After 20 years S.C. has a new Board
The old guard is defeated. Hurrah! The hope of over throwing tyranny is alive!
And the beginning to the end of tyranny has begun--as of 9/18/06 Donald Miller has been terminated. (he was only on SCCA pay for about 8 or 9 years)
Therese Daniels
It's been two years since I began my protest against SCCA Our work is just beginning.
Until I moved to Sun city, I had lived almost my entire life in non-deed restricted communities in Los Angeles area. During those years I practiced real estate, studied art, participated in community activities and debated philosophy. As a realtor I learned the importance of the right to govern our own property. No neighbor had the right to impose his values upon another neighbor's property. I learned what truly determines property value and what does not. I developed an appreciation and the sacredness of our Constitutional Rights. As time passed my respect for the genius of the men who wrote The Constitution of the United States increased. Personal freedom, all human beings are equal regardless of race color or creed, the right to earn a living, ethical and humane action in dealing with all were among the high standards I believed were practiced by the American majority.
I do and have always believed in the ultimate goodness of human beings. I believed every person I met is doing the best he/she can with what he's got at any given time. Free speech was welcomed. In the heat of conflict, sheds the light of truth. I believed society was interested in the highest and best good for itself and always prefer honesty and dignity over corruption and tyranny. Integrity and human compassion had become the rule to live by. In my ignorant belief society was becoming sensitive toward each other. Society had finally reached an age of enlightenment--so I thought. That sums up my idealism when I arrived in Sun City to help my mother in 1998.
I soon learned living in Sun City was like returning to the dark ages. Bigotry, ignorance, malevolence, fear and a contempt for the Constitution have been the rule in the Sun City Core for the past twenty five years. This attitude seems to spread in the rest of Riverside County as I have found it on many levels and is still prevailing today. What was even more appalling to me, is the persistence by S.C. residents to cling to their ignorance as if it were gold. The corruption, capriciousness, and ignorance of SCCA is flagrant. The absolute proof of this statement was the disgusting ballot SCCA mailed July 2005 to every member asking them for carte blanche right to sell our properties any way they saw fit, attempting to restrict rentals, approve of trespassing upon our properties, and asking the members to vote away any Constitutional Rights they had left living in a deed restricted community.
The SCCA Board that wrote, spent money on producing and mailing this document were so jaded they didn't even realize how bad it made them look or care how harmful it was to the members. It was as if America had gone back to the Dark Ages. It was as if none of them knew why there was an American Revolution. I no longer had the luxury of ignoring management. I knew I would have to SHOUT! I know I have to continue shouting. It was one of the most painful and agonizing decisions I had to make in a very long time. SCCA has a lot of friends who have supported them for over twenty years. I knew if I dared speak, I would be hated, ridiculed, maligned, punished and lose business as a realtor.
Never the less, I did make a difference. S.C. will be a slightly better place to live this year. Last July 2005, the same seven people who had been on SCCA Board for over twenty years were still on SCCA Board. The same SCCA salaried manager had been at her job for over eight years. SCCA had issued a "Special Election Ballot" and they were attempting to complete a deal with the Hopkins Development Company to sell Corbett Park below market value. This July 2006, there is now a brand new SCCA Board. That horrible ballot was withdrawn and to date has not come back to haunt us. Corbett Park has not been sold for under market value or any other value at this time. Christine McReynolds is no longer yeilding her heavy handed management. Though I did not accomplish this single handedly, I know I was the first to become public with my one woman protest through Mediacom, the newsletter Shout and this web site! My single effort gave upliftment, help, and courage to others who also carried the ball and are now serving as the new Board. In their own way, many others also worked for social betterment. I am glad for all of them. I am glad I shouted!
Be Noble My Friend,
For the nobleness that lies in others,
Often dormant
Will rise to meet thine own!
What is the cause for this dark ages attitude asked by me thousands of times since I have encountered it? What dark side of human nature have I unwittingly unveiled? Sun City residents are not "bad" people. Listening to them support the stupidity of SCCA, I could see they sincerely believe the people on the Board were good and capable people. I could see their conflict of being loyal or acknowledging negative facts about SCCA was painful. As I listened, I began to perceive some of the causes of this problem are ignorance based upon misinformation, insufficeint communication, and a belief system based upon lies and half truths. How did they become this way?
It began with developers building deed restricted communities. In order to sell their product they had to convince people to buy into their communities was a good idea because it would keep up property values by enforcing CC&R's and people need management and control. This was the beginning of erroneous concepts that years later people accepted unchallenged as Gospel. What good, sane person doesn't want to keep up the value of his investment? The idea was then perpetuated by the SCCA Board to justify its existence. For the past forty plus years the only communication SCCA members have had about SCCA was the Core Courier--a biased, convoluted, and misinformed publication that the unsuspecting members accepted as God's word.
SCCA has had a captive audience for almost forty years misrepresenting the facts and convincing members that the majority of members use and care about the "campus and its facilities", 55+ status in Sun City Core is what members want, the CC&R's keep up property values, and you can't reside here successfully with out their management. Until I started publishing Shout and this web site, the members never have had the benefit of getting of an opposing point of view. No one ever attempted to tell them fact from fiction. Is it any surprise that forty years later the members are ignorant. They have been deliberately misinformed and kept ignorant of the real facts. The members (not all) believe SCCA Board and management could do no wrong. At least 75% of the Core's residents have lived here since the mid 60's and early 70's. It is carved in their granite skulls the Core needs management, enforcement of CC&R's is what keep up property values, and the dues they pay are a bargain. A large percentage of members are simply apathetic. What is even worse, a large number of members are afraid of retaliation if they speak out. So I thought if I spoke out for them, it would give others the courage to speak out, too.
It did. That is why the old Board was defeated in 2006. Sadly, it also made many good but pitifully misinformed people turn against me. They simply refuse to hear the message and want to kill the messenger! They would prefer to believe the very corrupt SCCA who has its hands in their pockets and legal control over their lives.
Look at the facts
I do not have my hands in member's pockets, do not have nor want the power to control anyone, build a bullet proof wall in the office, encourage members to spy and tell on one another with the promise of anonymity, try to sell common property below market, didn't write one amendment, CC&R or deal to take away more rights from members. All of that and more was done by the 20+year old SCCA Board. All I have done is expose the wrong doings of SCCA for a better life in this community. Yet, they hate me and love their oppressors! People in their ignorance never cease to amaze me! It seems to me many members don't want to be bothered with legality or morality. They simply want to maintain the "status quo" of their little clicks, "good ole boy's club", and right or wrong buddy system The wall of ignorance here is greater than the wall of China! We pay a price for the ignorance of SCCA devotees.
Because of their ignorance, the quality of your and my life is diminished.
Ignorance is the only enemy the universe has.
Ignorance must be defeated right here and now! There is absolutely no need for a civic association to run the Core. The highest and best choice for S.C. Core residents is to dissolve the SCCA and operate under County Government. I hope there are enough enlighted members who will join me in this endeavor.
LOADS OF BAD CALIFORNIA HOUSING LEGISLATION!!
Be Informed!!! Hold your legislator accountable!
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