December 20, 2009 by bobfrank.

Former board member Bob Sansing and his Unity Party associates are deceptively promoting the notion that our dues would still be “reasonable” if they were DOUBLED to over $2,000 per year:

This is being promoted because for the past two years so many of us have been hammering the board for illegally overcharging the assessments and for keeping the accumulated surplus instead of refunding or crediting it back to homeowners–as clearly required by the laws and IRS rules. It is possible the involved individuals could be held personally accountable for their actions.

Meanwhile, the facts concerning setting the SCA dues/assessment levels are:

1. Because SCA does not own and operate golf courses, our operating costs are much, much lower than those communities who do operate golf courses.

2. Because our SCA community design includes vast areas of desert landscaping with very little grass, our community operating costs are much lower than most comparable HOAs.

3. Because Del Webb provided SCA with an exceptionally well designed set of community facilities and grounds, our buildings operating costs are much lower than many other communities.

4. Laws and HOA rules empower the board to collect annual assessments based on NEED–NOT what is comparable to what other HOAs are charging. The board is NOT allowed use the for-profit corporate practices of charging whatever the market will bear. It must collect only what is needed for the community properties.

5. If an excess of assessments is accumulated, it must be refunded or credited to the unit owners on an annual basis. Otherwise, the surplus is considered taxable “profits”. There are no other options.

6. Failure to refund or credit members with the excess/surplus and/or failure to an file income tax return to accurately report on the disposition of previous excess/surplus assessments could be considered evidence of fraud and/or tax evasion by the State and the IRS.

7. The 2009 SCA board reported (for the first time) it has accumulated between $4 and $5 million in excess/surplus assessments since 2002. But, only a small fraction of those accumulated excess/surplus assessment have been refunded or credited to members (via the deceptively-named “dues holidays”) as required by law. And, no income taxes have been paid on those millions of dollars of “profits”.

Acting in good faith, Senator Briggs alerted members during the 2008 campaign that the board was violating the laws by not returning the surpluses/slush funds to SCA members. But, instead of dealing with the facts, the board and finance committee members and unity party members viciously attached John Briggs and his wife using political dirty tricks tools to try to smear Sen. Briggs’ outstanding lifetime public service reputation and to divert attention away from the financial misconduct being reported.

However, SCA homeowners should have been paying more attention during the past two years of the reported failures by the directors to comply with the above. FAILURES by the directors (specially Mike Dixon, Roz Berman and Shirley Cheri, finance committee members (especially Jack Troia and Don Manning) and tax preparer Gary Lein to legally handle those surpluses may become a serious financial liability for them and the whole community.

Bob Sansing and his friends are DEAD WRONG when they say such things as our dues would be “reasonable”–even if they were doubled. That is both deceptive and legally wrong.

The assessments should be set to what is actually needed–no less and no more. Past history suggests that the annual assessments should be routinely set in the $800’s instead of the $900’s.

Posted in SCA Board, Community Affairs, Laws & Rules, News! | Print | No Comments »

December 18, 2009 by THE VOICE.

David Berman has reported the following concerning the perceived need to paint some of the USPS mailboxes in SCA neighborhoods:

“…Sun City Anthem is coming to the rescue with a proposal –accepted by the Postal Service- to clean up and paint mailboxes that are in need of rehabilitation. As discussed at the most recent meeting of the Property & Grounds Committee, SCA would buy the paint and contract for the work to be done, subject to consultation and final approval from the Postal Service.”

Since the mailboxes in our community are NOT owned by the SCA CAI, and since the funds available to the SCA Board are legally restricted to being spent ONLY to manage, repair, maintain, replace or augment COMMUNITY property, there is serious doubt on the accuracy of what Berman has reported.

It sounds like the Property & Grounds Committee and its board member liaison have failed to do their homework.  It also seems that David Berman has forgotten much of his claimed law education.

Even if the USPS agreed to reimburse SCA CAI for the total costs of repairing and painting the USPS mailbox property, such board expenditures would be obviously illegal.  If the board were to try to do what Berman has reported, the action could be quickly blocked through state and local statute enforcement channels.

On the other hand, if a homeowner group in the villages wanted to spend some private money to paint a few mailboxes–according to USPS specifications and after receiving approval of the USPS management–that may be a way to handle the situation.

