Most pressing issues in Sun City

Discussion in 'Sun City General Discussions' started by SCR, Oct 11, 2021.

  1. CMartinez

    CMartinez Well-Known Member

    So sorry Bill, but my answer is to make the assesments fair and equitable per owner, not per lot. I feel that is a much more fair way to leverage the costs of the facilities and as well as the per person cost to use said facilities. I still feel we would have the lowest rates for the community. Won't even get started on golf as it has been a red herring for years, and it has been allowed to devour the resources of this community at the absolute discretion of the GM. I truly feel the needs of Sun City have languished at the hands of golf and the amounts spent. If those monies had been put towards the needs and desires of the members, as well as other outstanding community issues, RCSC would not be staring into the face of what could be an impending cost overrunn in regards to water, the lake, electronic updates and the like. We would already have a community center as well as office space for the employees currently housed at Lakeview. So much left undone while making sure that golf was left to unfettered and allowed to squander away resources This was not what Meeker had envisioned for this community nor did any of the founding fathers.
     
  2. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Nothing to be sorry about Carole, if push came to shove and we could change it, i would opt for a per person rather than a per property. It is the fair way to do it.

    Let me get back to golf for a minute. We have an old photo at the Museum from 1961 of the pro shop at the North golf course. The rates are listed on poster in front of the cash register and they were $2.85 on week days and $3.25 on week ends. There were only the two courses, North and South, and to my knowledge there was no full play pass. I wrote a column on a blog around 2010 comparing the cost of a round of golf, 50 years later. It was stunning how little the cost had risen for someone playing a lot and buying the full play pass.

    I will leave that in the past, i just want you to look at it this way:
    * Sun City Annual Golf Pass (all courses). $1,550.
    * Sun City West Unlimited Annual Golf Card. $3,350.
    * Sun City Grand Premium Pass. $4,010.

    Let's break it down further. In Sun City if you buy the annual golf pass and golf the following number of rounds, here is your cost per round:
    * 100 rounds per year: $15.50 per round.
    * 200 round per year: $7.75 per round.
    * 300 rounds per year: $5.17 per round.

    A couple of things, both Sun City West and Sun City Grand have newer and nicer courses. They should be more expensive. Sun City West subsidizes golf, but they are much more expensive even with that. I don't know about Sun City Grand subsidizing; don't really care.

    The point being here is the RCSC has ignored their obligation to make golf self-sustaining. The simple truth is, the boards have been made up by a majority of golfers who for whatever reason have elected to keep golf rates low. Is it right? Is it wrong? To be blunt, that was a decision that belonged in the hands of the community, not the gm and a bunch of golfers who benefited by their actions.
     
  3. aggie

    aggie Well-Known Member

    I know...this is off topic but some good news. The Budget & Finance Committee Summary is posted. There will be no increase in the annual lot assessment but there will be an increase in the daily golf fees. I think the increase to 5K for the PIF would be something the BOD would have to bring forward. The increase in the PIF doesn't impact the higher sales prices of homes but tacking that onto the smaller multiple dwelling units will be a factor when trying to sell.
     
  4. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Good news indeed on the no increase on the lot assessment. That said, you mentioned increases in golf, here is what it said in the summary: "Price Increases in certain types of Golf rounds. No Price Increase for Bowling, Annual Golf Passes, Surcharges."

    Most people have no idea, but the RCSC takes in far more money from the pre-paid pass and surcharge than they do on the Daily Greens Fees. In 2020, it was more than a million dollars. It's no surprise when you consider how cheap golf becomes when you buy one of the pre-paid passes. I guess where this would get interesting is if you pulled the names of those pre-paid card members to see how many of them were actually board members. That would indeed fit the criteria for a conflict of interest.

    So i am clear, i don't hate golf. What i hate is over the years as we tried to talk about the future and golf and water, golfers quickly pointed out golf courses are off limits due to the way they were transferred to the RCSC. Agreed, except, if that is the case, then you also have to buy into the other half of the transfer equation...golf has to be self-sustaining. You can't have one without the other.
     
  5. aggie

    aggie Well-Known Member

    I didn't realize that non-member/cardholders only have to be 45 years old to purchase the pre-paid passes. Quite a bargain.
     
  6. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    The more I dig into golf, the uglier the picture gets. If the numbers I have from the 2020 budgets are correct the shortfall was 1.8 million dollars. Pretending they are fixing it with a dollar increase on daily rates is laughable. I am not going to tell you the majority of golfers play 300 rounds a year when they buy the pass because I simply don’t know. Those figures should be available for us all to see. Especially when you consider someone who plays that much is paying just over $5 per round.

    Both Sun City West and Sun City Grand have much higher yearly fees and my guess is that is to minimize those higher levels of play which creates wear and tear on their courses. The simple reality is we have generated higher numbers of rounds by reducing costs through artificially low prices. If the board members and the GM wanted to do what they did, subsidize golf, they should have allowed the membership to vote on it.

