1. It is likely that the General Manager and/or the Director of Finance will retire during your term of office. If either or both announce their retirement how would you seek to fill these positions? Would you use a search firm? If so, why? Do we have potential replacements already employed and being trained? If not, should that be a priority?
These are two very different positions. For the GM I think that a search firm would be the absolutely best way to go. In today’s market, there are so many very qualified individuals available, I would hate to only rely only on local knowledge in our search. I absolutely would be against hiring anyone from the sitting Board…I don’t care how qualified. I think the process used when hiring Roger Klask was flawed. I personally think that Roger is a good GM, if not great…but the fact that the Board hired off the Board smacks too much of nepotism and undermines the credibility of the Board.
DF, i.e. Sandra’s replacement. Roger has been carefully overlapping the senior staffs duties to prepare for any of our employees’ departure. Sandra does have an assistant and several other staff members assist with different parts of her formable tasks. I feel that the GM would and SHOULD be able to interview and find a replacement for this position without huge down time in Big Canoe. I am confident that Sandra would also assist OJT-ing if needed.
2. I have heard some conversation about potentially outsourcing some POA functions. F&B, public safety, and landscaping maintenance come to mind as likely functions that might be outsourced. Do you support outsourcing any of these functions? If so, what is the logic behind that support?
Absolutely not. I think that the Staff and Board are in a much better position to regulate and implement changes than any other off site organization. The F&B Director, John Boozer, is making many changes and has many more that are waiting for implementation. I feel that he is on the right track. I also feel that cutting hours for the Mountain Grill might be an option to reduce the red ink at the Sconti.
3. F&B continues to be a drain on all the other amenities. It continues to operate at a significant deficit. Please share what you think the problem(s) is with F&B and how you think F&B financial performance can be improved.
Expand the Black Bear Pub through changes inside the Sconti and adding a deck. I am not in favor of covering the Veranda at this time, I don’t think that Big Canoe’s reserves should be spent until we are more certain of the real estate trend in the area. Covering the Veranda will add no revenues to the bottom line and we should not subsidize that big of an investment. Eventually, I think that the completing of the Club house including the permanent covering of the Veranda is the right thing, not today, or even tomorrow. Reducing the Mountain Grill hours to only open for general reservations on Friday, Saturday and occasional Sunday Brunch. More specialty dinners, much like the wildly popular Community Dinners. And residents giving the place a chance! Use the facility and if not happy with your experience, let the management know. Work with the staff, after all we are paying for it one way or another!
4. Big Canoe has a long range capital improvement plan and significant positive cash flow to fund most identified capital needs for the next five years. Each year all departments add to their "wish list" of capital needs that are in addition to the needs identified by The Long Range Facility Planning Committee and Miller/Dodson. Please identify the two largest capital needs you think Big Canoe needs to undertake that has not already been approved by the POA Board. Please explain why you think each of these buildings/improvements/expenditures need to be made in 2012. If not in 2012, when?
None in 2012. The Main Gate renovation is underway and is needed. As I stated, I am not in favor of the Veranda improvement at this time, nor the POA/ACED Building. Both will be great additions in the future, but are not needed now. I feel that we should be maintaining our present amenities, roads and buildings and wait until impact fees and additional homes are added to the revenues before adding to our responsibilities. I do not think that it should be business as usual until our housing stagnation has subsided. Eventually we need to add 2 more indoor courts for tennis. I am not in favor of temporarily covering 2 outdoor courts today. With the amount of resident users that we have today, our capacity is not nearly meet for our amenities and increasing our obligations just seems to me as being foolish and will result in large climbs in fees and assessments, placing further burdens on our fees.
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