Melody Jameson Photos
SUN CITY CENTER – Voting Community Association members here have opted this year for directors with experience – and may have signaled outcome of a pending big ticket capital improvements program.
About 19 percent of the 10,500-plus CA membership also approved an increase in their annual dues by a wide margin.
A total of 1,906 ballots favored two current directors plus a former officer during the annual SCC CA election process ending last week, according to Ed Barnes, CA president. Retaining their present seats on the CA board of directors are Al Alderman, seeking his second term, and Jane Keegan, who ran for her first full term after being appointed a year ago to take a seat opened by a resignation.
In addition, those CA members voting tapped Howie Griffin, a former director who served during one term earlier in the decade. Griffin replaces retiring director Bob Black, who is expected to continue providing public relations services to the board, Barnes added.
These three of the five candidates standing during the annual director’s election were the top vote getters, each garnering between 1,100 and 1,300 nods of support.
Newcomers to the CA election process, Rob King and Paul Sasville, each picked up 800 or fewer votes during their first outings as candidates.
Each director elected to the nine-member board serves a three-year term, beginning with official seating during the annual membership meeting, now scheduled for January 4, 2012.
Following the official ballot count, board members assembled to select their officers for the coming year. Barnes was returned as president, Chuck Collett was named vice president and David Floyd was retained as board secretary. Neil Rothfeld, who is not an elected board member, continues as CA treasurer.
Each of the freshly chosen directors — Alderman, Griffin and Keegan — voiced strong support during the election process for a proposed $3 million capital building and improvements program, while King and Sasville cautioned against incurring the debt entailed in financing the project.
The prospective capital program projects two new buildings and establishment of a café on the community’s northside Central Campus, funded in part by an anticipated low-interest bank loan for $2.4 million. The CA board has calculated the loan can be repaid over a 10-year period through fees accruing each time a SCC home is sold to a new resident.
The so-called “transfer fee” currently is $1,200 per dwelling and could be increased to $1,500 on each purchased home when a vote on the matter is registered during a CA membership meeting scheduled Thursday morning (December 15). Historically, approximately 150 to 275 houses are resold in the community each year, the majority of them to newly incoming buyers.
Also in the fiscal matters vein, voting CA members last week approved an annual dues increase to $263 per member, up from $256 each year. The increase to $526 per couple was approved by a margin of more than two to one, Barnes said. The new rate becomes effective January 1, 2012.
Copyright 2011 Melody Jameson
