Dennis O’Leary has served Sun City in so many ways for the last decade, he can’t exactly remember all the details.
After he was re-elected President of the Sun City Community Board of Directors for the fourth consecutive year on January 9, he was asked if he is the longest-serving Board president ever. He had to stop and think about it.
The short answer is yes, he is.
At the board’s 2019 organizational meeting on January 9, he was unanimously re-elected to a fourth consecutive one-year term by his board peers. O’Leary thus broke the service record of two of his predecessors. Jim Roberts served as President for three years in 2008-09-10, and Bonnie Bayser served for three years in 2013-14-15.
O’Leary has also served in several other Sun City community governmental roles. He served several years (he can’t remember exactly how many) as a member and chairman of the Finance Advisory and Facility Advisory Committees before his initial election to the board in 2015. He is beginning his fifth year on the board. O’Leary’s predecessors as President include Don Kundich, Bill Ziletti, and Jerry Kirshner, who served one year each, in addition to Roberts and Bayser.
Other officers of the board elected on January 9 include Russ Howard, vice president for the first time, and Bob McGouey and Vito Benigno, both re-elected as Treasurer and Secretary, respectively.
Also at this meeting, it was announced that Bob Wainscott resigned as a director as of January l for personal reasons. The board appointed George Sebastian to fill out Wainscott’s final year as director. Sebastian also has been an active leader in community government for the last several years, serving on the Finance and Facility Advisory Committees, as well as president of the Computer Club and two other charter clubs.
Two other candidates volunteered for the vacated board position. They were Burt Natkins, a retired attorney who came to Sun City a year ago, and Don Kay, who was a candidate for the board in the 2016 election and is the current chairman of the Modifications Committee. The board interviewed all three replacement candidates at the meeting before voting by paper ballot.
Appointed as board liaisons to advisory committees for 2019 were Marilynn Berendt, Activities Committee; Dennis O’Leary, Facility and Election Committees; Bob McGouey, Finance Committee; Russ Howard, Fitness Committee; Marilynn Berendt, Golf Committee; George Sebastian, Modifications Committee; Vito Benigno, Neighborhood Advisory Council; and Steve Bytnar, Charter Club Presidents Council.
