By RACHEL SELWAN
This article first appeared in CAI CA North Chapter’s, The Voice Magazine’s Spring 2024 Issue.
When considering the ideal version of a common-interest development, what comes to mind? A sense of community, funded budget with diversified income, an educated board focused on governance, staff retention, and a membership that is active and involved—just to name a few.
Sun City Roseville Community Association (SCRCA) has it all.
Chapter Executive Director, Rachel Selwan; Communications Committee Chair, Megan Hall, Esq. of ADAMS STIRLNG PLC; and California Legislative Action Committee Advocate, Louie Brown, had the opportunity to interview key members of SCRCA on Friday, January 12, 2024. We sat down with SCRCA three-time President, John Raniseski; Vice President, Ralph Faust; Treasurer, George Porter; Directors, Dave Lewis and Rosemary Dinse; Governmental Affairs Committee Chair, Michael Welch; and SCRCA Executive Director, Geoffrey Browne CMCA, AMS, PCAM.
“Del Webb started the community,” Treasurer, and Honorary SCRCA Historian, George Porter began. “They were an Arizona builder that initially thought they would build Arizona-type homes here in Roseville,” there was some general chuck- ling from the group. “So, they went back to Arizona to figure out the history of Roseville, a railroad town. And came back and had a different approach to building these homes,” Porter elaborated a group of very, very smart residents put together a very detailed and highly researched paper on what they want this community to look like, and which of the Del Webb ideas should be continued, and which should be dropped or changed. And that document today resides on our website and is a very important part of our history.”
From the very beginning, the residents were legacy planning for the community. That only continued as the association aged. The residents did a comparison analysis of all the other 55-plus community associations in the area, where they shared financial reports with each other, to see how competitive they were with their peers.
“(Our predecessors) laid down the rules for how we might go about improving our facilities and the whole idea was not to maintain what we had, but to see it as a competitive business that we are in, and always be current with other developers building homes for 55-and-over people,” said Porter.
By treating the Association like a corporation, they were able to diversify their income in order to protect resident assessments. Not to say that they don’t raise assessments.
“We had a $13 increase this year, the most in seven years,” Raniseski said. “But the residents, they weren’t contrary about it.
They supported it.” Raniseski went on to discuss how keeping the restaurant open to the public was a great source of income for the association. “4 million,” Browne informed us. They have two golf courses, also open to the public, and sell advertisements in their monthly magazine that is put together by staff and volunteers.
They have accomplished all of this success by leveraging their membership talent through volunteerism.
“The thing is,” Dave Lewis, Director, said. “This community has, as mentioned with these folks in the beginning, a continuum of life skills from all businesses, government trades, even lawyers. And we could probably, if we needed to, form a fortune 50 corporation just with the membership.” This led to a discussion on managing that talent.
“What’s helping us find folks who can be mentored is our Leadership Academy,” Raniseski said. “Interestingly enough … a majority of the board are right graduates of the Leadership Academy.” The Leadership Academy is designed to provide property owners the opportunity to become qualified future leaders in community life by participating in a series of six seminars and workshops over a three-month period. Upon completion of the Academy, participants will be honored by the Board of Directors at a regular Board Meeting.
Some of the topics include:
• A History of the Association
• Bringing Your Inner Leader Out
• Follow the Money: Understanding the Budget • Organization and Governance
“It’s huge,” Browne said. “I’m 15 months into this (position), in case you didn’t know. And when I got interviewed, I learned about two things that made me decide this was the job for me. The Leadership Academy was the first one—knowing that there was a succession plan, for board and committee members, and not just a sort of plug and play, which they do in a lot of other communities where whoever volunteers first gets the position, regardless of qualifications. And then the second thing was the staff tenure and the delegation of authority. It’s a resolution, it’s in writing, it’s official, that makes the Executive Director the CEO and the COO of the business. And it’s a tremendous help for me to be able to do the job that needs to be done when the board has that faith and trust in this position.”
