It's Not Even About Golf Anymore?

Election Day is December 13th 8:00am-4:00 pm at Lakeview - Social Hall #2
Online Voting and Absentee Ballots available starting November 7th

 

It's never too early to start right? This election will come down to one thing. Let me be succinct: Either you believe in electing those who would allow the management team to decide our fate; or, you want to elect candidates who believe we (the members) are the owners and they are there to serve OUR best interests. Forget the trash about loyalty to the general manager, it was never intended to be the end game. It became that when the GM had an agenda and convinced the board to embrace loyalty to the corporation. There is no corporation without the members.

Allowing outsiders into our community to golf for less than what members pay and adding insult to injury, allowing them equal or better access to prime time tee times would have never, NEVER been allowed by previous boards. Can i be any more clear?

 

Get your question in order and plan on participating and asking those questions at the upcoming Candidate Forums.

Everyone will have an opportunity to meet those running for office and ask those questions.

First Forum is October 19th 2:00-4:00pm
Second Forum is October 26th 6:00-8:00pm

Both Candidate Forums will be held at Sundial Rec Center.

The ability to meet the Candidates on a personal basis will be available 30 minutes prior to each forum!

Plan on attending! It's YOUR money that those Board Members are spending!

 

Thanks for posting the dates FYI. Those meetings will be critical to the future of Sun City residents. When the Sun City Advocates were born, we always understood everything hinged on this coming board election. Make no mistake, the RCSC knows that as well. They've had their way for so long, they have no interest in returning to the days where the membership matters. They like/love total and absolute control.

I'm no election conspiracy theorist kind of guy, but back in the day, Maricopa County used to oversee our (the RCSC board elections). Back then, it was all paper ballots with the single biggest event for gathering votes at the massive craft fair over Thanksgiving weekend. There was an outcry when that was taken away, but they cared not. The answer was, you can vote online.

I've never voted online, much like having a book in my hand, i like voting on election day (at least in the RCSC board election). I like drawing my black lines for given candidates. By the way, back in the day, they used to have at least three locations across the community. Not any more, one site, Lakeview social halls.

All of which leads me to ask this question: Who is tabulating the online ballots? Given what we know about the RCSC' technology capabilities, who in their right mind trusts them to get it right. Are we going to have another glitch like we did with recording the annual membership meeting? Who and how many folks will be counting ballots on election day? We all know how important this election is, hopefully we/they get it right.

I suspect this will be one of the biggest turnouts in modern day history.

 

I believe the online votes are being tabulated by a firm in North or South Carolina but I might be wrong.

The RCSC hires a CPA who sits in the Social Hall and tabulates the votes on election day.

 

Absolutely fascinating: I just went to the golf advisory committee meeting minutes from May and there wasn't a single solitary word about outside play. They did mention limiting tournaments, but nary a peep about outside full play passes. The other thing i found funny was all the comments about golf out performing their budget projections. So freaking what? They write their budgets, so when they beat them, it's meaningless.

You want to make this transparent? Show the committee the expense side of the ledger and then compare it to the revenue side. No wonder everyone thinks golf is doing so well. It's all slight of hand, watch the shiny object called budgets and ignore the reality of what is going on. They've been doing that for the past 15 years. The simple truth is this: Now that they are giving away prime time tee times, the golfing members of the RCSC are having a hell of time getting tee times.

Our golf revenue is up (even though rounds played is down) because of outside play and it isn't from the full play non-resident passes. It's because those living outside the walls that want to play golf are coming here and paying the full price to play. Better yet they are doing it after the members have the ability to book their play. That's the way it should be.

 

Rather than just telling you what they said, let me post a cut from the advisory meeting minutes, it's interesting and perhaps telling:

"Total revenue exceeded total budget by 25.2% and prior year by 3.5%. Merchandise sales missed budget slightly, with the other major categories all exceeding budget. For the first time this year we saw a reduction in rounds played, falling behind prior year by 710 rounds.

Through April, Year to date revenue is $734,576 ahead of budget and $419,617 ahead of prior year. Through April total rounds are 5,788 ahead of prior year, annual surcharge, staff and public daily fee play are the only categories to decrease from prior year. Annual no fee, cardholder and guest rounds were the biggest gainers to prior year, combining to be 6,480 rounds ahead of prior year."

