Bowl went up for sale, the first thing the board did was turn to the membership. They voted on a $2 dollar a year increase ($40 to $42) and passed it. There was some angst by those who voted against it, but the majority ruled. Thank god they did, it is an iconic venue that has paid huge dividends over all these years. First as a marketing tool for the company and now a setting that provides wonderful outdoor entertainment for the membership. The past 15 years has been all about pushing the membership away. Making them card holders who's primary purpose was to pay the bills and sit on the sidelines and watch as a handful of folks make decisions that impact all of us. Imagine if that had happened in the early 80's and they hadn't queried the membership? Would we even own the Sun Bowl these days. Worse yet, imagine if a select few were trying to make decisions on that amazing venue, all because they knew better than all of us who own it and enjoy it. My point has never wavered; history matters, the membership matter, the community are the owners and as such should be involved in the process of self-governance. When you spend 15 years pushing people away, there is no surprise why or how we ended up where we are. Just one man's opinion.
