Innuendo, supposition, insinuation...call it what you will, but all it of simply gives the RCSC one butt ugly look. It wasn't bad enough the board president sent it to the Independent newspaper, now it is plastered on the pages of the SunViews. My "digital" copy came this morning and my first inclination was to simply delete it, then to my chagrin i read it again. That started my blood boiling once more. I have taken the RCSC to task any number of times over the years. I resent they have put the corporation ahead of the community...time and time again. That's not how we were built...it's not how or why we were successful. In fact, just the opposite. The community was always the essence of Sun City's success. While serving my three year term on the board, i had that conversation too many times to count. I might as well have been talking to a head of cauliflower. The gm was and still is all things corporation. I don't even have a problem with that because the board should be all things community. That is where and when the symbiotic relationship one board members claims is the case should all stem from. Sadly it doesn't. The minute the board member takes their oath of office, they swear allegiance to the corporation. Community be damned. As i said in the one thread, i knew Karen was in trouble when she read to the board from the Articles of Incorporation the sole purpose of the RCSC..."To do anything and everything lawfully necessary in the interest of the Members of the Corporation." She understood, obviously they didn't. Back to my point. I've tried very hard not to ever make it personal. Because i resent their actions doesn't mean i resent them. Until now. I would be the first to admit being a board member is a tough job. There's never a surplus of candidates. There's lots of reasons for that. What is tragic is when there is more candidates than positions, one would think when an opening occurs they would go to those who ran but didn't get enough votes. In reality what we see is them running to the "retreads" and filling open positions time and time again. It's nothing more than a blatant abuse of power and the absolute need to remain in control. Shameful. So now comes along the McAdam debacle. This article by the president is laced with very personal attacks against Karen's character and a lot of innuendo she had made all of these egregious errors as a board member. Its utter and complete bullshit. The beauty of her assault is she can hide behind the corporate veil and say "trust us it's all righteous." Of course, we heard that from the stage the day before they fired her, so why would we now believe or think anything they say is true? Anyone who has attended or watched the video's of the meetings saw how she was treated by the president and other board members. That too was shameful. I've more had than a couple of people tell me that. In the article by the president the primary allegation is a conflict of interest. The first one was when she argued for an earlier opening for guests. The argument was because she had relatives coming for Easter, that was a conflict. Duh, do you think it might have been because both Sun City West and Sun City Grand had opened well before Sun City? Then the argument was she played pickleball and hence any motion from her regarding pickleball was out of order. When in fact she had done an amazing amount of home work and come to the conclusion that by closing Mountainview's 7 courts, Sun City would be well below most of our competition in the age restricted marketplace of pickleball courts per capita. If memory serves me, she didn't make a motion she was pressing the board to make a verbal commitment to insure courts would be south of Grand Ave. They refused. There's more and hopefully Karen will expound on that this coming week in a letter to editor or in an interview in the Independent. Along the way through this mess, i called Barbara Brehm who had been fired the year before by the board. The stories were similar in that a board member has a duty to do due diligence in their capacity as a board member. Clearly that makes other board members uncomfortable and the easy answer is to just fire them. I know this article is way longer than most will read. That said, those of you who have stayed with it will come to understand my point. The presidents article fairly well lays waste to the credibility of Karen and does so by saying virtually nothing other than trust us, we would never act in bad faith. I spent me life in this type of setting, taught trustees situational ethics and i will tell you, Karen and Barbara's actions were exactly how board members should have been doing their job. Both Karen and Barbara actions hearken back to Sun City's finest moments when the community came before the corporation. Of course if you don't know our history, why would you ever understand how the community should be run?
Two things I find interesting....one, Karen McAdam's name is never mentioned in the article, and for those who may be snowbirds and reading that article, "The "Whole" Story Remains Confidential," from afar have no idea which director was dismissed unless they they go to the RCSC website and look at the photo of the board members! Second, can the board be anymore hypocritical than they currently are? More than once director Wilson notes in her article that the board is required to follow the RCSC bylaws. She even quotes the bylaws verbatim! Funny thing is, they only follow the bylaws that THEY like and not the ones that are required...which is ALL of them! And she's wrong about disclosing information. She's not required or allowed to disclose why, or what the accusations were, but she could have and should have at least notified the Members that director McAdam was no longer serving on the board so that Members don't continue to approach or contact her with any RCSC questions or concerns. We can discuss the failure to give director McAdam her due process later! To be continued...
My guess is the ghost writer for Sue's article was the attorney. Libel gets very expensive and the best way to avoid it is to never mention a name. I guess they figure when those of us who follow the proceedings see a board member no longer present we're not smart enough to figure out they died, quit or as of late, were fired. As i read Sue's article i saw the bit about conflict of interest as the reason for her termination, even though she never said it. If that's the case the millions and million's of dollars should never have been spent on golf course remodels in Sun City. When Carole and i were on the board there were 6 golfers and members of the Men's Golf Association. They voted every time. They were acts that directly impacted the very sport they spent hundreds of hours a year doing. In fact, Carole and i often voted against the full golf course remodels, agreeing that water issues were critical but the other half of the 6 million wasn't necessary. So i guess, we actually should have won the majority vote on not doing the projects by a 2 to 1 vote with the other 6 golfers/board members being obligated to recuse themselves. At least that's the crap being spread now by Karen's attackers. You've got to love how they twist stuff to suit their purposes. I went off on a rant earlier in another thread where i talked about direct pressure by board presidents that resulted in large expenditures that were never in the budget or discussed by any long range planning committees. I won't dredge them up again, but those in fact were complete and utter abuses of power and fall 100% under the conflicts of interest clause in our documents. Everyone turned a blind eye and acted as if it was totally logical to just do things in that manner. At least Sue got one thing right, some people come to the board with agenda and worse yet some become officers and then act on their agenda.
