It's Not Even About Golf Anymore?

I will go into detail below, today's board meeting was stunning. Here's why:
1). The board told us loud and clear, their job is about protecting non-members who buy full play golf passes.
2). Those of us living here and subsidizing golf should not expect to be able to get on a course when these non-members want to play.
3). Worse yet, they told us it is perfectly okay with them (the board) if those non-members can play golf on our courses for less than we pay. ($35 for us, $20 for them).
4). Even more staggering is the board told us they didn't want to infringe on managements right to set golf rates. I freaking kid you not. Was there a single person in the room who knows the history of setting golf rates?

Given the events of today, where the board was worried about the setting golf rates, their job should be policy (as they told us), here's a policy for them: "No non-member should ever be able to enjoy our amenities for less cost than those of us living here." I don't care if we are talking about 10 pin bowling, going to a dance, playing cards, lawn bowling, enjoying a swimming pool or golfing; members first and cheaper than outsiders.

Let me be very clear, Sun City was built for Sun City residents, it is owned by Sun City residents. Why would we think it is just fine to let non-members have greater benefits and utilization than those of us who live here and own it? Today was one of the most disturbing days i have ever witnessed in the history of this community. To Dale, Kat, Mike, Darla and Allan, you should all be ashamed. Putting non-members ahead of members is wrong.

Read the damned Articles of Incorporation. I defy you to show me where it says you should do everything legally possible to benefit those not living in Sun City. Defy you. It is a breach of your fiduciary obligations, plain and simple.

I get it, the management folks who don't live here don't give two shits about what they do and where the revenue comes from, your job is to represent us. Today, you told us point blank, we simply don't matter.

 

I put this out as a question for anyone reading this, anyone who golfs or anyone who lives in Sun City and subsidizes that small percentage of the those who buy full play passes. I had a guy tell yet again at the board meeting, i just don't get it about golf. He further clarified, i don't understand how it works.

Really? Freaking Really?

It got pretty heated, at least through all the crap i finally could sort it out. He told me he buys a full play pass and golfs 200 rounds a year. I won't bore you with the math; suffice to say, he is paying $7.75 a round. There's not a golf course in the country that can be run at those rates. Not one.

Today's discussion, motion from Director Collins was to increase/change non-member full play passes. It did a couple of things. The rate would be a flat $2500, no golf car. If they wanted a golf car, they would pay $6 per person, $12 for the two people in a car. At least that way, every time they played, they would either walk or rent a car, or bring their own.

Frankly that wasn't enough, but it was way more than what management wants to do, next January. So basically, their proposal is to do nothing and sell a boatload more full play passes that are good for a year from date of purchase. Steve's motion was a good first step.

Here's why; it changed how non-members could access our lottery. RCSC members would be able to get their tee times sooner than than non-members, now they have have equal access. As i pointed out at the meeting, my wife and i have paid $4250 in PIF fees since we moved here in 1999. Over that time period, 50 million dollars have been spent on updating our golf courses. Not one thin freaking dime has come from non-member full play passes. Not one dime.

Not only did we spend that much from PIF, the membership has paid an additional 25 to 30 million dollars from our annual budgets to subsidize the game. You know, so guys who buy the full play pass and play 200 or 300 times play for next to nothing. Every household subsidizes golf, all 32,500 members. We help pay for your cheap golf.

As this member and i were arguing, i finally understood what he was angry about. He told me he has a bunch of his buddies who live in Peoria, Surprise and Glendale who buy the full play pass and they play together three times a week. I asked him why i should subsidize them? He told me because the RCSC gets their money from them up front. Are you freaking kidding me?

Up front, down the side, or up the ass, they are all golfing for what the RCSC tells us is $20 per round. If i want to golf, after paying my $4250 in PIF, yearly subsidies of $30-$50 per household per year, i can step on one of our courses (if i can get a tee time) for $35 per round. Is there something wrong with that picture?

