MCA Annual Meeting Recap

Long story short: The Tail (TMCC) is Still Wagging the Dog (MCA Homeowners)

We know a lot of you who planned on participating in the meeting via Zoom did not get to because of sound issues, which also may mean there is no viable recording of the meeting.

Apologies in advance for this post being a bit long. It always takes some time to explain why false information is false, and it is frustrating to have to spend time on this.

If there are any errors in this information, please let us know and we’ll fix it.

The MCA highlighted a lot of the good stuff they’ve done in the last 12 months and hopefully there will be a recording published soon (which they’d indicated they would be doing within 10 days when a blog reader inquired).

Unfortunately, there was also a lot of disingenuous and misleading information provided when it comes to the MCA’s relationship with TMCC. We’ll do our best not to repeat things we’ve gone over in previous blogs but there was a fair amount of “Same ‘stuff’, different day”.

Homeowner questions began following the Board’s hour-long presentation. The Chair’s response to most MCA Homeowner requests or suggestions was “We’ll take that under advisement” or “we appreciate your input”, which is widely known corporate-speak to dismiss a comment. The Chair did try to cut off questions after only a few were asked but a Homeowner highlighted a “point of order” that they are not allowed to do that by Florida law and eventually all questions were asked. None were really answered.

One Homeowner recommended the MCA hire a professional golf management company such as Troon to provide consulting advice on how it could best manage our recreational and dining assets for MCA Homeowners. The Chair responded saying “Our local team does indeed have the Troon resources from Florida on agronomy consulting as well as marketing”. In fact, MCA does NOT have any relationship with Troon. TMCC has a relationship with Troon(ICON). This perfectly encapsulates how the MCA Board views the interests of TMCC as “us/we” rather than distinct, separate, and sometimes conflicting with the interests of MCA Homeowners.

One Homeowner recommended the MCA require that TMCC provide its financial results to the MCA and MCA Homeowners directly since TMCC is required to provide public access anyways (and it is also very common for a lessor to require financial statements from a lessee). The Chair responded that they “appreciate your input” dismissing the very reasonable suggestion.

As MCA Homeowners departed the meeting, the MCA handed out a page titled “Resident questions and MCA’s Responses”. It is “responses” to a number of the issues we’ve raised here but is such a self-serving move to provide it on the way out so Homeowners no longer had the ability to ask the Board questions about their half-truths and misleading replies. This link provides a copy of the actual document with our highlighting of sections we reference. Here are our comments:

Re: Renaissance Access Fee change

We’ve covered both this fee as a large subsidy with minimal value to MCA Homeowners and that this change removes transparency of the $600,000 subsidy.

There are so many issues for MCA Homeowners with the way that MCA has done this even beyond we previously posted.

• As the property taxes and insurance continue to increase, the net payment will likewise decrease making it more and more “out of sight, out of mind”, which is obviously the plan.
• It makes it impossible to eliminate the $600,000 fee when we are no longer “paying” it.
• It combines the lease terms (requiring TMCC to pay the expenses of their operations) and the fee/subsidy payment as one transaction when they are clearly two very separate things.

On top of all this, the MCA Board is (predictably) presents this change as a reduction in the monthly fee, conveying the idea that MCA Homeowners are paying less fee/subsidy. That is 100% false and misleading. So much for it being just an administrative convenience as was described at the Assembly of Property Owners’ meeting.

There is a benefit to MCA paying property taxes and insurance directly as it avoids potential problems from TMCC not paying these bills. But the solution is to change the lease terms to simply require TMCC reimburse MCA for these amounts while MCA transparently pays the full Renaissance Access fee/subsidy. See how easy and transparent that could be? 

Re: Renaissance Access Plan value to homeowners

MCA presents this data as indicators of success:

• 86% of residents have cards – This is absolutely no indication of use and it is misleading to present it as such. They state that utilization is “in full swing” for all aspects but provide no data on actual use (other than golf).
• Pickleball “has risen to over 500 players” – This is the number of people registered on the Court Reserve app (and we only know this because of a question at the meeting). That has nothing to do with utilization. The 2 pickleball courts are very busy but as WE own the courts, WE resurfaced the courts and WE will be building the new courts, why are we paying a Renaissance Access subsidy to TMCC, who just runs the court reservations app for $1,000/year? This is not a TMCC service to MCA Homeowners in any meaningful way.

6,100 golf rounds played by cardholders, spending $248,000 in green fees. Given the dubious use of statistics above we suspect that this includes rounds by guests of homeowners, but that question was not asked at the meeting. That is an average of only $40 per round. In peak season, before 1:00, the Highlands costs $99 less 25% discount = $75 and the Groves costs $75 less 25% discount = $56. So, despite the extreme convenience of playing Highlands or Groves, MCA Homeowners are only playing when the rate is deeply discounted in the afternoons or summertime, and still require another 25% off to be convinced to play these courses. That is the state of those courses.