In the meantime, if someone wants to argue that we are mistaken in our opinions, we would have to ask to see a written legal opinion from the association attorney that confirms the legality of the proposal.

Posted in SCA Board, Community Affairs, Laws & Rules, Operations | Print | 3 Comments »

December 11, 2009 by bobfrank.

I don’t blame Chuck Davis and a few others for feeling embarrassed and defensive if it is true they are responsible for Sun City Anthem’s inadequate website capabilities.

There has been an urgent need for high quality communications including a modern website for the members since the early 2000s. Website and messaging technology for all kinds of applications has been available at reasonable cost since the late 1990’s.

Even if a group of volunteers in 2004 selected the AtHome package as a limited capability/lowest cost option at that time, that is no excuse for the Board and CAM to continue to use it exclusively for so many years after it was proven inadequate.

There would be little need, if any, for the development of the independent blogs if the SCA website had been functioning as it should to serve the needs of all SCA members (and not restricted to the limited information the board wanted to provide.)

If the board and RMI had been doing their jobs, a low-cost, functional analysis contract on the needs of this senior community of over 7,000 units could have established an upgrade program to replace or extend the AtHome package in 2006. The accumulation of millions of dollars of surplus funds since 2005 proves SCA can afford to have a state-of-the-art communications program.

But, we have learned that SCA’s communications programs were not fully implemented because Favil West, Mike Dixon and Roz Berman were not interested in providing open communications capabilities for our members. Their objectives were to control members by keeping us in the dark and only feeding us their self-serving propaganda. We must elect and appoint directors who are committed to serving our members as their top priority.

Posted in Truth Squad, SCA Board, Community Affairs, Operations | Print | No Comments »

December 6, 2009 by bobfrank.

Unanswered Questions For Past & Present SCA Directors and Community Managers

Members need to know that the following critical questions have NEVER been answered. It is your hard-earned money being wasted and/or lost. Forget about David and Roz Berman’s and Mike Dixon’s personal attacks on me and others. Those are designed as distractions.  Focus on getting the TRUTH.

For example, try asking the directors the following “Top 10″ questions, and share the results with everyone.

1. Why did the 2005-2008 boards fail to collect the $1.375 million due (tax-free) to our reserves on May ‘05 from DW/Pulte for the Co-Generation agreement?  Who should be held responsible for the loss?

2. Why did our financial records, audit reports and income tax filings fail to include official recognition of the Co-Gen contractual obligation?  What audit principles/laws and tax regulations were violated by only carrying the developer’s $1.375 million contract obligation in off-line files?  Why were member dues/assessment revenues used to fill up the reserve fund instead of collecting the Co-Gen receivables from Del Webb/Pulte?

3. Why did the 2005-2007 boards fail to collect over $2 million due in 2005 by DW/Pulte for association and neighborhood reserves?  Who should be held responsible for failing to collect the full amount due from Del Webb/Pulte?

4. Why have members been secretly, willfully and illegally over-charged almost $5 million dollars of surplus assessments from 2002 to 2008?  Why have the almost $5 million of “surplus” dues/assessments that have been accumulated since 2005 not been returned or credited to members as required by law?  What is the likelihood that millions are due on back taxes, fines and interest for the years of surplus assessments?  Why do the boards refuse to allow members to vote on whether their surplus money is returned or gifted to the IRS?

5. What consideration did the directors receive from Pulte, if any, to compensate for allowing the developer to escape making such a huge payment into our reserves?  Why were member dues used to make up for the developer’s shortfalls?  Could a forensic audit reveal that some directors and/or community managers were compensated in indirect/untraceable ways in return for favoring the developer’s interests?

6. Why did the 2006–2008 Boards refuse to poll the members (as required by NV Statutes and SCA CC&Rs) before spending over $1 million for the gold-plated/unnecessary/unjustified super-greening of Rec. Ctr. 3?

7. Why did the 2007–2009 boards secretly incur massive obligations for additional millions of future investment funds, operating costs and reserve funds to maintain/replace the unjustified “Silver-LEED” greening equipment for Recreation Center 3?  Since the association will never show a positive lifecycle return on investment on those greening costs, who besides Del Webb/Pulte benefitted from the decision to go super-green?

8. Why did the 2005-2006 boards fail to effectively administer the trumpets lease and use the power under NV law to collect the monthly rent and catering revenue shares from the original trumpets lessee? 

