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Editor’s note: In response to a letter to the SCA Board noting my frustration regarding the lack of landscape repairs, planting and growth of many, many weeds in the community areas, Steve Anderson sent the following reply.
UP-DATE: 9:10 AM 5/19/23
As a follow up, today I say the ACC landscapers out pulling and spraying weeds.
Steve
By Steve Anderson/SCA board President
Hi Rana:
I went to the Anthem Council meeting today at Solera and here is what I have to share with you.
The medians are coming up for work during the last quarter of this year or the first quarter of next year. They want to study and gain community input as to what they should do with the medians. In my public comments I stated that this was about ¾ of a year past when they said they would have the medians done. Right now they are concentrating on the turf removal. I told them at the very least they need to spray the medians for weeds as they were looking terrible and weeds were sprouting up all over. They use a spraying contractor that is busy and can only spray on calm days per NV Dept. of Agriculture rules. I shook my head and said just get them sprayed for weeds.
Utility pole – as you know Anthem Council buys the poles and the top fixtures and stores a supply at City maintenance. They have poles, but neglected to say they were out of the top fixtures. They are on back order and supposed to be here in 14 weeks. The City is responsible for removing the pole and for erecting the new one when it is ready. I guess we need to call the City to get the pole removed.
I share your frustration with Anthem Council, but they do have a plan and are finding out they do not need as much money to implement as they first thought. I would be surprised if they asked for a very large increase. We will know in July when they do their budget.
At least two of the boards that I have been on have asked our attorney for an opinion on how to get out of our relationship with Anthem Council. I believe the same was asked of John Leach when he represented us. The upshot is that if we tried to leave ACC would sue and given the legal structure of the relationship we would have a very low chance of prevailing. Given that we pay 53% of their expenses, in any lawsuit we would be funding 53% of their legal costs and 100% of ours. Financially they are in better shape than before and they have a plan and more people to manage it who know what they are doing.
All of that is to say that I know you are not happy and neither am I. We are caught in a situation where a “tough love” approach seems to be the best course of action.
That is my take away from the meeting today. ACC heard a presentation on the Automatic License Plate Readers and they are thinking about doing it as a total community project. The cost to rent for 5 years would amount to $7.85 per year for each roof top. Our board has heard the presentation from CNWP and we have said we are willing to consider it. I have a lot of questions and would want a community forum on the issue to hear if residents think it would be worthwhile to do.
What are your thoughts on that topic?
This is perhaps, the most honest and straight forward report I have ever heard in my 18 years of living in our community.
I commend him for his honesty; and with that in mind, I hope the community can appreciate a most humble response to some problems that continue to linger in Sun City Anthem.
By Liz Breier
I have checked with law-enforcement. I have been advised that the city of Henderson could easily get a grant for the license plate readers. There is no reason for Sun, City Anthem or ACC to pay for those.
There is no reason for any private organization to pay for automatic license plate readers in order to assist the local law-enforcement to do their jobs.
I was further advised that many criminals steal cars, or license plates, so the efficacy of those ALPR is negligible.I probably missed it, but what is the purpose of the license plate readers? Crime prevention or monitor our movements?
The automatic license plate readers are tied into the valley law enforcement system and can be a useful apprehension tool for the police to catch stolen cars and others engaged in crime in the area. Less clear is its usefulness as a prevention tool.
The Security Patrol recently did a presentation on the prospects of installing the ALPR, including locations to cover the entire community ingress and egress. I am not convinced of the efficacy but if the Henderson Police believe it would assist them in capturing criminals then by all means they can write a grant to cover the expense and install the ALPR. There is no reason that SCA or ACC should have to pay for those tools. There are ALPR in many areas and I am aware that grants are often awarded for those and other programs and aids for LE.
In response to Mr. Anderson’s comments about Anthem Community Council (ACC), I believe your readers would be interested in, and become more informed about ACC if I provided some background. ACC was formed by Del Webb in 1998, and remained in control until January of 2010. During that period of time Randy Watkins (a Del Webb employee) was the person in charge, and held a meeting in February, May, August, and November, the same as ACC does today. Randy Watkins ran each meeting with an iron hand. During that period of time I attended numerous meetings. The major thing I remember is that there was never any financial information provided. That was important to me because once a lot/house was sold in SCA, a monthly fee was paid to Del Webb.
