Notes from Mar 14 MCA Board Meeting

The meeting was primarily spent on “traditional” MCA work, which MCA and the Board seem to do a competent job with.

Although it was not announced, it appears that the MCA Directors re-elected its members to continue in the following executive positions:

President – Marilyn Maleckas              Vice-President – Michelle Johnston
Treasurer- Stan Miska                       Secretary – Tom Bondur

The General Manager spoke about the Annual Meeting Zoom difficulties, saying that a partial recording of the meeting would be provided to those that had logged in to participate via Zoom. The Chair later added that their script of the meeting prior to the above recording would also be provided and this would be communicated to MCA Homeowners who registered via Zoom. MCA had previously committed to a reader that the meeting recording would be posted on the MCA website where ALL MCA Homeowners could access it, but that has not been done yet. Hopefully that will happen soon as its been more than 2 weeks.

The Chair noted that anyone wishing to speak will be limited to 3 minutes, that it is monitored, and that rule “isn’t a MCA or Board rule, it is a Florida Statute”. THIS IS FALSE. Florida Statute 720.303(2)(d) says that homeowners must be allowed to speak for AT LEAST 3 minutes, not that they must be restricted to 3 minutes. The restriction of MCA Homeowners being limited to 3 minutes IS FULLY a Board and MCA choice.

There were only a few TMCC related comments made by the Treasurer and the Chair. Much of it was a repeat of the misleading statements made in the MCA Annual Meeting, but a couple of new ones as well.

The Treasurer offered some ad hoc commentary on a couple of benefits of Renaissance Access Plan (RAP) as follows (probably prompted by our MCA Annual Meeting Recap):

First the Treasurer repeated the MCA Board’s new mantra that the RAP fee is $185,000. FALSE. MCA Homeowners are still subsidizing TMCC with $600,000, but now we’re paying that amount in cash, as well as paying $415,000 of property taxes and insurance of their operations. Just over a month ago we posted that these changes were being done primarily to reduce transparency and now it is 100% clear that was the MCA Board’s objective.

Next he noted that RAP cardholders received $82,000 of green fee discounts in 2023 and that was “a good chunk of change”. This amount is consistent with the other data provided, but this includes GUESTS of RAP cardholders (we suspected this after the MCA Annual Meeting and a reader confirmed it with MCA). One RAP cardholder can have 3 guests who also get the discount so the actual benefit to RAP cardholders themselves could be as little as $21,000. Very misleading to say that RAP cardholders played 6,100 rounds and saved $82,000.

Last, he noted that the Fitness Center costs about $200,000 a year to run and 60-70% of use is from RAP cardholders, implying $120,000-$140,000 of the cost is attributable to MCA Homeowner use. BUT here is what the Treasurer doesn’t mention: TMCC doesn’t pay all the fitness center operating costs. TMCC’s costs are FIXED at what they paid to operate the old “Dickens” fitness center. The excerpt below is from the first page of the 2021-24 lease (reminder that the Dickens operations were the previous smaller fitness facility):

Upon completion of the new building operated by the MCA, the Club will operate a fitness center including provision of all equipment, staff, and maintenance of said equipment for a monthly fee equal to the full cost of Dickens operations, maintenance, utilities, taxes, assessments, insurance R & M, etc., beginning the first month such new facility becomes operational. (This fee is also mentioned again in section 4(B) as being in addition to the annual $10 lease payment.)

Since the new fitness center is larger and has more staff, it is likely that it is more costly to operate than the “Dickens operations” so MCA Homeowners are likely paying a significant amount of the current operating costs. This means that although TMCC leases the fitness center from MCA Homeowners, MCA operates it and pays the expenses, less this “fixed Dickens fee” from prior years’ cost. Really odd way to structure things. We have asked MCA for the actual operating cost and the amount TMCC pays MCA under this clause but have not received a reply. (help us out by asking the MCA Director yourself and let us know if you get a reply).

 The Treasurer finished off by saying the RAP fee/subsidy (which he noted was now $185,000) is “priced correctly, or somewhat correctly, maybe even a little low”. He draws this conclusion by comparing this misleading use and operating cost data, to misleading RAP fee/subsidy information. WOW.

When discussing the status of the golf courses, the Chair noted “the Highlands greens are still a problem and will be until there is a full-fledged development plan for funding from the Club to re-do those greens”. The Chair did emphasize the “from the Club” portion of her statement, and that is consistent with their obligations under the current lease. And it is completely appropriate for TMCC to pay for fixing the greens because the problems arose from inadequate maintenance which they were also obligated to perform under the terms of the lease, but did not.

In response to a question asking when MCA Homeowners are going to start seeing a financial return on MCA Homeowners’ 2018 investment in the recreational assets, the Chair used the “TMCC paid $28 million of expenses over the past 3 years” line that we debunked and demonstrated was highly misleading in our 2023 Annual Meeting post. But they continue to use it.

The Chair then continued with a deflection rather than an answer and also contradicted (misleading) information they provided earlier in the meeting. The Chair responded that we have a “triple net lease” (meaning TMCC pays all operating expenses) in exchange for a “low monthly lease rate” ($0.83 per month!). Earlier in the meeting the Chair (and the Treasurer) had boasted that the RAP fee had gone down to $185,000, rather than explaining it was just an accounting change (to reduce transparency) since now MCA Homeowners are paying for TMCC’s property taxes and insurance. Which of course means the lease now isn’t a Triple Net Lease, right? Even their misdirections are a combination of misleading information.

The Chair also stated that the lease is “up this month” (March 2024). The current lease is scheduled to end June 30 2024. We’ve asked the Chair to confirm that they simply mis-spoke on this and that there is not an intention to renew the lease early which would circumvent any MCA Homeowner input on any new lease. We’ll get back to you when/if we get a response. The Chair has responded to our email and said “The Lease with TMCC will be renewed with an effective date of July 1, 2024.” We’re glad to have that cleared up.

A few more overall notes on how the MCA Board provides in TMCC information:

• They tell us that we can’t see TMCC information but then sprinkle in cherry-picked items to try to defend the financial relationship (and even their best cherry-picked numbers don’t stand up to any scrutiny). Tell us the whole store or nothing, and certainly not misleading cherry-picked information.
• The Chair twice in this meeting when referring to cherry picked TMCC data told and us we could “look our books or the Club’s” or “that is published information”. No Madame Chair, we cannot look up TMCC’s financial information. The Chair as a TMCC member and as the MCA’s liaison to TMCC, SHE can look it up. but MCA Homeowners don’t have any reasonable access to information (other than the Form 990’s we are not timely or comprehensive)

Having the MCA Board consistently mislead MCA Homeowners is completely contradictory to their fiduciary legal duties, erodes trust from MCA Homeowners, and is just a big waste of all our time.

MCA Board:
Your responsibility is to MCA Homeowners,
not to serving a private club.
LEAD us, don’t MISLEAD us.