I'm kinda concerned about these 4 upcoming town hall meetings that will cover the Strategic Alternatives, the Lone Range Planning and the Budget and Finance. Unless these meetings are very well organized and administered I believe they will quickly turn into a melee of mishmash! Just my opinion but, unless these topics are presented and discussed one at a time these meetings will only scratch the surface of each situation and little in-depth and honest conversation will take place. I can see where they may turn into issues relating to golf and Mountain View while leaving the most important issue, the budget, in the dust! What do you think?
The Townhalls are designed for a brief intro of topics (since few topics have all the details ironed out) and then to be a listening session and exchange of member ideas. Member-to-member. These meetings will not be Board run sessions. I believe the Budget will have its own Board/mgmt planning session with 2 Board meetings for input.
Members of Long Range Planning Committee are putting together the brief presentation with assistance of Board members and Management team. LRP members will be facilitators of the meeting.
The Board Member Exchange, speaking to Agenda items at Board Meetings and email communications are options for speaking with Board Members. The Long Range Planning Committee is trying something new to give people a sense of self-governance, planning for the future and gathering community input. I think it's an awesome way to start re-engaging the community in a slightly different way.
No disrespect intended here Cheri, but how do you know this? I mean who decided that lrp members were leading these discussions. Sounds like a bait and switch routine.
We have been talking about interacting with the community like this for well over a year. The LRP was the impetus behind updating the Mission, Vision, and Values statements and the leading driver in partnering with ASU for the survey and followup working groups in preparation for building a true and badly needed Long Range Plan for Sun City RCSC members. The budget is really shorter term but the Finance and Budget Committee along with management uncovered some far reaching implications this summer and the LRP sees a need for a concerted effort to understand how our community members feel about their amenities and the future. This is a great time to understand is we are a bottom rung bargain barrel vs polished, clean and safe vs shiny, expensive top-notch type community. Regardless we all need to understand what it takes to live financially within the standards the community wants to pursue.
It is fascinating to watch the new board begin to reshape the role and scope of the committees. For those of you who moved here after 2006, i suspect you are unaware of the changes made by the former, former GM. The first couple of years she eliminated several committees (with approval by the board), the first to go was the legal affairs committee who for 30 years wrote opinions regarding bylaws changes (and many other topics) before boards ever took any action. There were additional changes made, like allowing husband and wife serving on the same committee (too much power), and along with it, other committees were done away with. The ones that remained were neutered and their recommendations were all but ignored. So we are clear, committees can only make recommendations, they cannot pass anything. As the GM found out, once committee recommendations were ignored, a good share of those serving on committees simply asked, "why bother?" Committees and our documents were built with safeguards; guardrails to keep the board and management staff within the lines of a self-governed community. Once those safeguards were gone, we witnessed changes that never would have been approved or accepted by the membership and the committees that intersected with those changes. It's one of the reasons i really, really dislike the idea we combine PIF with our general ledger accounts. Once the guardrails are gone...then what?