I get the argument golf cannot be self-sustaining, we should agree to subsidize it. The question should be, by how much per year? The question should never be, how much should i subsidize some 45 year old from Peoria so he or she can play for $20 per round. NEVER.

 

By the way, it gets worse. The golf report told us a lot. The one thing we know for sure is, full play golf passes to non-members are growing daily. The word is out, cheapest golf rates in all of Arizona. Let me help you get your head around this. A full play non-member golf pass is $2500 with a golf car; no car, $2000. Best rates anywhere, don't believe me, look for yourself.

We know from the RCSC, they tell us in 2021 an average round cost $20 for non-members. We also know the majority of those card holders bought the pass with car. Golf car rental is $12 for a car, typically 2 per car, $6 each. You can do the math on a 100 rounds (it's higher btw) but for simplicity sake, the $2500 pass, using our golf car is worth $600 to $700 off that price so they are essentially getting the the full play pass, for $1800-$1900.

So you understand, if i go play in the winter months and pay my $35 for the round, if i don't have my own golf car, i rent it from the RCSC for $6 per person, $12 for two of us. That puts my round at $41. The same round my new found friends from Peoria, Surprise and Glendale are paying $20 for.

But wait, if we don't do that, nobody will buy the full play pass that doesn't live here. Is that true? The real question isn't is it true, it is how did we get to the point where we had to give away golf in Sun City? Apparently nobody watched, nobody cared. The statement was made they only sold 14 full play passes in Sun City West to non-members. True, but they have less than a tenth of the golfers there buying the full play pass. They don't want people buying full play passes. Hell, for members, theirs is $35oo.

And so we are even more clear, Sun City West outside golf revenue as of their annual meeting last week reported two things:
1). Outside play generated nearly 5 million dollars, and not a round was sold to non-members cheaper than what a member would pay.
2). Non-members could not book tee times as early as members. Per the GM; "owner-members always had prime time privileges."

That is 100% different from the way Sun City treats their membership. Sun City West knows outside play is critical, but never to the detriment of the membership.

 

Thank you, Bill.

 

My next door neighbor just turned 100, the man next to her is 96, they have both lived here since their homes were built in 1973, their fees are grandfathered and they pay $248. The guy across the street and the one immediately behind me are in their 80's. Both moved here after 2003, both are now single or widowed and both pay the $496. The second two paid PIF in some amount, the first two none.

The all have two things in common, none of them use the rec centers any longer, their choice. The second one, they all subsidize golfers in Sun City. Worse than that, they all subsidize those living outside Sun City who buy full play golf passes. That's not their choice by the way, they just do. We all do. I've come to appreciate, many people feel golf should be subsidized. It's any amenity.

It was purchased under different terms and conditions with the RCSC president telling us point blank when they bought them for $10 and a cup of coffee, golf would be self-sustaining. It is interesting to note the 96 year old and the 100 year old lived in Sun City when those articles were in the newspaper. My guess is they don't remember Myron Waggoner saying that. Like 99% plus of the population, they've probably never read what the purchase agreement says either.

The general manager said to me a year ago, "it's not fair that golf should be treated differently than other clubs." Maybe he's right, but at some point, we need to be honest with ourselves about the benefit of really cheap golf in Sun City. I had a lady the other day tell me at the meeting her husband golfs 300 plus days a year. He says pointedly, it's like $5 a round. I know, i've done the calculations.

It's why i laugh when goofs living here tell me i don't understand the numbers. And that's where he is wrong, the problem is, i do understand them, far better than most. I'm willing to accept we need to subsidize golf for the membership. Not sure how much but we can't even have that discussion. Nope, we've now decided my four neighbors need to subsidize golf even for those not living in Sun City.

Let me repeat that, my 100 year old neighbor, my 96 year old neighbor and my two 80 plus year old neighbors who don't use any facilities in Sun City, help pay for some 45 year old living in Peoria, Surprise or Glendale be able to golf for $20.18 a round (less if they get the golf car with it). Now, look up and down your block and all the blocks across Sun City and multiply the number of seniors living here who are being forced to do the same thing.

