Letters to the Editor

Editor:

I am offering some insights to improve communications between shareholders and their Mutual boards. If you send a question to the board president, know that you may not get an answer, and if you do, it may not be correct. There may not be follow-up to a successful conclusion.

If you send correspondence to your Mutual president regarding agenda items, it may not be shared with other board members.

If you ask the president to inform you when a matter of extreme interest to you is placed on a future agenda, you may not get such notification.

If you submit correspondence regarding an agenda item to the GRF office for the board, it will only be given to the president and not necessarily shared with the board.

If you wish to speak on an agenda item, do not wait for that item to be opened on the agenda to speak as this may not be allowed.

My solutions for shareholders are:

• Read your Mutual Rules and Regulations thoroughly. These are available on each Mutual website. Don’t depend on board or neighbors.

• When making a complaint make sure that you quote the rule(s) being broken. Follow up, repeatedly, to obtain complete solution.

• Send correspondence regarding agenda matters to each board member directly.

• Read agendas for the procedure for being heard. If you are not admitted to the meeting on time, make that known in Zoom “chat.”

Margo Wheeler Mutual 6 Editor:

I am lucky enough to be enrolled in Long Beach Memorial’s pulmonary rehabilitation program. I attend the excellent program on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

With the rising price of gasoline, was I ever excited to discover LB Memorial Hospital has a shuttle bus that picks me up at the Amphitheater and takes me to my rehab.

When I finish the session, I am picked up after I call the driver Carlos, who brings me back to Leisure World.

Thank you for making my life more manageable Leisure World and Long Beach Memorial Hospital.

Kathy Moran Mutual 11 Editor:

In my opinion, the letter by Ed Murphy (July 7) is misleading.

During the Obama administration, gun safety laws could not get past the filibuster wielded by Mitch McConnell, even though 88% of Americans support background checks on guns and 69% support a ban on assault weapons.

It’s the Republicans who prevent meaningful gun safety measures from passing.

With only 4.5% of the world’s population, America has 25% of all the world’s prisoners and 50% of all the guns. We average 111 deaths a day from guns and 240 from gun injuries.

Guns are now the leading cause of death among children, (according to Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.).

In Japan, which has the strictest gun laws, there was only one homicide by guns in 2021.

When Australia bought back guns in 1998 after a mass shooting, the homicide rate dropped by 57%.

I have never owned or fired a gun. I do all my hunting at the supermarket.

It has come to the point where children fear going to school, markets, malls and parades. Children are more important than guns.

Guns are the problem, and we could fix it if we had the political will.

Dave Silva Mutual 12 Editor:

I understand why shareholders do not want to run to serve on their boards as directors.

It is a thankless job—no pay, lots of complaining and nothing but problems to solve.

Today, a shareholder rang my doorbell at 8 a.m.

Being a late riser, I was sound asleep. When I opened the door, he yelled at me, “the tree, the tree; it is a hazard. Someone is going to hurt themselves. And you do nothing. You never do anything.”

What a way to wake up. Oh, and what tree? We have a couple on our properties.

I am hoping that the shareholder reads the paper.

As all directors know, “doing nothing” is not exactly in the job description.

My work over the last year includes:

• Over 300 hours on the (Electric Vehicle) Project. My committee buddies logged even more hours. We applied for the grant program with SCE, negotiated and finalized the contract with our electrical vendor, wrote an EV Policy for the Mutual, kept the SCE portals updated and managed the data base.

• Over 20 hours working on the landscape contract in preparation for proposal project. Another 40-50 hours will be needed to complete the process.

• Over 10 hours pulling together narrative and documentation on shareholder issues that were referred to an attorney.

Soon I will start the budget process and try to keep any monthly increase to shareholders low while balancing rising attorney fees due to shareholders not following the rules.

This is usually a two-week job.

Then there are the extra items. I still attend monthly board meetings and other committee meetings and prepare financial reports for the monthly minutes. Now I am not complaining. I volunteered for this job. But when someone says I do nothing, it makes me angry.

Susan Smith Mutual 4