Sun City Palm Desert Residents

(Excuse typos in my posts, due to medical/nerve condition in fingers that affect use of touch screens.)

I believe residents gave to sign up in order to get Association email blasts - not just security alerts but all the other updates. (Residents gave to sign up for this blog as well.). Is the HOA doing a good enough job of reminding everyone to sign up - especially newcomers probably consumed just with the move-in; do we need them to send reminders and not to those already on distribution?

That "alert" went out to all residents as an email blast at 8:47 am this morning. Some if not all of the Delegates sent it out to their residents yesterday so there would be no delay in getting out the information. Not sure how useful it is to duplicate the same alert three hours later here unless there is something to add.

Sounds like our original merry little band succeeded in getting these communitywide alerts sent consistently whenever there's an "incident" and also the planned Town Hall even before we had that first meeting at a neighbor's home. No muss, no fanfare, but effective and cooperative communications with a couple people in the management structure who could make those two things happen; and the night patrols followed from there.

I added my profile narrative last night but can't see it (how do I view my own profile?) Also, when I go to "edit profile," the site makes me start over so I have to enter all info and the narrative from scratch. Clearly, I am missing something. How do I get to the narrative section I already wrote - to edit it?

Judy (Judith Rae) Lerner:

Home Town and Upbringing
Being a native Californian (both parents also born in Los Angeles - a very long time ago) has given me the opportunity to see the growth and evolution of my home city and our State. My father provided an example of getting involved to fight for constructive change. "Back in the day," he became the first non-big-corporate appointee to the State Board of Agriculture, serving two terms. He also got involved in many ways in the fight for civil rights - and so growing up, I was able to meet L.A. City Council and County Supervisors, the first black Congressman from California, and a bunch of others. But for me, perhaps the strongest memories for me are having legendary singer-actress Lena Horne at a campaign cocktail party in our west side home for future Congressman Gus Hawkins - and meeting Bobby Kennedy when my father was on stage with him in the dedication of the Youth Opportunities Center in South Los Angeles.

Career
My career twice took me away, first to the greater Detroit area and later to Boston to be closer to some of my largest consulting clients.

For decades as a Principal (and Practice Leader, national Practice Council member) with two large international consulting firms, my engagements focused on organizational change communications (mergers, acquisitions, downsizing), corporate culture, managed health care issues, and stakeholder information and satisfaction (stockholders, partners, distributors, employees, the media and more). Generally, clients occupied the executive suites and so I served CEOs, EVPs/SVPs, and their senior management teams at Fortune 500 companies. My role encompassed developing new business, managing and executing major projects, and supervising staff (direct reports and/or staffing for those projects).

My career also taught me strategies to to be an advocate for serious issues about which I am passionate, in particular patients' rights and consumer protection. Fighting for patients' rights and protections took me before Congress to testify as an "expert witness," and although the most important reforms recommended did not happen then (politics prevented passage of legislation being proposed), the Department of Labor, for whom I also testified, did enact significant patient safeguards for members of employer sponsored benefit plans.

The tools required in my consulting work match what's required to accomplish successfully the security and safety mission and specific initiatives that spawned this group initially - and on which I continue to work ...

Career Lessons Applied To Our Task at Hand
1-Listening - real listening, not just lip service (consulting tools used most effectively: confidential individual interviews/results reported without attribution - has anyone even asked to interview Board members, Delegates, Commitee heads, Security, law enforcement ?), focus group interviews (to gather without prejudice the issues, goals, and suggestions team members and other constituents have), and training/coaching sessions (individually, small groups, large groups - useful for team members going out to implement specific initiatives, be they neighborhood watch or the "lunch with a cop" idea I proposed).

2-"Business plan" development - to define and memorialize a plan to guide the work we want to do and the members who will do it, starting with the mission, specific steps/initiatives to achieve that mission, activities-work to implement, and (very important) timelines and progress metrics to keep the work on course.