    We’ve pumped around $35 million into the courses, not counting buildings, from the PIF budget. We know now they are looking at 6 million to fix Veiwpoint Lake, half of which should be applied to golf and another 20 million dollars for turf reduction. All of which comes from the PIF and will bump us up near 60 million dollars from PIF for golf. That is a lot of freaking money.

    I could argue lots of people that buy homes in Sun City buy for the golf. These days an average of 10% might be on the high side. We average about 7 million dollars a year. If we were to be spending just what those 10% bought here for golf, it would be roughly half what they will be investing by 2025. Say 30 million dollars.

    That’s not the way PIF was constructed. The point was to take care of our amenities. Golf is one of our amenities and an important one at that. Investing PIF into golf is critical to maintaining the Sun City lifestyle. What isn’t right is spending a million dollars a year from our operating budgets and not billing it back to golf to determine the cost. I would and just did argue we have artificially kept our rounds of play as high as they are with under priced golf.

    I guess none of this matters as it appears the board, even though they freely admit they know golf is supposed to be self-sustaining, just do as they please. My guess is a lawsuit for a breach of their fiduciary obligations would bury them all.
     
  7. suncityjack

    suncityjack Active Member

    PRESSING ISSUES:
    Yes, water concerns (esp. developing gray water solutions) and the other issues people have suggested above are all things I agree with, but let me add a couple and reiterate the third:
    1) NEED FOR A COMMUNITY CENTER/HUB like the ol' Student Unions we were used to at college, a community living room as it were--a place where you can hang out, meet people, exchange ideas, jump in for a spur of the moment board game, grab a snack or light meal, a drink (and not just coffee),knit or crochet and run into others doing the same or asking about what you're doing, curl up on a comfy chair with a book or laptop, etc. It would stay open until c. 10 p.m. It would foster spontaneity and provide serendipitous experiences. The Sundial Men's Club has a similar concept as does the Women's Club at Lakeview, but gosh darn it, we need something for those of us who don't want to gender segregate and continue the way we've been socializing since college. Social isolation is a serious problem and although we have plenty of clubs they require that you arrange your schedule to their playtimes and require that you attend membership meetings and volunteer monitor time or serve as an officer. That model is just not feasible when people are still working or want to be involved in a number of clubs, or have precarious health and caregiver concerns that work best with a fluid model. You're feeling good today or an appt. was canceled, great: no need to be alone because your club isn't open or you haven't joined one, just drop in the Hub and see who might be waiting for a backgammon partner. No more obligations added to your busy calendar--what a relief to have a place to unwind when you have time and when you need it. How nice to be treated as an adult!
    2) NEED FOR DEVELOPING A SENSE OF COMMUNITY--Just as SCHOA divides its CCRs officers into the 3 Phases, RCSC should assign a board member for each of the 3 phases or better yet, for each of the rec centers so that they could hold a quarterly meeting with the members living closest to it having easy access and being able to express their concerns on a more local level. With these meetings, some bonding would occur, making it more likely that these people would be more likely to attend the larger regular meetings. The residents in each phase would feel some connection to a board member in a less intimidating way than only being able to approach them during formal full meetings.
    3) NEED FOR A RETURN TO RCSC BOARD BEING OUR REPRESENTATIVES AND DEVELOPING THE POLICIES THAT THE STAFF ENACTS--ENOUGH OF THE TOP DOWN LEADERSHIP!
     
  8. OneDayAtATime

    OneDayAtATime Active Member

    I don't know who you are, SCJ, but you took the words right out of my mouth.

    I love, love, love the idea of a community center; a gathering place that has nothing to do with corporate mumble-jumble or committees. I, too, like the idea of candidates from each section of Sun City - Phase 1, 2, and 3.

    I have been stewing and percolating about this for a couple of months now and hope that with a new Board that might be willing to work with the membership, I'd like to see several "new" committees formed - or maybe they should be clubs? - Volunteer Committee or Volunteer Advisory Committee; Committee for Social Culture; the "Give Back Club" (this could encompass so much - what do you have to give to your community: time? money? a ride? a visit to a shut-in? passing on the history; ); a "true" FB group for Sun City residents, not the one on RCSC website that only spouts propaganda; Seniors who need assistance (Yes, I know there are other groups but it wouldn't hurt to have our own.); a welcome wagon/more of a support group for brandy-new people who need to know all there is about SC (without trying to read through the maze of Corporate Records/meeting minutes {that say nothing!}) from PIF fees to Monthly Assessment fees; Distribute Sun Views to neighborhoods? "Spread Awareness/Prove that you Care"; Coordinate with real estate agencies to capture new homeowners names and email addresses - we have no centralized way to communicate with each other.

    I have to admit I have no idea how the committee/club thing works, but after the "New Board/New Year" takes effect, maybe it's time for me to tackle another project. Who would like to join me? I'm hoping my team on the Election Committee will volunteer -- and so will you, SCJ!
     
    eyesopen and Cheri Marchio like this.
  9. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Love both your ideas guys (scj & odaat), but don't hold your breath. The ship has sailed and i don't see it coming back any time soon. The exiting gm had her chance to make Sun City a whole different place than it is; she choose not to and now we will live with the consequences for years to come. It will take a massive paradigm shift to become what you are envisioning.

