I've been missing in action (intentionally) as it's time for me to let others do the heavy lifting. My goal over the past 15 years was to see a return to the value, values and the tenets that helped shape Sun City's success. After three consecutive RCSC board election cycles of Sun City Advocates endorsed candidates being elected. my work was done. That doesn't mean i have gone away, i follow along without all of the energy and the hype i used to have/do. I have no interest in portraying everything the board and management is doing is perfect (in my eyes); it would be foolish to try and pretend it. That said, much of their work has my support and approval. I love the changes being made in how and what they communicate. The large font in the monthly paper was such a simple fix. Better yet is what is being said. Embracing the values Sun City was built on and around is truly a beautiful sight to see. The classic example can be found on the front page of the Sun City Update. General manager Matthew D'Luzansky had this to say: "Well here we are on the downhill side of winter, enjoying another spectacular Sun City Season. We are also at the highest population point of our fine location, and perhaps this causes stress and leads to less than optimal behavior on the part of some members of our community. You may have heard me say, we are focused on putting our new Mission, Vision, and Values into practice. Spending time, attention, and resources where it makes sense, to improve as much as possible, as soon as possible, for the members, the staff, and the corporation. Our goal is to continue to use logic and reason, to make the best decisions every day, thinking through how to balance the good of the community, the corporation, the members, various clubs and groups. I do not wake up in the morning and decide to remove the fan controls in fitness, or consider shutting down Duffeeland Dog Park for a spell to figure out how to make it safer, or any past and future things that may rile some people up. We try to be forward thinking and head problems off at the pass, but often we have to react to situations that arise from people behaving badly. Many things, once they are known, fall into the category of having an obligation to act. There is no malevolent intent or secret plan afoot, to make people cold or change the requirements for the dog park. I love Sun City, and am enjoying the opportunity rich environment that provides me with challenges and smiles all day long. Changes will continue, and changes can be difficult. But we cannot tolerate change being used as an excuse for disrespectful and rude behavior and language, anywhere, anytime. Please do not exhibit rude behavior or use inappropriate language directed toward any RCSC staff that are here to help you, to serve you, to make Sun City a wonderful place." Holding people/members/staff and management accountable is the centerpiece of the changes being made. I cannot tell you how impressed i am by this kind of blunt commentary. Sadly we drifted from that concept and no one was accountable. Stuff just was buried and we all were told to just have fun. After 20 years living in Sun City, what i have come to understand is no matter what the issue is, there will always be differences of opinions. Arguments and debates over direction and actions taken should be civil and more importantly, your/my opinion or idea may or may not be right. That's where the board comes in. Their role is to listen to members, weigh their options and then make the best choices for the most members. Kudos to all involved in restoring Sun City to its roots.
I find this interesting. Mr. D'Luzansky points out several times about bad behavior by members towards staff, however there are no examples. Why are these behaviors not addressed in the moment, rather than letting things fester to the point where changes are made that upset people even more? I don't use any of the facilities here so I can't attest to any behavior good or bad. The only dog park incident (I am aware of) was the taser. Is one incident enough to close the park? I used to go to the dog park on a regular basis (over a year ago) and it was a great place to meet people and let the pups run around. What 'stuff' was buried and who told us just to have fun? Isn't fun what retirement and living in a retirement community is supposed to be? You can't just throw 30k people together and not expect some bickering. Seems to me that those who were not held accountable were board members who allowed deferred maintenance to get to 20 mil. Kick the taser person out of the dog park and let the rest enjoy. Are we becoming an autocratic leadership style? Seems like it to me.