In January 2010 ACC transitioned from developer control to HOA control. I was in attendance at that meeting, and at that time Jack Troia was president of SCA. The first thing he did was introduce the new Community Manager – Randy Watkins. If there was ever a conflict of interest in SCA, this was it. They accepted control announcing that six HOAs in Anthem would comprise ACC – Coventry, Solera, Country Club, Terra Bella, Anthem Highlands, and SCA. What they forgot is that there are eight HOAs in Anthem. The new board wrote those two HOAs (one is The Canyons, but I cannot remember the other one) asking them to do their civic duty, and join ACC. Their response was the Golden Finger. So, for the past 13 years six HOAs have been paying ACC, instead of the eight that reside here in Anthem. I requested to the new board that an audit of the funds received by Del Webb from 1998 to 2010 should be held. That request was denied.
I have often declared that ACC was/is the most corrupt external organization that SCA deals with. The following is just a few examples for my rationale. Around 2012 I asked, and received from the City of Henderson (COH), which were listed in their Master Plan, a listing of the acreage that both ACC and SCA were responsible for. ACC was responsible for 97+ acres, and SCA around 206 acres. Most of ACC’s acreage was across the highway from Country Club. So what acreage is ACC and SCA now responsible for. I have no idea. Mr. Anderson states that ACC has a plan. What and where is that plan? I have tried for years, without success, to obtain documentation from ACC. Their Federal Income Tax forms are just one of the documents I would like to review.
There is now no documentation that defines what land is the responsibility of ACC and the HOAs. ACC has removed from its website their CC&Rs which is titled “Declaration of Covenants and Easements for the Anthem Community”. This document was written in 1998 by a law firm in Georgia. How do I know that? Because that information is written on that first page. Then a few months ago I went to talk to Erica Sosa from Community Development, and asked her for what acreage the organizations in Anthem are responsible for. To make a long story short, the COH has eliminated all of their previous requirements. If anyone doubts my veracity, just go visit Ms. Sosa.
ACC has never been held accountable by any official documentation. As per my request, I asked the Nevada Real Estate Division (NRED) to provide me with information. I received a letter from their Ombudsman, and I state the last sentence of that letter, “Should a conflict exist between NRS 82 and NRS 116; NRS 116 prevails”. I have provided a copy of this letter to both ACC and various SCA presidents, the latest being Steve Anderson. I believe the date we met was September 2021. We met in the small library, and I presented my case to him, and provided him a copy of the letter. Mr. Anderson stated I had a very strong case, and said he would take my case to the entire board. I received an email from him stating that the board had reviewed the letter, but that I was misinterpreting the contents of the letter.
So what I am hopeful for is that the new board will assign a person to oversee the day-to-day operations of ACC, and demand that transparency become an every day requirement. The first demand is for ACC to identify the land/acreage they believe they are responsible for. I am concerned that their is a land overlap between ACC and SCA, and hence double charging by the contractors. Once that is identified, then have ACC provide the contract/s for their maintenance personnel. That will provide some insight to where SCA payments go. Also, your readers need to know that the 2022 SCA budget approved $10 to $15M over a ten year period of time to ACC. Let me repeat that – $10 to $15M over a ten year period. Between that expenditure, the yearly funding of over $1M to ACC, and the Yorktown Grill costs, one can understand why our assessments have dramatically increased. Then, until ACC commits to our requirements, we don’t need to sue ACC. Just place SCA dollars in a separate account, and let them sue us. I do not know what court jurisdiction they would go to, certainly not the Regional Justice System. And now the COH does not recognize ACC. I don’t believe the current board has the votes to move forward with any of my recommendations, but hopefully there are some new board members who will keep this issue in the minds of homeowners. I believe Robert Stern is correct when he states that we need to elect four board members who will reinstate some sanity to our board. Steve Anderson is not one of those four.
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