Does that make any sense to you?

 

Gee, does that mean that we can have those living in Peoria, Surprise or Glendale join our Clubs too? I'm sure there are many motorheads out there who would just love to join the Vintage Vehicle Club with all of its amenities?

What the hell...the outsiders come to SC to play golf and bowling! Heck...let everybody in! We're in a time of Open Borders aren't we?

 

Bill,
I just want to make sure that this is what you meant to say - "To Dale, Kat, John, Darla and Allan, you should all be ashamed. Putting non-members ahead of members is wrong."

I think you meant, "Dale, Kat, Mike, Darla and Allan, you should all be ashamed.

 

Thanks ODAAT, got that clean up in aisle 5. Good chance for me to give a shout out to John for the amazing job he has done these few months on the board. I told him he far exceeded my expectations and that's saying a lot.

 

Yes, he has but being the professional and nice guy that he is, he needs to push back a little harder when Dale tries to shut him down. He needs to start appealing some of her rulings and force the entire board to vote. He may not win but at least everybody will see where each member of the board stands.

 

Nope, it does not. I'd also suggest that no one tell you that you don't understand the numbers. You obviously do.

 

I don't disagree, but to what end? If you watched the meeting, you saw the chair make ruling after ruling where she simply played the role of king. Under Robert's Rules, rulings can be challenged and called for a vote by the board regarding the ruling (at least that's how i think it is supposed to work). Ultimately the gang of 5 or 6 will just vote against anything the minority challenges. It's one of the problems when board members make a career out of their volunteer service; they see it as theirs, not ours.

One thing is clear, the animosity between Dale and Karen is the real deal. Not sure how that ever plays out. The one thing i can tell you from having been there, nothing fun about being in the minority while the majority just runs over you with every ruling. Using Robert's Rules as a weapon was never what it was intended for. It has simply become an abuse of power that the board president appears to revel in.

 

Is it possible to have our own (informal?) parliamentarian, who knows RR and when and how to object? I do not know the ins and outs of RR but as you note, it is not a weapon. I used to think of it as kind of guide to equal treatment in contentious proceedings, sort of like Justice with her blindfold. I've lived through the years of the former gm and watched the failure to follow their own rules to amend our documents and shape them into their personal worldview. If I wanted to be told when and what color to paint my house, (but look you can choose from three color schemes!), I would have moved to SCG. Original SC is where I am comfortable and hope to live out my days. Do you remember the evening board meeting at Mountain View where the community filled the auditorium to speak against increasing the quorum? The frustration I felt after leaving that 'meeting' and having the quorum increased despite the Members being against that change was ... tough. And having candidates approach as I was leaving, promising that they were against the increase, blah blah - because they knew almost everyone there was against it. You said in a previous post, one step forward, two steps back. It seems that the old guard holds on tight and squashes any dissent, or even lack the willingness to engage in rational discourse with others.

 

Then everybody will know where each member stands!

 

Back to golf, i stopped the director of golf after the meeting, I was curious, both the general manager and him told the board golf made money in 2021. I asked him about the 990's and he told me he never saw them, didn't know what they were. That's entirely possible, though unlikely, but i will cut him some slack and take him at face value. Let's just say, he has no idea.

I've been watching the web sites that post the 990's for non-profit organizations. For some reason, 2020 hasn't been posted yet. They are submitted each year by the organization on the 15th day of the fifth month following their fiscal year close. That means the 2020 form should have been submitted by May of 2020. They can ask for an extension, but even when they do, it should be posted by now.

In fact, by now, the 2021's should be completed and should have been mailed (barring the extension). Board members have the right to ask for and receive that information. Hell, i would argue members have the right to ask for it. The rumor has it, the general manager has been asked for it but has been slow rolling anyone seeing anything. Let me be very clear here, if golf is profitable, then i have no interest in what they charge members to play. Simple solution, don't tell us it is, show us it is. Duh.

