I know, you all expected it to be the chicken or the egg, but not this time. The bigger question is one that has been around for years: community first or corporation first? And as one ponders, it takes on an even a bigger picture: does the board serve the corporation or does the board serve the community? We heard at least one board member read from corporation documents to justify his vote on the PIF hike; the corporation is the entity that owns his soul. The problem of course is always when reading one paragraph or section we lose the intent of what the whole of the document says. I have no intention of boring you with the rest of the story, because ultimately it will come down to each persons own interpretation; almost akin to the bible. I tend to be more practical, more pragmatic. I always figured I was elected by the people and they were whom I served. I know other board members don't agree and that should be what makes for good meetings (though they would be far better if they were open to all card holders). Which evolves into that bigger discussion of how Sun City is run. The board sets policy, the management team runs the day to day operation. That becomes challenging because you always want strong leadership at the corporation level, but that leadership should not usurp the boards role. It's always a difficult balancing act and it functions best when you have strong management and equally as strong a board of directors. The problem comes when the imbalance creates situations where the board buys-in to whatever management is selling. In some cases it may be good for the corporation, but not good for the community. That's where one hopes those elected by the community have both the willingness to listen and make decisions based on what they are hearing. It's supposed to be the checks and balance to the system in a self-governance setting and it is exactly how it should work. Yesterday that was obviously not the case. Hopefully it will be a learning experience for both those on the board and those in the community. I guess only time will tell. Now to the answer...the community came first. While DEVCO sold homes and built the community, it was the residents who came together and decided to start the corporation. It wasn't the RCSC in those early years, but that's another story for another day.
Lest readers scratch their head and ponder, "what the hell did he just say," let me walk you through this with an example. Much has been made of the incredible 10 year expenditure (in excess of 30 million dollars for golf from the PIF). One has to ask themselves, "how did that happen?" I know I have. The best answer would be the long range planning committee studied all the issues facing Sun City and recommended to the board of directors golf course revival was the number one priority. Unfortunately they never even got a sniff of that discussion. Golf was stripped from the LRPC and was, I guess, left to the board. I say that a little tongue in cheek , because i'm not certain any one director voted to spend 30+ million dollars. The interesting footnote here is it wasn't a collective process of arriving at it, but a cumulative one. Year after year, it was just added to by recommendations by the management team and approved by the board. Irrigation was done at Lakes West, a bunch of money was shoved at Willowbrook, the South course got an extensive makeover. Then came the presentation of a master plan at Riverview. A year after that, the board was told we had to do a master plan at the North course because of water main issues and it had to be moved up. Now Riverview is underway and oh yeah let's not forget the fire at the maintenance shed at South where we got some insurance monies but the cost to replace was way more than double. See it wasn't a singular stroke of the pen but an ongoing and deliberate plan to reinvest in golf courses as our priority. Hell, think of it this way just to see how insidious it has become: In March the board announced they would add an additional 2+ million dollars to the irrigation work being done at the Willow courses (here's the argument we've all heard: if you're going to dig up the course for irrigation, you may as well do it all). So now the new number for the Willow courses is 7 million dollars in 2016. The kicker is the next month we see a proposal to increase the PIF and we also hear the board has been presented a doomsday scenario (along with 4 other possible outcomes) telling them they'd be broke if they didn't do it. You've got to love it. I'm not accusing anyone of anything, but I will say over the past years the board has changed in makeup every year. The management team has stayed intact. The long range planning committee has been shuffled off to limbo and we've heard nothing about it being reinstated. Cause for pause? You tell me.
Great question C, i'll put something together in the next week. I like to argue we (the owners) do as well as everything else here but others would disagree.
