Two incumbents retain spot and former board member Ziletti regains seat
SUN CITY – It’s been a quiet two years on the Sun City community association board of directors, and residents appear to want to keep it that way.
Continuity, communications, and cost control were the themes of both the recent campaign by seven candidates for the board, and in the results of resident balloting to determine the top three vote-getters.
Incumbents Bonnie Bayser and Linda Davis were re-elected by wide margins, and former board member Bill Ziletti was returned to the seven-member board by an equally large margin. Current board president Bayser was the top vote-getter with 1,970, or 66.5 percent of votes cast. Ziletti ranked second with 1,744 votes (58.9 percent), and Davis, current board vice president, was third with 1,666 (56.2 percent).
Bayser, Zilletti, and Davis will begin their new two-year terms on Jan. 1, when they will be joined by holdover board members Ralph Bergstrom, Bob Beaupre, Bill Bendick, and James Van Fleet.
Bonnie Bayser (Photo Provided)
Bill Ziletti (Photo Provided)
Linda Davis (Photo Provided)
Results of the resident yes-or-no vote on the question of proposed video gaming at Jameson’s were not tabulated last week by the Minnesota firm that processed the election. The SCCAH ad hoc survey committee staff counted the gaming proposal responses this week and an announcement was slated to be made at the association board meeting on Oct. 23.
Among other candidates, Kathy Ryan received 937 votes, Dennis O’Leary 869, Gene Rhodes 712, and Mack Titus 632. This slate was the largest in Sun City board election history. About 54 percent of the ballots mailed to each Sun City household were returned, which also may be a record, according to initial estimates by association officials. There were only 19 invalid ballots.
“The participation by residents was outstanding,” Bayser said. “We didn’t have any big, controversial issues, and I believe residents are thinking continuity. Communication remains a major subject, as it always is. We need to keep residents in the loop. Folks are also interested in maintaining our aesthetics and lifestyle at the lowest possible cost. So these things will con¬tinue to be our main topics in the coming year.”
Bayser, a retired nursing administrator, has served nearly two years on the board, the last 10 months as president.
Ziletti agreed with the theme of continuity, but placed his main emphasis on communications with residents.
“The first thing I’m going to do starting on Jan. 1 will be communications,” he said. “The second thing I will do will be communications, and the third thing will be communications. That was one of my main topics when I served formerly [from 2010-11], and it remains so now. Residents also must understand that I will not do this by myself. I am one of seven members on the board. We must work together to attain our objectives.”
Ziletti is a retired corporate finance executive and has served five years on the Sun City Finance Advisory Committee.
One of the first tasks of the new board will be the hiring of a new First Services Residential executive director to replace the recently departed Bill Pennock. Dave Osborn, who has been serving as director of maintenance for the community, has been serving as interim executive director. Another major challenge will be the “where do we go from here?” question of marketing the Sun City lifestyle and amenities now that Pulte Homes, the community’s developer, is gone. It is a new era in Sun City, as residents, the staff, and the board take full and total control of the community’s future in an environment of slow economic recovery.
Under the heading of other residents that may have developed leadership reputations, the following 12 Sun City residents received write-in votes for the board. They are: Diane Faubl, Emma Burns, Jack Gilhooly, Jay Daniels, Jim Belmont, John Pott, John Sterling, Mike Burns, Warren Brody, Richard Cirrincione, Russell Woodside, and Tony Troy. Pott was the leading vote-getter in this group with two votes. The others each earned one.
Diane Faubl chairs the Elections Advisory Committee, which also includes members Mary Meisenheimer, Cookie Seiler, and Judith Frazier. Debby Seger, director of administration, was staff liaison.
