I subscribe to the weekly email blast from Sun City West. They do a great job of communicating what is going on around the community. The full color email is filled with click-able topics and they add the capacity for reader comments and questions at the end of the posted story. For those that don't know, Sun City West adopted a Title 33 approach in the early 2000's. Rather than get embroiled in nasty and expensive litigation, they saw the value in holding open meetings and working to make card holders willing participants. Goodness, what far-fetched ideas eh? In this weeks email, there was a story about the new board setting this years goals. While it may sound foreign to us, most progressive organizations function that way. Rather than belabor this point; here's a reprint of the article: The Recreation Centers of Sun City West Governing Board has developed six goals for the new fiscal year. The Board met July 2 in an all-day session, open to the community, and after discussing several issues that the Board will be dealing with in the 2019-20 fiscal year, came away with the following goals: 1. Reestablish the Board Development Committee as a special committee. 2. Continue the Bylaws Review. 3. Complete and review a Community Master Plan. 4. Update the Reserve Study and determine the acceptable range of risk. 5. Continue to improve Board visibility in the community. 6. Strengthen the Rec Centers’ relationship with PORA. The Board will slow down in the summer as meetings are on hiatus now, but things will pick up starting in September as Committees begin forming and meeting Meeting agendas, minutes and other Board information can be found at gb.suncitywest.com Here's a link to the article.
And the interesting thing to me was that this all day session was "open to the community". It still confounds me how little discussion there is when the BOD holds their meetings we can attend and they feel they have enough information to vote. Surely there must be meetings to inform the BOD of upcoming issues or is it all conducted by email and phone calls? Simply hearing a Board member read the agenda items and motions at the twice monthly meetings do nothing to keep us informed.
The most interesting thing to me in the above blurb is "an all-day session, open to the community". Wow! What a concept. A board that actually works and probably spends some time researching things and forming an opinion. Bill, how does one sign up for their weekly emails?
Here's their About Us page SCR. I couldn't find it but it's there somewhere to sign up for. Might even try the search engine to sign up for the email link.
I still believe all of the decisions are already made, either by email, phone calls, or meetings at private residences, and they cab get away with it because they are not under Title 33. They could still be meeting just as always, behind closed doors, then come out and read the results. There is no real discussions, just votes for the most part, so any objections, if any, are never heard. And there is no time for member input to the decisions before they are made, so do we really have "open" meetings? A legitimate open meeting should take time, lots of time, not over with in an hour. Member input to decisions being made at the time they are being debated should be the norm, not after the vote. I said it before and I will say it again, I truly believe the "open" meetings were are seeing are not open at all. The outcomes have already been decided and directed, they are just doing out in the open. Other than have the decisions being read in the open, it appears to this reader little has changed as far as the RCSC board of directors and their decision direction.
I’m less skeptical Carole, but after the last meeting it was obvious there were discussions amongst some board members regarding the move of the RV Club. They said from the stage, several of them visited the shed the day before the meeting to see if it was doable. The one positive was the vote to hold everything till Sept was a surprise to many in the room; including some board members.