It's not that i don't trust what they are telling us, what i do know is their numbers aren't matching up to be profitable. Here's some numbers from their end of year (December) statements:
2021 total revenue all golf categories: $7,180,056.
2020 total revenue all golf categories: $6, 864,750.
2019 total revenue all golf categories: $5, 812,888.

What we do know is golf saw an enormous resurgence during the pandemic. That is no surprise as the RCSC allowed that to be the only game in town, they also opened it up for non members which grew our outside play numbers. While talking with the director of golf, he asked me if i knew what was happening in Sun City West? I mentioned i had looked at their 990's from 2020, and they lost about 4 million dollars, 6 million dollars in revenue, 10 million dollars in costs. I didn't waste my time pointing out the management in Sun City West took covid19 more seriously and closed golf to outside play for part of the year, why bother. I also didn't tell him years back the SCW board actually went to the membership and they voted to subsidize golf. Details matter.

So why do any of these numbers matter? The last available 990 for the RCSC is from 2019. Part three of the form shows this:
Golf, Expenses: $8,011,411.
Golf, Revenue: $5,143,779. (Which tells me they don't include in the revenue anything other than rounds paid and played).

The good news from this is, golf did see a huge resurgence during the pandemic. They generated another 1.4 million dollars from 2019-2021. That's good.

The problem is in the numbers that are missing, What were the costs, the expense side of the ledger. Is there anyone reading this in their right mind that thinks the costs associated with running 8 golf courses went down in 2020 and 2021? We know the cost of water, fertilizer, grass seed, equipment and labor all have gone up. Let me repeat, they all have gone up.

But just for discussion purposes, lets say the folks running the golf division were walking on water and broke even, didn't spend a penny more to run those 8 golf courses. That means the 7 million 1 hundred and eighty thousand dollars (which included every nickle they took in across cart rentals, range fees and merchandise sales), they still came up nearly a million dollars short. 2021 revenue from their financials: $7,180,056. 2019 Expenses from the 2019 990: $8,011,411.

I've freely admitted i am no financial whiz kid. I've also stated all i can work with is what i can find on line. Board members have the right to access each and every piece of the data that would answer the questions i am raising here. And let me be very blunt and i will tell you why in the next post.

 

Let me sum up all of this. I know my friends hate when i harp on golf. They see it as a no win issue. I get it. The reality is with 32,600 members, there are only 1600 of them buying full play passes. Hell, there's only 4200 of them in the community. The full play passes, for the most part allow members to play a lot of golf at a fraction of the price. The bulk of the golfers, from those buying the surcharge ($800) pass to those paying the full freight $35 in the winter months, less in the summer, are all in fact subsidizing full play passes.

Worse yet, is now the argument is those living outside Sun City should be subsidized as well. That might be the dumbest thing i have ever heard. As FYI said, why not start selling passes to our swimming pools and fitness centers? Hell, we have 125 clubs, how about letting them join them as well? Think of the money we could be taking in. So you know, we get our special tax status based on being an organization created for the membership.

Here is the point of this exercise. I chastised board members above who voted against Director Collins motion. I suspect some of them did so because both the director of golf and the general manager told them, "golf was profitable in 2021." In fact if it was, as i said above my arguments regarding golf wouldn't exist. The management of the RCSC needs to put their cards (documentation) on the table and show us those profits. Show us the 990's from 2021. Show us how golf revenue exceeded golf expenses. Do it and i quickly shut up about golf.

If they can't and if they lied to the board members and to all of us in the room and all of us watching, then the board should take the appropriate action. Board members make decisions on the information given them. If that information is wrong, especially in this case where we are giving away our assets to non-members to enjoy for less money than we are paying then they should be gone, and i mean gone quickly.

It's that freaking simple.

 

This is a good opportunity for a little history lesson. If you aren't interested, just blow by it. Del Webb was a card carrying union carpenter. We have on display at the museum an award he received for being a long time member of that union. In the 40's he employed 25,000 workers, mostly in good paying union jobs. His management people were always well paid as well. For Del, relationships meant a lot. During the 40's, he received 100 million dollars in federal contracts.

