If you haven’t read Dwight Esau’s open letter to residents, I suggest reading it before what follows, as information from the letter is referenced numerous times below without additional explanation.
Note from the editor: Though I’ve never been given a solid explanation behind the board’s decision to issue a cease and desist order to Dwight Esau, throughout my communication with Kovitz, Shifrin, Nesbit representatives, it’s been expressed that there were concerns over editorial accuracy and distribution to locations outside Sun City.
First, the Sun Day has never failed to print a correction or clarification. If we presented any inaccuracies in our reporting, all the board had to do was issue a correction, and we would have ran it. In fact, in the November 20, 2014 edition, the Sun Day printed several corrections issued to us by former Executive Director Lauren Lee. The board issued no corrections or clarifications on editorial content leading up to the cease and desist order or their sudden lack of communication.
Second, due to the carrier routes through which the Sun Day is delivered, the Sun Day barely circulates outside Sun City.
For the Sun Day PERSONALLY, the board’s unwillingness to communicate is of very little consequence. It will not negatively impact the paper’s performance. Organizations or governing bodies throwing up media roadblocks is old hat. It’s as common as Illinois road construction and handled the same way: you go around it. Eventually the construction ends, the dust settles, and the roads clear, usually newly paved. What is of great consequence is the disservice the Sun City board is doing to residents by not communicating with you through the Sun Day because unlike the road-construction analogy above, their roadblock is not constructive, it is not an effort to lay better groundwork for communication to travel.
The board’s tactics are amateur and immature and like children of a parent hopeless to mend past hurt, Sun City residents will feel the impact of what happens when one side refuses to talk.
The Sun Day offers, and always offered a viable, streamlined, popularly read means to disseminate information quicker than the “in-house” means available to the board, whether that be through news stories or submitted pieces by Sun City officials.
Numerous times during her employment in Sun City, former Executive Director Lauren Lee (who was very open to working with the Sun Day) used the Sun Day to issue important information to residents in a timely manner, either in a statement to residents or in a letter to the editor or by always being willing to answer questions.
The sudden wall of silence the board erected came shortly before Lauren Lee resigned when Sun City resident and Sun Day affiliate Dwight Esau approached the board with significant questions raised by Bill Berendt’s resignation from the Finance Advisory Committee. The silence only intensified on the heels of a cease and desist order issued to Esau by the board through the association’s legal representation Kovitz, Shifrin, Nesbit.
Issuing a cease and desist was sneaky at best, provoked suspicion, and was unduly aggressive. The Sun Day has never closed the door of communication to board members or management company employees. I’ve personally had several meetings with board members or management company officials over the years, discussing editorial content. I’ve openly heard every request (some of them outlandish) and, without jeopardizing the paper’s objective integrity, have tried to accommodate those requests.
Given the Sun Day’s history of cooperation, why they felt they needed to skirt around Dwight Esau or the Sun Day directly is a mystery. For now, the board will only communicate with the Sun Day through their legal representation…as evidenced by Dwight Esau’s several attempts to communicate with board members or management company employees on a range of topics, some them extremely benign.
As well, on October 6, I emailed a list of questions to board president Bonnie Bayser, inquiring about the motive behind issuing the cease and desist order to Dwight Esau. The email went unanswered.
Here are the questions*:
1. Why was Dwight Esau issued a cease and desist order by the SCCAH for his attendance at board meetings and subsequent reporting when he (with his relationship to the Sun Day known) given standing clearance by former executive director Lauren Lee (with approval by board president and vice president Bonnie Bayser and Linda Davis, respectively) to attend board meetings and report on them?
2. With a cease and desist order issued to Dwight Esau, is the aforementioned clearance to attend no longer extended to the Sun Day and its staff/contributors as well? If so, why was that not communicated to Sun Day owner Chris La Pelusa before issuing a cease and desist order to Dwight Esau as a resident?
3. It was explained by a representative of Kovitz, Shifrin, Nesbit that the cease and desist order to Dwight Esau wasn’t so much in regards to his attendance of board meetings and subsequent reporting but of the accuracy of the content that Dwight Esau wrote after attending said meetings. Is this true? If so, why didn’t any member of the board or the board as a whole or any representative operating in an official capacity on behalf of SCCAH issue a correction(s) (which would have been printed) to Dwight Esau or the Sun Day before sending a cease and desist order?
4. Given that Dwight Esau is a Sun City resident, first and foremost, and protected by the First Amendment, is the board concerned about what issuing a cease and desist order to Dwight Esau might imply to other Sun City residents who attend board meetings?
5. What is the reason behind board members’, SCCAH staff’s, and First Service Residential staff’s sudden lack of communication with Dwight Esau and also Sun Day staff/contributors?
It’s my personal belief that communication is the key to everything (transparency is the big word in Sun City right now for it). Open communication is the very reason why Freedom of Speech is the First Amendment, because without Freedom of Speech, all the other Amendments fall to the ground. The irony with the First Amendment is that while it’s the Freedom of Speech, it’s also the Freedom to Shut Up. The only problem with putting up communication barriers is that protecting yourself from the outside also means that your sealing yourself inside.
* The name of the legal representative was removed from the printed version of Question 3 to maintain anonymity. And two questions were removed in print from the original email sent to Bonnie Bayser because one’s validity is subject to additional investigation in light of recent knowledge garnered after the questions were sent and one is subjective in nature. A lack of response leaves too much subjective speculation on the answer without facts, spoken or otherwise, to support it. These omissions are ethically based.
3 Comments
As a Sun City resident, I believe every one of the Sun Day’s questions should be answered in full by our board of directors. It definitely seems as though they (the board) have something to hide, and, since it’s our finances they are playing with, there should be full disclosure. We should also be apprised of Bill Berendt’s reasons for resigning from the Financial Advisory Committee.
I, too, have wondered why Bill Berendt suddenly left the Finance committee, and was also surprised when Lauren Lee left rather abruptly after that. She claimed she was moving to be closer to her family, but I persoanally don’t buy it. This all started after the recent board elections, and I feel we have a couple of board members with extreme “ego” problems. These questions presented “need” to be answered, and in depth. Who approved using Sun City funds to issue a cease and desist order. This has never, ever happened in all the years of our existance. This truly smacks of the needs of one or two people to be kept under wraps. Perhaps we need to present a petition of a new election of these new board members, and replace all of them. Things were well and good before this. Something doesn’t smell right here, and the residents need to get to the bottom of it. It will only get worse as time goes on.
Just catching up to the latest and finest of Sun City. The questions to be answered is :
1) Are there inaccuracy in Esau’s article ? ( Yes/ NO)
2) Are there confidentiality requirement for information shared in Sun City Board meeting or other Sun City meetings ? ( Yes/ NO)
3) If one of the above answers is YES.. I rest my case.
4) IF the answers are NO / NO above. Then, I’d say the cease and desist letter is a waste of money and a moot point. Practicing intimidation at it’s worst.
5) If Sun City management ‘s concern is that they have to spend additional time to explain pending projects or clarification to what’s shared on the articles.. well then, isnt communication to residents , part of their job ? Perhaps they should use SUN DAY to communicate their intentions. This is far more effective than rumor mills.
This is the new world. We have internet. We are curious. We have opinions. We want to be accountable/ be responsible for money invested in Sun City, even though we are mostly over 55.