9. Who should be held accountable for the loss of about $1 Million due to gross negligence on the trumpets lease fiasco between 2005 and 2009?  Is it possible that some directors and/or community managers received non-monetary compensations from the lessee or developer during 2005 to 2007?

10. Why did the 2005-2006 board fail to require DW/Pulte to begin construction of the 3rd Recreation Center in 2006 as agreed in the Master Plan update?  What types of compensation did the 2006-2007 directors receive for allowing the two-year construction delays that saved Pulte millions of dollars?  Who should be held responsible for the unjustified construction delays and higher costs?

Bottom Line: Past and current directors and community managers have refused to accurately answer the above questions.  I believe (as a former board member) that truthful information is NOT forthcoming because they would have to incriminate themselves to tell the truth.  So, they just change the subject or launch personal attacks in hopes the diversions work. 

The only way to solve SCA’s growing conflicts is to elect and/or replace SCA directors with individuals who truly favor homeowner interests over the developer.  Failing that, there is no choice but for members to continue to use outside channels to clean up the mess facilitated by the developer. One way or another, the truth will come out.

Posted in Truth Squad, SCA Board, Community Affairs, Operations, News! | Print | No Comments »

December 4, 2009 by bobfrank.

All members should have received a special mailing announcing the most important board workshop scheduled for 9 AM, Tuesday, December 8, Anthem Center.

Since the community management contract is one of our largest expense items, most members should be very interested in the outcome of the workshop.  The board had said it will not compete the contract, so if you have any interest in the matter, you should at least show up and listen to the proceedings.

Accordingly, some information is provided for consideration in preparing to attend the workshop.  Here are some links, quotes and facts about RMI that members may find useful in examining whether that company is fit to continue to serve as SCA’s community manager without winning a competitive award.

1. The RMI Website http://www.rmillc.com/company.htm states:

“RMI is a growth focused company…” “There are many things that distinguish RMI from other management companies, but most important is our commitment to ethics and values. Every member of RMI, from the executive levels to frontline employees, is infused with the same core principles of integrity and ethical standards.” “…we are all members of a unified team serving our clients with the highest standards of quality and professionalism.“

Members who believe those statements do not represent the average RMI performance, ethics and values demonstrated at SCA since 2006 might want to post and be prepared to show examples of their positions at the workshop. While there are many cases that come to mind where those marketing claims were untrue at SCA, specific examples should be distributed before the workshop to have any impact on the future.

Of course, if the board summarily dismisses all of the facts presented that demonstrate a sole-source contract approach is not justified for RMI, the directors might be held accountable with failing their fiduciary duties to the membership.

2. “RMI Management, LLC is a subsidiary of FirstService Residential Management. FirstService Residential Management, through its partner companies, manages over 1,000,000 units in 3,700 residential communities nationwide.” “FirstService Residential Management is a subsidiary of FirstService Corporation (NASDAQ: FSRV, TSX: FSV)”

Members could post and be prepared to comment at the workshop that such huge, global companies (RMI’s FirstService Hqs. is in Canada) are a poor choice for SCA. Contrary to the pronouncements of such as Jack Silas, David Berman, and Rich Pendelton (who have serious conflicts of interest since they were directly involved with justifying the selection of RMI in 2005-2006) such large corporations usually fail to demonstrate they actually deliver the faster, better and more cost-effective services claimed in their puffed-up sales materials.

Most experienced managers know that our retirement community could be best served by one or more smaller Southern Nevada companies without the many layers of interstate/higher headquarters demanding their cuts in the profits.

For example, significant savings to SCA may be possible by splitting the big CAM contract into two smaller agreements with a property management company for “site operations” of the community facilities. And, a NV company specializing in accounting and financial management could focus on delivering financial and membership functions.

Those two contracts would make it possible to hire two executive managers through personal services agreements to provide daily supervision of all SCA sub-contracts. Many over-55 executives living in the Anthem area could be exceptionally well-suited for such positions. The smaller, functionally-focused local companies would be employing service-oriented, community-focused supervisors and employees who concentrate on the needs of our members and not on the profit demands by conglomerates like RMI’s owners.

The net result would provide a flexible management plan that avoids a great deal of overhead expenses while allowing the community to avoid being hostage to any one individual or one company.

Posted in SCA Board, Community Affairs, Clubs & SIGs, Operations, News! | Print | No Comments »