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 [1] 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.