Re: The $10 rent TMCC pays MCA for use of the $12 million of MCA Homeowner assets

MCA states (parroting TMCC info) that from 2020 to 2023 “the Club has invested over $28,000,00 to operate and maintain the facilities”. MCA and TMCC repeatedly highlight how much they are paying in business expenses, implying that we are fortunate that TMCC is paying the expenses, otherwise MCA Homeowners would have to pay the expenses through MCA assessments. This is SO misleading.

1. Paying business expenses is NOT INVESTING. When you fill your car with gas, are you “investing” in your car? Of course not.
2. MCA/TMCC never disclose that TMCC is receiving $28+ million in revenue from using our assets for free. They only ever mention the expense part (again implying we would have to pay it).
3. MCA/TMCC never mention TMCC’s profitability despite TMCC’s legal obligation to disclose their financial results to the public via the Form 990. TMCC delay and make it as difficult as possible for the public to obtain this information, meeting the technical requirement but not the spirit of the law. The exact opposite of transparency. Reminder that you can go to TMCC’s office and they are legally required to provide you with a copy of their Form 990 that you can take with you.

MCA states that TMCC is responsible for the resodding on all 3 golf courses. In 2020 MCA Homeowners paid for the work on the Meadows/Members golf course not TMCC. See page 14 of the 2021 MCA Annual Meeting presentation.

MCA states TMCC “puts 100% of all net income back into the property”. Possibly true but very misleading. Even with MCA Homeowners subsidizing TMCC for $1 million/year TMCC have only reported a small profit. And saving money by NOT maintaining/investing in the Highlands and Groves courses is key to showing a “profit”. TMCC does not, and realistically never will have, the financial resources to fund capital improvements or major maintenance. These big ticket items will always be funded by MCA Homeowners, but TMCC members will always be the primary beneficiaries under the private club model. Given the current state of the Highlands and Groves, a big bill may be coming soon for MCA Homeowners.

MCA also refers to a “low monthly lease rate” in an effort to sound like TMCC is paying some legitimate amount per month. They are paying $10/year = $0.83 a month.

Re: Are the golf courses owned by MCA?

“The land is owned by MCA. The golf courses are operated, funded and maintained by TMCC”

This is truly an absurd way to view the situation. THEY ARE GOLF COURSES AND MCA OWNS THEM. Who maintains them doesn’t turn them into golf courses. No reasonable person would look at the “land” and not view it as a golf course. There is no other reasonable way to view that. Again the MCA implies that the golf courses can only exist if TMCC operates them. 100% false.

“The crucial point to remember here is that if member dues were to disappear, that revenue loss would be especially impactful on The Meadows property values and to the MCA’s financial resources”

So many misleading statements in one sentence:

• No one here is advocating making memberships disappear. Semi-private means the courses have memberships. We’ve been very clear on that.
• A semi-private model would INCREASE PROFIT from utilizing unused tee times and REDUCE the current subsidy burden of MCA Homeowners.
• It is true that increased MCA assessments can have a negative impact on our property values. While threatening that this could happen in the future, the MCA is of course ignoring that MCA HOMEOWNERS ALREADY HAVE INCREASED ASSESSMENTS from bailing out and subsidizing TMCC which are negatively impacting our property values! Our MCA assessments are now more than 2.5 times what they were in 2018! We’re advocating reducing the subsidy which would, according to the MCA, increase property values.

MCA seems to understand that the truth below is a truly “dangerous” point for you to understand (not everyone does understand this and they don’t want you to):

We, the MCA Homeowners, OWN the golf courses,
the tennis facilities, the dining facilities, and the clubhouse.

TMCC used to own these assets, now WE own them. Since 2018 these assets have been a separate entity from TMCC, and it is only because the MCA Board gives it right back to TMCC for free that the assets and TMCC continue to appear to be one and the same. THEY ARE SEPARATE THINGS and we can have all these facilities continue to exist and be professionally managed, separately from TMCC.

 It is the core responsibility of the MCA Board to utilize the facilities in the best interests of MCA Homeowners. It would be a lot of hard work to undertake this responsibility but MCA Board continues to avoid this responsibility.

Icing on the cake

In a final moment of irony, the MCA’s Summary says “Be an advocate for the truth”. That is all we are here for. We seek to inform you with facts and analysis to help you understand the situation we are in.

It is truly unfortunate that our MCA Board continues to use their megaphone to provide misleading and incomplete information to avoid discussing the genuine problem and look for solutions.

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