Conversely, John Meeker and Bob Johnson were business men. They were both very good at what they did. Their focus was always on the cost side of the ledger. Labor costs were always an issue, with any number of references to contractual disputes during the building of Sun City. Webb's companies were easy targets to unionize. He was considered a union employer. Meeker and Johnson, especially when Webb died in 1974, became more aggressive in keeping their labor costs down and fighting the unions.

I suspect some of the argument wasn't in the wage itself, but the work rules, especially in construction contracts that drove their decisions. Here's what many aren't aware of, the golf course maintenance workers, when the courses were owned by DEVCO, were unionized. One of the impediments for the RCSC to buy the courses was over the high cost of semi-skilled labor on the golf courses. During the mid-70's DEVCO broke the union. Not all of the workers left and frankly they didn't reduce labor costs by much, what they did get out from under were strict work rules and contract negotiations every three years. It helped seal the deal for the RCSC to take ownership of the courses.

The problems of higher pay rates for golf course maintenance workers persisted. When the new general manager came in 2006, she reviewed the wage scales across the 440 plus employees. At the top of the heap were golf course maintenance workers. She quickly realized she needed to fix that. I can show you from the 990's how much she saved when she fired them all and hired an outside vendor on a contract basis. In the 2010 990's (so calendar year 2009), the expense side costs to run the 8 golf courses was $6879,743. In the next years filing the costs dropped to $6,358,185. A savings over over 500K. The next year was nearly identical.

Downsizing, rightsizing and eliminating top heavy wage jobs was a by-product of the 80's and 90's. Sun City was never a part of that, until 2009 when they dumped long serviced people with lots of vacation and higher than average wages. They offered jobs to everyone, at less money and starting over as new employees. About half the workers stayed, the others left. The oddity was the sub-contractor was fired before the end of the third year in his agreement. All of the employees became RCSC employees again, albeit making less money and less vacation.

The reality was, it worked. By using an outside vendor, the general manager had fixed some of the challenges with having long term high wage and benefit employees. The downside was, most of the employees were Sun City residents who resented being treated like that. Working from the 990's, even back in the late 2000's and even up through 2015, the RCSC was always coming up a 1.5 to 2 million dollars more expenses than revenue. In 2011, the first year this shows on the 990's the expense side dropped to $6.3 million while the expense side was $4.6 million dollars.

There's a reason no one has seen these figures. It is impossible to make their narrative work if the membership knows the facts. None of this makes golf or golfers bad. It is the largest constituency group in Sun City. It is also the least understood operation in the community. I would argue, that has been by design. By hiding it, they could just keep keeping on. I know so many golfers who still tell me golf pays its own way. It's not even close and it hasn't for years.

Frankly i could live with most of it. That is until golfers, board members and management people tell me all of us are obliged to subsidize golfers who don't even live here. That's just freaking nonsense.

 

There's more, historically. There was a hot button issue with the county, maybe water consolidation. We held a joint meeting with Sun City West residents, we invited them to join us at the Sun Dial Auditorium. I think there was both a day and night meeting. Huge crowds and after the night session i was walking out with a Sun City West member who was grousing about the fees in Sun City West being higher. They are and as we chatted, he told me it was in part because years back, the membership there voted to subsidize golf.

As i have said many times, i'm not opposed to subsidizing golf. I resent they (the RCSC) didn't have the decency to ask us about doing so. They just did and pretended everything was on par or very close to break even. I remember my new friend from Sun City West telling me Sun City was doing better because they weren't covering the shortfall costs. Little did he or i know. I suspected, but wholly different from knowing.

The interesting thing about Sun City West is, i don't think their golf course maintenance workers were ever unionized. By the time they had opened and were run by DEVCO, they were paying them enough to insure they didn't join a union. It was early 2000 from the articles i found the community addressed the golf shortfall. They made a number of changes, much of it dealing with outside play and the rest with subsidizing the costs.