There's no malevolent intent but it sure calms downs those restless natives! What I don't particularly care for is the way they use dollars as "place-holders" for future PIF projects. Seems to me that they only have one bucket with a limited number of PIF dollars, but they keep on dipping into that same bucket and use those same dollars spread out to several other projects? When somebody makes a motion to spend 1.5 million dollars on a training facility for dogs, does anybody subtract those dollars from the PIF fund? Aren't they making promises that they really can't keep? Those project promises also need a timeline as to when they will be addressed so the dollars can be properly budgeted and not double-dipping. Wouldn't it make more sense to simply establish a public priority list rather this Ponzi Scheme of allocating the same dollars be used for several projects? Somebody needs to keep a running total so that when the time comes to build or renovate something, we don't suddenly find out that those dollars were supposed to be used for something else! Maybe that's why the Vintage Vehicle Club didn't get the air-conditioning for their building? Perhaps that project shouldn't even be declared "completed" because A/C was, in fact, part of the original plan? Maybe the dollars that were originally planned for a new theater years ago were suddenly side-tracked to build the facilities at Grand and that's why the theater continues to get kicked down the road, but somehow we found dollars to build new facilities for the softball. So I ask again, why establish "place-holders" with dollars when you can as easily establish a simple list of priorities. Those priorities can be shifted around without concern of cost because even those "place-holder" dollars are simply a guess at best! And this is why some talk about a "comprehensive" plan! Not a plan that just looks at the next rec center scheduled to be renovated, but EVERY rec center and the needs further down the road. It sure sounds nice, and it pacifies many members, when the Board votes a dollar amount to a future PIF project that some Club has been asking for, but they're only allocating Monopoly Money! Just my opinion!
I basically agree and have suggested a 10-15 year plan. I believe RCSC management is making it more difficult than it needs to be. Seems they should have major category expenses for a number of years and can use it to project future expenses. Figure out an average revenue for future years. One page of projected expenses vrs one page of projected revenues should work fine. Seems they want 2 more months to figure out past spending. I don’t understand why?
Why: there are three parts to this very complicated plan - operations, capital expenses and PIF. First, staff is working diligently to "scrub" the last reserve study that listed every single piece of equipment RCSC owns to verify if it has been updated as to purchase date, purchase price, expected life expectancy, replacement date, anticipated cost. There are literally hundreds of items (pages and pages). Next, prioritizing deferred maintenance with annual maintenance, keeping in mind what is actually manageable with staff and annual financial resources. Operations cost projections over five to ten years with inflationary factors such minimum wage, rising insurance costs, utilities, general maintenance, are all part of the equation. Finally, PIF: with basically a "placeholder" system and no formal LRP, the PIF plan has been like throwing darts - that's my term. For example, I am dismayed that a motion passed for $1.5M for the dog training facility while this proposal has not even been presented. An adopted plan is essential, and when new projects are proposed they need to be studied and actually allocated in the adopted plan based on available resources. For example, planning for Lakeview - if we think MV has been complicated, what about all of the displacement of clubs and relocation of corporate offices when LV happens. When there has been no real transparency for years, no communication between Finance & Budget and LRP, lack of an RCSC strategic plan, and a deficient reserve study, it takes time to pull everything together and get everyone on the same page. The committees and subcommittees are meeting frequently, providing their ideas and suggestions, and staff is doing everything it can so a recommendation can be made soon. Everyone involved knows the seriousness and importance of this task.
It It is astonishing to me at the level of incompetence that the former management and boards had. It was totally amateurish in their functions. What the hell did these people do all day?
My opinion: First. There were (and are) a lot of good people trying hard to do their jobs. The problems we are facing go back many years when too much discretion and decision making was given to the GM. That's just one piece of a very large pie. RCSC also decided it wanted to remain the "cheapest" place to live while probably having the most amenities of any 55+ communities outside of The Villages. Not increasing assessments for 7 years, by even small incremental amounts, was a major mistake, giving members a false sense that everything was "great." That in itself has been a major contributing factor to the $20M in deferred maintenance AND our high employee turnover due to low wages. Turnover is always very costly. Then add in our extremely outdated technology that limits productivity and efficiency and RCSC takes another hit. There's plenty of blame and handwringing, but the good news is a lot of change has happened over the last 15 months - improved transparency, increased involvement by critical committees, more member involvement, and an open door policy by the GM, just to name a few. We didn't get here in a few years and we won't resolve these issues quickly, but there has been a lot of progress in the last few months. Staff have all shown an extraordinary willingness AND desire to do everything our committees have asked so that we can make the best informed decisions we can as we prepare recommendations to the Board. We are fortunate to have many talented people working in critical positions.