3-Communications with emphasis on listening as welll as "telling" - planned, strategic communications - starting with a message strategy supporting the mission/goals, definition of key audiences (first rule of effective communications: know your audiences and their level of current understanding, needs, preferred delivery systems, and method to test whether each audience is getting the message - and reacting how?), delivery mechanisms (print, technological/online, oral, in person, telephonic), match-up between messages and delivery systems, and communications timing (the roll out over time).

For those who think this is too formal and complicated - and we are not a business after all, please consider. We are trying to effect change in an enterprise (and yes, it's a type of business enterprise) of 5,000 homes and likely more than 10,000 constituents at every level: residents (owners and renters - and their needs are different), the Board and its "emissaries" (Delegates, Committee Chairs and members, hired staff from the General Manager on down), major vendors, law enforcement, public officials at the local/State/Federal level - both elected and appointed including key agencies, and the media. To ignore an audience is to at best to delay and/or make our endeavor more difficult - and at worst, risk failing in our mission (by not actively soliciting their support and involvement or at minimum willingness to let us proceed).

Change is not easy. The official and unofficial rules and practices governing SCPD took a long time to evolve created by basically good people whether we now agree with them or not. People and practices here are well entrenched and have many supporters, much because they appreciate the amount of work those governing us and those who have preceded them devoted to this community regardless of agreement/disagreement with their final decisions.

Change takes time. This takes a combination of patience and aggressiveness. This takes persistence. This takes dedication. And it certainly takes work.

(It's the reason I believe focusing on just two or max three major change areas starting with security is important lest we risk dilution of the entire enterprise.)

Arrival In the Desert
I arrived in the desert June 25, 2021 (122 degree record setter). Adjusting and learning has been a challenge made more difficult by a series of surprise medical diagnoses that limit my energy and endurance and meant most of my first two years got spent at various Eisenhower facilities.

From my first days here, the warmth, kindness, support, and true "neighborly" nature of the people showed me what true community means. We are a diverse group with many backgrounds, many different talents and skills, many different approaches to just about everything, and many different views on all sorts of topics. But for the most part, the interactions remain respectful and geared towards helping, not hurting others. In particular, the neighbors I have on my street and the cross street are the best! So lucky to have them "by" me (in all the ways that means).bolded text

Oh, so this site is controlling alert postings - have to contact moderator and get it approved (sounds too familiar)?

Mike, are you selling this system or advertising as a "consultant" to set it up for other people? Not a clear message.

For the most part, I would stick with Tuesday 2 pm every other week - maybe add one evening or late afternoon meeting on the alternate week for those unable to attend in the afternoons.

Agree with "What Are We?" I am concerned that to succeed (aka get things done) and not only attract new people but also keep the ones who have been here from the start (first meeting of neighbors, then Tuesday meeting at Club House), we need to first retain the initial focus: security; then define one or two other major topics where we might have strong and doable initiatives in the next six to nine months. The web site has topics all over the place. For me, I get enough posts and "chat" from NextDoor and Steve's List (even with all their faults): I want to be able to zero in easily on those issues where we can make a difference and achieve our core goals.

Where are the discussion lines; maybe I am missing that? Maybe add "Location" with several options and then blank line "Other" so member can enter another preference. If I can help you you with this, let me jniw: in my corporate consulting work, we built several simple survey tools - and also did listening work (executive intervires, focus groups, etc.). As Jay keeps saying, "listening" is one of the key tools to getting participants, cooperation - and results.

Where is the loll question? On some topics it would be useful to have a commentary line with follow-up question (e.g. why? Your top two priorities, etc.)

Wvery other Tuesday 2pm if we can get a location that accommodates a larger group abd sound is not an issue again.

Summary of October 17 Meeting
[This was sent to members of another List as well as others who expressed interest)

On Tuesday, October 17, about 24 neighbors/residents met in the Mountain View Club House prompted by the recent home invasions in our community and concerns about improving SCPD safety and security. This summarizes just a few of the highlights of a wide ranging discussion in which all attendees were encourage to voice their opinions and raise their concerns about any SCPD topic.

