Former board member and still active RCSC member Dave Wielend and i are engaged in a friendly debate/discussion on the Sun City Advocates blog. He used to post on this site but for some reason he is unable to these days (no it's not my site and no, i didn't block him). I simply have no idea why? I won't bore you with our back and forth, but i just this morning i posted a comment that i want to share both on TOSC and the Advocates Facebook page. For some it may seem callous or cold towards our management team. That's not the intent; i wrote it so readers could understand how we got to where we are today. Here it is: "I wouldn't get too giddy about my response regarding admitting the RCSC is woefully inadequate in their handling of our technology. In fact, if i was on the board over the past 12 years, i would be damned embarrassed how poorly we did our jobs by not holding the gm's feet to the fire. Every one of us, myself included, knew our technology sucked, and let her skate merrily along. It is shameful as our job as board members is oversight. She had virtually none. Seems to me it was during your time on the board when the payoff on the solar was a million dollars higher than it was supposed to be (4.5 suddenly became at least a million dollars more). Apparently no one cared; what the hell a million here, a million there, no biggie. I cannot say this any more clearly: the biggest single change when comparing the first 50 years to the next 12 is this; the hired help used to be just the hired help. Nope, not disparaging them, but they had little or no real authority. They ran the day to day operations. The board and the committee's were the authors and the authority on the community's direction. The general manager and staff, carried it out. Sadly, we are all living that change that took the membership out of the equation. Hell, the board's gave away their duties and let the management team do whatever they thought was right. Explain to me the logic of a mid-level manager having the ability to take the air conditioning out of a building where the members are working in the heat of the summer? You simply can't, it is unfathomable to do something that puts the members in harms way. Worse yet, now they now and are refusing to address it. Now you are stepping into my work world and i can tell you when it comes to safety and health issues, there is virtually no wiggle room. The vintage car club has documented both the heat and humidity readings and next summer when one of their members passes out or worse yet dies, the liability on the RCSC is beyond refute. I'm not sure criminal charges wouldn't be in order. As far as Karen being gone for a week, it was a week with nothing on the schedule. Tickets had been bought and you are suggesting that when management last minute stuck a meeting there, she should change her plans? No more so then you being expected to cancel your Hawaii trip. You know how i feel about good old JB. He had no problems being gone, which once again was fine and in all likelihood better for all of us."
It kinda makes you wonder who works for who? And so we have a GM who doesn't even live in Sun City and has no real stakes in the game other than keeping his job. It's my understanding that at least two of the candidates that were applying for the job of GM were willing to move into Sun City. One of the candidates actually has parents who live here already! Now that's some serious commitment!
At least the previous gm lived here. And, owning 7 or 8 homes gave her the incentive to keep driving up the home values. Is that a conflict of interest? Nuh, no worries. It's all good; though one does question the motivation for getting rid of the city of volunteers to become the original fun city. Increasing property values helps every owner, at least when it comes time to sell. Of course increasing property values for those of us living here till the day we drop just means higher property taxes. Does make you wonder doesn't it. The bigger problem with killing volunteerism is what it does to every organization that relies on volunteers. The RCSC clearly has shown they don't care all that much about volunteers. With 50 plus million dollars in the bank, they can just buy whatever they want. Worse yet, with an election looming, they can just tell clubs how important it is to support the "right candidates." It's almost laughable when you think about it. They've been pissing on the theater folks for 20 years, now they are going to build them a 40 million dollar gem. The softball players have been broken into for the past 4 years and suddenly they are going to build a new building. The dog club indoor arena is on going on the PIF scheduled budget (never to be seen), but at least it sounds good. After treating the pickleball players like dirt in 2021, they are now going to build something at Lakeview. Karen McAdam who fought for enough courts to stay competitive with other age restricted communities around us, has been vilified because she had the audacity to say, if you are going to build courts, build them right. Now there's question if the pball club officers are being swayed to support those "right candidates." Hopefully they are smarter than that, we'll see. Finally, my old friend Dave who started me on this rant, posted last night the members of the Vintage car club are just "bullies." Apparently they had the audacity to show up at meetings and request the RCSC restore the features in the club that were stripped by the hired help. This is what happens when no one is accountable or held responsible. Employees, worse yet, employees who don't live here and have no skin in the game, just do as they please.
And that's because Dave loves to be argumentative and will always say just the opposite is true because Dave knows everything! Maybe that's why the GM wants to raise the annual assessment from $496 to $525 but is there any guarantee he would actually use that money for the A/C they stripped from the project?
I love the argument for the increase...we need more money from the members so we can do all of the stuff we should have been doing all along. Next thing you know they'll be telling us they didn't stay current with the technology because they didn't have the money. Let's be very clear here, the RCSC has never, NEVER had so much cash on hand. Now they need even more. Who is going to make sure they spend it? The board who has done nothing to insure they have spent it in the past?
I can't resist throwing out these comments. At the time the Vintage Vehicle Club pushed their way into space at Grand Avenue, they were saying they'd even be happy with a metal building. Some of us toured the facility at Sun City West which is clean and well organized. The VVC here thought the SCW rules were too restrictive. I don't understand why a 16' door was necessary after the 8' door was installed per the design. It slipped out that motorhomes couldn't fit through the 8' doors. Should maintenance and repairs of motorhomes be part of a space that was designed and approved for the restoration of vintage vehicles and club members personal vehicles? Personal cars, trucks and passenger vans should be what is being worked on. One board member said that even a "bread truck" couldn't fit through the 8' door. Huh? Opening a 16' door 5+ times a day in 110 degree heat of the summer will be a money pit.
We don't disagree often aggie, but we do here. There were allegedly 16 foot doors built into the design and someone either took them out or screwed up and built them with 8 foot doors, no one seems willing to take ownership of the mistake (nothing new there). As far as handling entering and exiting, you probably know they have dealt with that in freezers forever in grocery stores. They make rubberized strips that allow those coming in or going on to simply push them aside, thereby maintaining most of the air conditioning. Sorry kiddo, but when one of the old boys drops dead in next summers heat, the RCSC will have a liability issue the size of Texas. Once you know of a problem, you fix it or you you suffer the consequences.