CAI National has touted and laid out the strategy behind a governance model for common interest developments. “This is the governance model,” said Geoffrey Browne. “I have been doing this for 24 years, and I’ve never ever been involved in a community like this before. And about 19 years ago, CAI came out with the governance model that they wanted everybody to try and adopt, and when I got here, I finally found it. It’s just the one that CAI has been talking about for 12 years. The board makes the policy … and the staff does all the operations and executes on our policy. And it works tremendously well, but it wouldn’t work without volunteers.”
It’s humbling to note that even high-functioning, successful communities such as SCRCA face the same challenges as smaller homeowners associations.
“One of the questions that you folks wrote down for us was, what are your major issues?” Porter said. “Everybody in this room probably has a different answer to that particular question, but I would say for me, apathy. It’s our number one issue. We have a huge number of residents that are happy just to own their home and play the occasional round of golf or a game of tennis, but not be active in any other way. So, people like John Raniseski (current president) stay here 10 years on the board of directors and yours truly, nine years on the board of directors.”
And the same concerns.
“Because of things like ADU bill and others we need a lot of advice and information,” said Governmental Affairs Committee Chair, Michael Welch. “ADUs were a big topic of conversation, but luckily, we had our voice at the Capitol, California Legislative Action Committee Advocate, Louie Brown on site to help shed some light on the Legislative Action Committee in California.”
“On that bill in particular,” Browne began. “I determined early on; we’re not going to be able to kill the bill. And then I went back to our committees and said, ‘If we can’t kill the bill, what can we get?’ And they said, ‘Well, what if we can get authorization from the board?’ And that’s what we went back and did. That doesn’t necessarily always make the headlines, but it is an example of us going in and creating change to minimize the damage and doing everything we can to keep the control in the hands of the board.”
A lot of the board, who had read the bill, didn’t understand that the clause requiring the resident to get Board approval even if the city determined an accessory dwelling unit was feasible was in the bill. There was quite a bit of relieved sighs from the room, Browne continued.
“I can’t predict what we’re going to be facing defensively,” said Browne. “The California Legislature introduces 2,500 pieces of legislation a year on average. And so that’s a few bills,” general hysterical chuckling around the room. “And at the end of the day, we’re probably tracking anywhere from 70 to 100 bills. The state is in an emerging crisis when it comes to insurance. And we’re a small piece of that, but we’re trying to make ourselves known and become a larger piece of that. And that’s going to be an issue that’s probably dealt with over a number of years. But we’re working with the Department of Insurance, the insurance commissioner, and with the insurance committees, on potential legislation or regulation, in an effort to bring insurance companies back to the market, if possible.”
“So, you mentioned your task force … we have 3,110 homeowner members. How do we work to help you help us?”
CAI membership.
The SCRCA Board, committee chairs and staff all joined the Chapter this year. They also voted to provide the Buck-a-Door donation to CLAC, donating a total of $3,110 of the CAI CA North Chapter’s annual contribution. The Board and Committees had a meeting scheduled to discuss the different committees and leadership opportunities within the Chapter, and LSC, especially, to get involved. As many Chapters can attest, homeowner leader members are extremely valuable to the Chapter not just for the Legislative Support Committees, but for the three-tier membership system that keeps us competitive with other industry associations. CAI is the only CID association that has memberships for all three of the major players involved in this industry—homeowner leaders, business partners, and managers. We are truly the strongest foundation for collaborative positive change within the industry.
Touring the facilities, the Board President, Raniseski, and the Executive Director, Browne, were seen multiple times waving to members and asking residents about their day, a class they had just attended, and how their meal was—many of the residents knew the staff and Board members by sight.
Being a leader means being involved, active, and in front of your community. “The other thing I think,” said John, “This only works maybe for large associations. But what’s really beneficial here is you get a virtuous circle going. People come here because it’s a well-managed community. It’s a well-managed community because great, talented people come here. It works. Working together. That is the goal.”
Sun City Roseville Community Association puts the “Community” first.