One note/caveat: This group will continue. Its goal is to improve what most believe is a great community but not without some areas needing serious attention and improvement. It aims to be constructive, to raise problems and pose solutions - not to be a gripe session. It also has a sub-context to encourage those who are like-minded to seek leadership positions in the community where they can represent our voices and ensure we are heard. In order to facilitate regular meetings (weekly? biweekly?) and have access to a meeting facility that can hold the larger numbers we hope to attract, we are exploring creating a "Club" within SCPD, which would help us get needed space and support (amplifying devices, seating, etc.)

And now a few of the highlights:

• Several attendees say they intend to run for vacant Board seats - and they explained how they would focus on resident needs, resident feedback, more transparent decision-making, and possibly rule changes about the votes needed to pass important budgetary measures and projects, the process for vetting and presenting vendors for such projects, and requirements to ensure that residents have adequate notice-information-access to providing input and voting (when the majority of residents are on site, i.e. not the summer months).

• Some of those in attendance presented detailed information on crimes in the community, vulnerable areas with photos (e.g. locations where there are large gaps in the fencing with no monitoring - anyone can walk in), recommendations that may not have been pursued, information on our security patrols (previous company, current company - and the wages and conditions that might be acting as a disincentive to getting and retaining the best people).

• The group discussed possible discrepancies in the number of "incidents" SCPD has experienced recently: 11 v. 18 home invasions, an assault and robbery of a resident walking down one of our streets in the daytime. It has been verified that our security has a count of 11 home invasions reported to them, but some attendees have been told of additional home invasions reported directly to the Sheriff's office not included in that count. Details on the assault-robbery are being withheld due to confidentiality/privacy issues. We do not yet have information from the Sheriff's office as to any investigations they are conducting (and if our security staff has information, it has not been shared with us).

• Among the ideas floated at the meeting - and some will be pursued if found possible and practical to implement: a neighborhood watch/patrol staffed by residents; efforts to get the Sheriff to change its responding station from Thermal (that's where our calls/alerts/emergencies get routed) to Palm Desert; and setting up space in the community that Sheriff's personnel can use, making it easy and comfortable to set up a presence here. Also discussed: "comping" meals to Sheriff's deputies in our restaurants as an incentive for them to be on site and a "lunch with a cop" program to create relationships between residents and Sheriff's personnel (even if we have to drive to Thermal to start this up).

• Many raised concerns about major decisions made over the past year that the felt were made without adequate involvement and "listening" to the residents: of course, the controversial solar project ("it's too late" to change?), the closing of Billy Q's, and details around the new cafe to open soon.

• Besides disagreement by many with these decisions, there was significant discussion about the expenditure of very large sums of money on projects so far into the future that none of us will be here/alive to reap the benefits.

• Also getting a fair amount of discussion: the condition/appearance/maintenance of parts of the community that create a first impression not only for current residents but also for visitors and potential buyers.

People acknowledged that on various topics, there are different perspectives. But most agreed that clear, concise communications are not what they should be. People these days (human nature) won't go digging to find information that's not easily accessible. People often will not pay attention until very close to the time of decision-making/voting (be that in our local-state-national elections or in our SCPD measures requiring a vote). And blaming residents for not attending every meeting over a long expanse of time or for not reading every magazine or bulletin that comes out is missing the point: we the residents deserve to "know" and to have information distributed in a clear, understandable, digestible way at the time that's most important if we are being asked to participate/vote.

We invite all residents to join us. All ideas and points of view are welcome; no censorship. But beyond talk, this group aims to be action focused - constructive action. And it's a work in progress. So please join us.

There is a web site as well as the Google group at
scpdgroup@groups.io. as well as a web site: https://scpdresidents.org/ Please join us.

Judy Lerner Please join us.
judylerne@aol.com