    SCJ knows what the Lakes Club could have done for and to Sun City. It was the game changer but golf was going to be our salvation, our solution. How is that working out for us? We had enormous amounts of cash and no strategic plan. They refused to engage the residents on the big picture and left everything else to chance, with the board and gm who knew/had all the answers.

    I agonize every day on what we could have become, could have done...if only.
     
    suncityjack likes this.
  10. OneDayAtATime

    OneDayAtATime Active Member

    BP - You said you never thought we could achieve a quorum at a Membership meeting; it sure looks promising, doesn't it?
    You will help me, SCJ, and many, many others with your knowledge!!!

    Hope this link works: Never, ever, give up!!!! :D
     
    Carol and eyesopen like this.
  11. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Didn't know where else to post this and it is curious, at least to me. I stop by the Sun City West website from time to time and just happened to click on their golf committee report. Damn, every number is there, including rounds played per month and the average price paid for a round of golf. They have all the gimmicks, to get people to play more, theirs costs a lot more. Here's the link to the information. Sorry, the link wouldn't take you to the page. If you care, you can go to the Sun City West site and find golf financials. Every question you have will be answered. Nothing is a deep dark secret.

    This is the way it should be done gang. Average cost for a round of golf in Sun City West; just over $20.
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2021
  12. SCR

    SCR Active Member

    20 bucks is a reasonable number for a round of golf. I don’t see that happening in Sun City
     
  13. eyesopen

    eyesopen Well-Known Member

    Try this
    GOLF COMMITTEE DECEMBER 2021 YTD INCOME STATEMENT REVIEW DECEMBER 9, 2021

    https://go.boarddocs.com/az/rcscw/B...ile/Golf Committee Presentation - 12-9-21.pdf
     
  14. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    You were close eyesopen. The page before the one you posted shows you more information and there are actually three months data plus the summary you posted. If anyone is interested in how this stuff should be reported, take a look:
    https://go.boarddocs.com/az/rcscw/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=C9AKL3522F74

    Once you get to this page click on the agenda. It will open a window on the left hand side of your screen and you will see 3.03 Golf Budget vs Expenses. When you click on it 4 pdf's will open. The first three are month to month summaries.
     
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2021
  15. OneDayAtATime

    OneDayAtATime Active Member

    Are we too broke to have a system like theirs??!! What a concept! Clear, detailed reporting for everyone to see!!
     
    eyesopen likes this.
  16. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    A couple of weeks back i was chatting with the new gm and the director of golf regarding this. Bill Cook, in all sincerity, turned to me and said, what do you want, for golf to go broke? Then he furthered the argument with, what's the difference if we spend an additional two million dollars on golf but still end up with a million dollar surplus?

    I was taken aback. In the short three years he has worked in Sun City, the old general manager had an enormous amount of influence on him. That said, i still have hope. Only time will tell. The one attribute he has demonstrated has been to hire qualified people to fill in his team. It was way too common to see loyalty as the main requirement over the years and i have found loyalty to be way over-rated if you actually knew what you were doing.

    To your point odaat, not in the immediate future. When you read the summary of the Technology committee report, you see the dilemma we face in getting back up t0 speed. There is virtually nothing that has been updated and in fact, most of the software they use is hopelessly inadequate. My good friend Ben toured the RCSC "technology division" 3 or 4 years ago and laughingly told me it was housed in what most folks would consider a good sized closet. It's that freaking bad.

    So, to answer the new gm's question, "what's the difference if we spend two million (unauthorized my word, not his), dollars on golf but still end up a million dollars to the good," the answer is pretty simple. We end up 20 years behind the curve from a technology standpoint. We end up looking at a 50 million dollar fiasco at Mountainview trying to play catch up.
    That's the difference Bill when the community has no say and one person controls every outcome.
     
  17. OneDayAtATime

    OneDayAtATime Active Member

    We need to make sure that the candidates (winners) see this type of reporting and think about revamping ours. Too, too bad that our Technology is so behind. But - as our friend Mike Wendel said a long time ago - we are a community of apathetic citizens; however, with some false starts and "gentle" pushes, we might start to see the nicer, newer, more interested members in Sun City appear as long as we keep up our AWARENESS campaign!! "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
     
    Michael Wendel likes this.
  18. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Why do i have an over-powering sense most board members wouldn't know who Margaret Mead is?
     
  19. suncityjack

    suncityjack Active Member

    ODAAT, and I like your suggestions for some new clubs/committees! I don't know which would be the best avenue, but having just escaped the All Board Games Club RCSC rules and regulations paperwork-a-rama hoop jumping (see, you really do know who I am--we even chatted today) I'm inclined to think a committee might be the way to go for some of these....
     
    OneDayAtATime likes this.
  20. suncityjack

    suncityjack Active Member

    Oh come on now Bill, surely they would've remembered being interviewed and studied by dear Margaret for her unpublished Oddities of Anthropology book that was deemed too bizarre for any scholastic press to take on. However, I seem to recall a rumor that it really was published but under the Ripley's Believe It Or Not imprint ;)
     
    BPearson likes this.

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