When you read or heard that report, little wonder those in attendance felt pretty good about the state of golf. Revenue was up even though the rounds played was down. Someone actually asked that question and got the answer that higher golf rates made it possible. Is that true? They did increase fees for regular play for both members and non-members. In season we are looking at $35 (members) and $44 (non-members). Clearly that helps, but it's not the real story.

Hold on to your head, this gets a little bizarre: Not all revenue is created equal. Huh? We know from the April golf summary at the board meeting and from the June financials that the sale of full play resident and non-resident passes is up, way up. They pay in advance for the year long pass. That is revenue into the RCSC. For the remainder of the year, every time they step on a Sun City golf course, they do so without paying another nickle. All those passes they sold were revenue that showed on the books, but if you stretch it out over the year, it will actually result in worse financial figures for the remainder of the year.

Compound that with the fact rounds of play are down, and the golf figures will just keep getting worse. The RCSC knew the pandemic bump wouldn't last. Their solution to try and keep rounds of play up was to sell full play passes to anyone and everyone who would buy them. If you read between the lines, surcharge pass sales are down. Why? Because full play pass sales are up. Golfers understand the break point between buying the surcharge and spending $1,550 and not having to pay anything when they step on a green.

It gets worse, because when they do play in small groups of 30 or more, they then bypass the lottery which takes away from those paying the higher rates to play. Why do you think they have superseded their budgetary numbers? Because they knew the drop was coming and they started to soften the blow by dropping their projections. That additional pre-paid revenue is a false flag to cover the dropping rounds. Think i'm wrong? Watch the numbers by years end.

More importantly, why don't they have, why have they never shown the golf advisory committee the cost side of the ledger? Budgets and revenue are only half of the puzzles picture. The other half is what is it costing all of us to keep golf as cheap as it is. I can/could live with subsidizing our golfing community, i, and i expect most of you, have no interest in subsidizing outsiders filling our courses for less money than we would pay and having priority bookings for our tee times.

Just my opinion though. Hopefully, say what will come on and explain it to me/us.

 

Their budget is like the Law of Diminishing Returns!

I guess they budget golf the same way they budget anticipated home sales and PIF? Predict low and when your expectations are exceeded you look like a hero!

 

It's been their trademark the past 15 plus years, and its worked. Why change now? Here's the answer, simple and sweet...because the membership expects them to.

 

I

f you never show an actual income statement for the golf operation and only show projected income versus actual income and ignore expenses, it’s easy to fool people. Golf will never be profitable, so let’s see how much it really costs and go from there.

 

If only Larry. For the past 15 plus years, no one has seen the cost side of the equation. It's top secret. Golf will never be profitable. It was well intended to be, however that was never a reasonable assumption. Board members over the years, especially golfers knew it wasn't, but were always led to believe it was reasonably close. Even that was doubtful for some of us..

Golf is one of our most important amenities. It always will be. What it should never should be is sold to outsiders cheaply. Over the years, boards have always been steadfast about outside play. Back when i was on the board, the rounds they sold to Golf Now was argued it filled open tee times. We all agree lost revenue from unfilled tee times is bad business. But let's be very clear, these non-resident full play passes aren't about open tee times. They are taking those prime time tee times and allowing outsiders access ahead of members in some cases, and at a fraction of what members are paying to play their once a week round of golf.

By the way, this thread blew by 5000 reads. People paying attention?

 

Interesting to note, a couple more letters to the editor in the Independent newspaper this week regarding golf; especially outside play. No one like it, save the handful of golfers who are encouraging their buddies who still live outside the walls and who are joining them to form small groups of 30 or more so they qualify to bypass the lottery system. Yup, i finally get it; I understand why some of them get angry at me, they like an arrangement where they play for next to nothing and that allows them and their friends to be subsidized. Ys, we all pay for their really cheap golf.

Let me be very clear, there is not another topic hotter than this one. In fact, this situation with golf rivals what happened to Karen last year. Both were brazen attempts to override the wishes of the membership by allowing management to dictate how our (OUR) community is run. I cannot overstate how important this issue is; management does not own this community, they work for us, they are there to insure our needs are met. Not a handful of golfers living outside the walls.