As i was writing this, i mentioned the 10 million dollar costs in 2020 and only 6 million dollars in revenue (from their 990). I knew they closed their courses to outside play that year for a good portion of the season. They knew it would hurt them financially, but they made the decision based on what they felt was in the best interest of the membership. That 4 million dollars was huge.

Seeing that, it prompted me to pull up their 990's from the past 5 years. I was stunned. They were only losing between 1 million to 1.3 million per year. Far less than what the RCSC is pouring into our golf subsidy, and Sun City West has the blessing from the membership to support golf. We don't, never bothered to ask us. Realistically our golf courses are much older, but that's why we've spent 50 million from PIF on them.

I know for most this is just words and numbers that don't mean anything. No one living here should have to pay attention to all of this, it should be readily available to the members (especially the board members) When we talk about transparency, it isn't this far removed concept that isn't achievable. It can easily be done and then every decision can be made based on solid data with inarguable facts. That was exactly how the board president told us she wanted to function. After reading any or all of this thread, does anyone think that is what we are doing?

 

We hear and read a lot from the president but what you read doesn't exactly line-up on what you hear at the meetings.

You read the articles in the Independent and Sun Views and everything is rosy...Life is Good in Sun City! Yeah, until you attend a board meeting and find yourself in a idealistic war between those Board members who believe they owe their allegiance to the Corporation and those who believe they owe their allegiance to the Membership! Those of the former seem to be pretty much adamant in their opinion while those of the later understand their allegiance is to both but unfortunately they are in the minority.

I encourage everybody to go watch the video of the last meeting and if you don't come out of there with more questions than answers, then you're living in another world, not to mention you could cut the tension with a knife!

I certainly hope we can attract candidates for the upcoming election of Board members that will help change the current course of Sun City.

You would have hoped the "Sun" in Sun City would be a reflection of the light you would see thru transparency! Instead, we are treated like mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed bull shit! Meanwhile, everybody just keeps kicking the cost of golf down the road!

 

And one more thing I just thought about that REALLY, REALLY pisses me off...

It appears that Dale has now managed to even turn some members of the Pickleball Club against Karen. YES...Karen...the one person on the board who fought so relentless for the Pickleballer's and was rewarded by getting kicked off the Board... that Karen!

When you watch the meeting pay attention to when Karen tries to explain why she will be voting NO on the motion for a $50,000 budgetary approval increase to pursue an architectural design to replace the tennis courts at Lake View with Pickleball courts and how she was shut-down.

Some of us have seen and read the two full page explanation why she will be voting NO. Unfortunately, she was not given the opportunity at the Board meeting to explain it!

 

Excellent point on Karen's commentary regarding pickleball FYI. She was focused on whatever the RCSC was going to do with the replacement of courts from Mountain View be done right. I know for some, that's a novel approach. The entire fiasco from 2021 could have been avoided when Karen was fired. It was a matter as simple as following their own rules. They had an obligation to hold 3 readings on the Mountain View option 2 rebuild. The first reading was at the board meeting the beginning of June, the second reading was the end of June before they broke. The third meeting would have been the first meeting back in Sept after the summer break.

There was a reason for 3 readings, to allow for community commentary. You would think when they have 3 readings for the length of a pool noodle, the expenditures in the 40 million dollar range probably needed to be at least as important. The bigger issue would have been the board could have interacted with the affected clubs during the summer break and quelled the angst. Perhaps if they had followed their own procedures, they wouldn't have felt the need to fire Karen, and none of the shitstorm that followed would have been necessary.

All water over the damn and while looking back can be a really good educational tool, clearly they've learned little from their actions. Nia mentioned the meetings back in 2009 when the membership rose in opposition to the change in the quorum requirements. They simply didn't care what those showing up thought. They still don't.

And therein is the problem when you neither learn from your mistakes, or correct them.