Shortsighted

Discussion in 'Sun City General Discussions' started by BPearson, Oct 5, 2019.

  1. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Let's start with this; almost everyone makes a great Monday morning quarterback.

    This morning i went for coffee with a bunch of long-timers from the Bell fitness center. I'm not big on socializing, but one of the guys asked me to come and say a few words. I took the opportunity to pitch both the museum and SCHOA's end of the year Community Reference Guide.

    As i was talking with people, most folks feel Sun City is as about as good as it gets. Hard to argue there's better places to live, but i can argue we could be so much better than we are. That's where the Monday morning q-back thing comes in.

    Think not? Ask yourself; if back in 1999 when the PIF was passed, had you told them by 2040, they would have 250 million dollars to spend, would they have been more judicious? Do you think someone would have put together a strategic, comprehensive plan on what to do and when?

    Anyone with a half a brain would answer in the affirmative. Anyone with any insight would have drooled over the prospect of doing it right, rather than just doing it. It's easy to spend money, it's far more difficult to spend it wisely.

    The easy thing to do is throw out what they could have/should have done, and frame it in the present tense. What can we do knowing we have 150 million dollars over the next 20 years? See, this isn't that hard. What really matters is can we learn from our stupid the first 20 years? Or, are we too stubborn to admit we didn't do it as good as we could have.

    Assessing blame is wasted energy; learning from our mistakes is an entirely different proposition. Sadly, i suspect too many of those who held key positions will turn a blind eye and argue, everything thing they did was perfect. The question for each of you is simple; was it?
     
  2. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    One of the pieces we wrote for the long range planning committee suggested anything we did had to act in concert with everything we were going to do. Nothing would be a one-off, but a logical, cohesive strategy so the decisions we were making fit together. Funny, some folks had a hard time getting their heads around that. As i write the history of Sun City for the museum series, i marvel at just how thorough the company was in putting the pieces together. It is how we need to think. It's why i always say, pay attention to our history.

    As we reflect; Bell's rebuild was brilliant. Sure, they could have done better on the pool decking that has been repaired countless times. But from a physical and aesthetic layout and design, what's not to love? Fairway, given it's tiny footprint worked out pretty darn good. Two-story buildings are an anomaly , but this one was the only way to get the space they needed. They screwed up on the monitor arrangement, but it's not that bad. Marinette turned out great in spite of the lighting problems in the pickleball pavilion.

    We can debate the golf course renovations till we are blue in the face. They are an amenity and must be kept up. We had to fix the water distribution, irrigation, desert landscaping and wells; it all fit into preserving water. Everything else was fluff and stuff. The golf maintenance out buildings are falling down and need be rebuilt at some point. The South course pro shop was a dump and had to be fixed. My argument with all the money spent on golf was it should have been an integrated program over a longer period of time that would have allowed us to deal with the other issue

    We will end up spending ten million dollars on the Grand Ave property that will be a pain in the ass from a security/safety standpoint. We could have had the Lakes Club, complete with renovations for less money and five times the space. It would have allowed us to have a theater, all of the administration buildings in one place and dozens of class rooms and card rooms. It would have opened up Lakeview rec center with more club space and when the time came for remodeling it, we could have accommodated clubs and events less than a block away on the Lake.

    Nothing is happening with Mountainview for now. The LRPC is getting antsy about moving on it, but until the Grand Ave project is finished it is in limbo. The board has said they want to only do one project at a time and they still have the Lakes East/Lakes West golf course maintenance shop as the #2 project inline after Grand Ave. The board shuffled the softball club off on the LRPC because they want a new building, the old one is worse than a dump. They are having security issues there with some homeless folks and the committee recommended they build a new building but do it out of capital funds, not PIF. The cost is 500 to 600 K.

    You can easily see how disjointed this all is and has been. Shutting down the long range planning committee was one of the dumber mistakes they made, as was not letting them have a voice in the golf course expenditures. It was simply a decision made at the highest level (which should have been the board). Some would argue they did make it, but it all came at the behest of the GM. Most people pay no attention to either the past, the present or the future unless it directly impacts them. I've long argued one of our (the RCSC's) primary goals has to be growing the circle of residents involved, but to do that, it has to be a priority for the organization. It's not, and one could argue, it's just the opposite.

    With only three candidates for the three open seats, how do you think that's working out?
     
  3. aggie

    aggie Well-Known Member

    I don't like the idea that this would come out of capital funds and then have our annual assessments raised to cover it. If there is a surplus or they substitute the new softball club instead of the golf storage buildings out of PIF.....fine. The BOD said they are the one to decide club space so let them take the blame for raising our assessments $10-$25(that's quite a range!). This is like the surprise $750,000 that was just laying around in the capital budget to purchase the Grand Avenue property(which would have offset the increased assessments blamed on legal fees & minimum wage increase). Once assessments are increased they won't come back down.
     
  4. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Fair comment regarding the softball building aggie. The problem is this building should have been replaced years ago. The softball club has been asking for years and all but been ignored. This year they started pressing the board who promptly dumped it in the long range planning committee's lap. Given what is going on with the Grand Ave project and the Lakes East/West maintenance building it would be some time in 2023 before it could/would get on the schedule for PIF. Of late they have homeless and security issues and frankly, that alone should get the board off their ass to address the problem.

    I know it gets tiring to hear, but when all the board thought about was golf, everything else falls aside and behind. Hence, the title, shortsighted.
     

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