Yesterday during the open discussion with members the first 4 presenters who signed up, all lived on Dawn Lake. For those who don't know, there are two lakes in Sun City; Viewpoint, owned by the RCSC and Dawn Lake, a private lake opened a year after Viewpoint and owned by those living on the lake. While the lots sold at a premium price, there was more to them than just being pretty and more expensive properties. They functional as well and were feeder systems for our golf courses. For 40 plus years the relationship was mutually beneficial. Now it's not. I won't try and explain, watch the meeting, the owners did a better job than i ever could explaining it. However, their goal was easy to grasp; get the board of directors to meet with them. They've met with management and they have told them to pound salt. As i said at the mic, just meet with them. I doubt it will happen and that is tragic, a lawsuit will be forthcoming. How did we get here? In May, April and June, the turmoil started in the community regarding shutting down the pickleball courts at Mountainview. Then in act of wilful indifference, the board fired a board member we elected, which actually turned out to be the second one in two years. The only time in our history. How did we get here? When the board started up again this fall, somewhere between 100 and 2oo members showed up to challenge the board's actions. Rather than facing them, the president led the rest of the board off the stage, clearly a message to all of in attendance. How did we get here? In response, a member was so incensed he filed a petition for recall of the board president as defined in the RCSC By-Laws. The board diddled with it for the allowable 60 days and then had their attorney write a response with a fabricated explanation for denial. How did we get here? After the meeting yesterday i went up and asked the new GM about my information request and a discussion ensued. I told him i had spelled it all out why i wanted it. I felt the community had the right to know how much had been dumped/hidden from the community on golf under the previous GM. He said, "what is the difference?" Then we talked about golf having to be self-sustaining and after 3 years of working here and no time living here, he told me it was never the intention of golf being self-sustaining. He has in-hand the articles from the newspaper where the board president told the community that was exactly the case. His response, those are just newspaper articles. Really???? How did we get here? From our beginning in 1960 through 2005 the Sun City was built around a concept of self-governance, of ownership and with a culture forged around a sense of community. Our documents paved the way to insure it all worked in sync. It wasn't an accident, it took lots of trial and error to get it right. Then by the end of 2005, things changed, documents were rewritten, the entire identity of the community was swept aside, " The City of Volunteers," was lost to the "Original Fun City." How did we get here? The new community documents became unrecognizable. More importantly the RCSC shifted from being elected to represent the membership to "undivided loyalty to the corporation." How did we get here? I'll bold this, because i know board members read this, as well as management. These are not unanswerable questions and frankly as you can tell, i have no hidden agenda, i tell you all point blank what i am doing and why. We've strayed as a community. We've lost a piece of us and it wasn't by accident. I will be happy to meet with anyone from either the board or management who is willing to do something other than blindly follow along behind those we hire and then think their (management's) goal is to make all of the decisions. It was never, ever the way it was supposed to be. My goals are simple: With new leadership, with new board members' we have the opportunity to help restore Sun City to it's core values. No offense meant, but i won't hold me breath. I know exactly how we got here.
How DID we get here? Bill, was there ever some sort of situation between the Board and the Members that caused or warranted such bylaws restrictions be put on the Membership? Seems to me, and as I understand it, it was the new GM who brought those 17 pages of bylaw restrictions to the RCSC, and probably from her previous job? Was it simply pre-emptive or actually needed? First question we need to ask the board at the upcoming Member Exchanges is, "What are you afraid of that you can't trust the Members with information or the ability to co-govern Sun City?" Next: "What damage is done if the Members are allowed to collect signatures on RCSC property?" If the Board of Directors aren't doing anything wrong then they shouldn't be worrying about repercussions. Obviously, we can't blame the current or recent past board of directors for all the restrictions in our bylaws, but somehow we must get it thru their thick heads that "the corporation at all cost" isn't the mentality that made Sun City blossom from the desert, but it is now the mentality that is killing the dream! We need to come down very hard on the next and new board whomever that may be, as well as the new GM. I don't believe we're asking for anything unreasonable or anything that we don't deserve to know. All we want is to get back to the basics that made this a great place to live without constantly being restrained by over burdensome rules and regulations that, if everything was hunky-dory, wouldn't ever be needed!
It's a great question FYI and if had to give a "best guess" answer it would be the never ending ARS lawsuit. I've made an effort over the years for folks to understand the SCWOOG battle in Sun City West where tempers were flaring over both open governance and transparency. Both parties struck a solution and put most of the angst behind them by simply agreeing to function under Title 33. Problem solved. In Sun City the lawsuit started small and dragged on for nearly 20 years. No one would budge an inch and the new gm made her mark by changing everything and using that as the fulcrum. So we are clear, the board bought into every change though i doubt they paid much attention to any of them. It was simply leadership by management with the blessings of predominantly golfers who put in less hours and golf was funded well beyond what was intended (in spite of what the GM past and present try to tell me). The changes that were made were ugly and plentiful. They are in the past, but if nothing else we should learn from them. My fear is this, the Dawn Lake case may well be the next explosion. And to be perfectly blunt, i'm not convinced we can find a resolution regarding the golf subsidy and the grandfathering of those living here before 2003. As i said at the mic yesterday you can't just shrug your shoulders and make crap up when it comes to the agreements made over the years between the community and the corporation. Honesty and integrity should be a given between us but from what i am seeing, it appears to be one sided. We can get back on track, but if you refuse to acknowledge your role in ripping the community apart, where do we go next?
The only option to "next" is a lawsuit! Look, I think the Dawn Lake crowd has legitimate concerns but I can also understand why the RCSC wants to wipe their hands of the issue because its out of their control. I'm not saying I agree with them, only that I understand where they're coming from. Dawn Lake fits into the equation the State is using to determine water restrictions within Sun City and the RCSC can't tell the State what to do. However, as a simple common courtesy the RCSC management shouldn't refuse to sit down with the Dawn Lake representatives and try to explain the situation and come to some sort of mutual understanding. It never hurts to talk but if you're simply going to ignore the problem it isn't going to fix itself. Each party needs to recognize exactly what the situation is, and that doesn't mean anything can be done about it, but when everybody acknowledges who's really holding all the cards (ADWR) then perhaps calmer minds may prevail. Dawn Lake has purchased water in the past and perhaps it may be necessary to do it again. But...was it too early for the RCSC to tell the Dawn Laker's to go pound salt when none of the ADWR restrictions have yet to be implemented?