The actions of the board in June, when they voted down Director Collin's motion, was a slap in the face to every Sun City resident and to every golfer who isn't out there playing golf with their friends who are enjoying what we all have paid for. One comment in the paper yesterday suggested we (the membership) was subsidizing golf to the tune of 3 million dollars a year. I believe it is considerably lower than that, but none the less, we all are paying to for golf courses in Sun City.

There are those that aren't paying their fair share, and that's the golfers living outside the walls and who are buying the full play non-resident passes. That should never, NEVER, be the case. It's time to put an end to it and come September, we need to let the board know how wrong they were and still are.

 

Emotionally, most of us 100% agree. But legally, AFAIK, as long as owners in SC pay the annual Assessment (mandated by the Facilities Agreement they were required to sign when they purchased their property) the "Corporation" will continue to exist/thrive just fine, even if no owner ever again sets foot on/uses RCSC property/amenities. The RCSC will essentially continue to collect assessments and function as they see fit until a BOD decides to change/dissolve it. The RCSC assets out PIFs and Assements paid for belong to the Corporation -- the membership has no ownership interest in them at all. None! Nada!

The membership's only leverage with the RCSC is their ability to elect Directors which they hope will make decisions beneficial to member interests. But longstanding membership inattentiveness has resulted in decades of elections of non-member focused Directors -- Directors who have given themselves near cart blanche to run the RCSC solely as they wish via modification of the BLs and BPs to further empower themselves. They last decade of BODs have had agenda's that openly resisted member participation in management of the RCSC. These Directors instead chose to follow the advice of past/present GMs, special interests, and parochial ex-directors.

Bill is right when he said...

But, and it is a big BUT...

If we members don't get involved, if we don't do our due diligence on the Board candidates and elect pro-membership focused Directors, or worse, if we don't vote at all, we get what we as a community deserve. ​

Today we have essentially an autocratic RCSC -- one that overly supports a limited agenda of parochial interests (Golf, Bowling, etc), one that fails to react in a timely way to national recreational trends (golf's decline, pickleball's growing popularity, dog parks, walking, bicycling, etc) and one that has failed to keep up with the times in its facilities and infrastructures (club rooms not meeting the needs of the clubs, IT simply archaic, no comfortable theater, inadequate handicapped parking, etc.).

Many members are incapable (due to health, time, knowledge, etc) of evaluating the candidates on the issues. Personally, I find the candidate forums seldom reveal the issues I care about in the depth I would like. Time limits, microphone hogs, etc. detract from in-depth understanding of the candidate. It would help if sites like this publish summaries of candidates positions on the issues so those unable to evaluate candidates directly have a source to rationally decide who to vote for. Could we assemble a list of questions and ask each candidate to reveal in writing their positions on that common list of issues -- then publish for all to see. Candidates who choose to not respond or respond with verbiage that avoids the question thus expose their true colors in comparison to those who are forthright.

 

You have the opportunity to ask those questions yourself at the two upcoming Candidate Forums.

First Forum is October 19th 2:00-4:00pm
Second Forum is October 26th 6:00-8:00pm

Both Candidate Forums will be held at Sundial Rec Center.

The ability to meet the Candidates on a personal basis will be available 30 minutes prior to each forum!

 

Love the comments IC and i suspect the vetting of this year's candidates will be more important than ever. Even more important will be framing why some candidates should be considered and why some shouldn't be. Pretty easy, especially after the golf vote in June. Those that voted against Director Collin's motion should be exposed for the frauds they are...not giving two-shits about the membership and being concerned about management and a bunch of outsiders coming in and using the golf courses we all pay for.

That day should live on in infamy and they will indeed own their actions. We simply won't let them forget what they did.

 

What kinda concerns me is I don't hear much about how many people are running other than those who are running for re-election?

Does anybody know who else besides Jean Totten is running?

 

Candidates must turn in their paperwork by noon on Friday, October 7th but the chances are the public won't find out until sometime the following week!

 

I would assume they need to verify the signatures?

 

IC - IMHO, I see no reason why folks who chat here couldn't create a list of questions to ask candidates and then publish the answers.
Jean Totten (as ODAAT)

 

Now you did it, FYI! Now there's no turning back!!!!!
Jean Totten as ODAAT