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It’s your building, but KEEP OUT!
August 11th, 2008, 3:00 am · 21 Comments · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
The managers at Laguna Woods Village have floated a proposal to keep residents from wandering the second floor of their own community center.
The community center that they paid for.
To the tune of $11 million.
To enter the second floor sanctum - where oft-maligned property manager Professional Community Management has offices - residents would have required an appointment and an escort upstairs.
Why restrict people who look like your grandma and grandpa from part of their own community center without an appointment/escort/armed guard?
Because some residents committed “menacing and frightening” actions, wrote my colleague, Cheryl Walker, for the Laguna Woods Globe. Residents have also shouted, threatened the property manager’s staff and caused other security problems.
It’s not just regular rabble-rousers who’d have qualified as personas non grata on the second floor. Even Golden Rain Foundation board members - the seniors who hire the property manager, 
and are ultimately responsible for overseeing the common areas in Laguna Woods Village - would have had limited access.
The proposal absolutely enraged critics of PCM. “I am deeply offended and frankly frightened,” wrote rabble rouser resident Mike Curtis, who sued PCM for trying to ruin him and won a settlement (another story for another day).
But PCM said residents wouldn’t be excluded at all, and that it’s just trying to do business like anybody else.
“GRF is considering operating the administrative functions as does any other professional office building - by requesting that visitors check in with a receptionist who will then notify the individual with whom the client desires to meet,” PCM spokeswoman Heather Rasmussen wrote me in an email last month.
“There is no intent to restrict access - the intent is to provide better service to their clients by ensuring that their appointments are promptly responded to. The administrative offices maintain Village residents’ private information. People have been observed rifling through drawers, looking at confidential information on desks and others have acted in a threatening and harassing manner to both directors and staff. GRF and PCM desire to maintain a safe and orderly working environment for personnel and to protect the confidentiality of residents’ personal information.”
CAN YOU SAY, “LEAD BALLOON?”
The Golden Rain Foundation board hasn’t embraced the proposal, and isn’t expected to. But the fact that it coincided with PCM calling the Sheriff’s Department on some raucous seniors who wouldn’t shut up or sit down when told to do so has left a bitter taste in some mouths.
Add to that:
- the sheriff was summoned again on July 22 to mediate a confrontation between “one security guard in a verbal with 30 seniors” (the fourth time the sheriff was called to quell tensions in about 18 months).
- the “indignity” of a new roped-off area separating residents from the GRF board at the Aug. 5 meeting.
- controversy over how a $9,000 survey of residents’ satisfaction with PCM is being conducted (and fears that the pollster is in cahoots with PCM, which are summarily denied).
Senior abuse! Intimidation! Waste of money! some seniors cry.
Bottom line is, the mini-mutiny in Laguna Woods Village continues to brew.
Some folks want a new management company for their senior paradise - or at least a forensic audit of PCM’s books - after revelations that PCM managers took staffers out for $1,000 meals (paid for by the seniors themselves).
Others say all is well, and a few noisy ne’er-do-wells are causing lots of trouble.
Either way, fuel continues to pour on the fires of outrage. And The Watchdog is a sucker for outrage.
21 Comments
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I don’t know about this problem, however, Professional Community Management seems to be a private company that has on-site managment. They lease an area of the building or all of 1 floor as a business should. They may have made certain agreement that there is no charge for leasing the area they are working in to save the community funds. If there is no lease agreement, then, one should be written for maybe $1 per month. In the lease arrangement certain standard business practice rules would apply. The management company should have a Atty to consult, ect. Senior people, more in there years have more difficulty processing new changes, information and problems of understanding. This takes extra work, time, and patience.
I have stock with Aplle Computer, hence making me an owner. But can I just walk around their buildings and go whereever I want? Of course not!
What about if I owned stock in the Register Communications company? Could I just walk into their offices? NO! Then again I would be pretty stupid to own stock in the Register unless I needed to show a loss as a write off!!!!
Once again this columnist shows her ignorance!
If PCM conducted ONLY the business of managing Leisure World Village on the 2nd floor of our Community Center, there might be some (not much) weight to their arguments for keeping the owners on a tight leash. But, since last December, PCM holds a CA State Contractor’s License and the contact phone number they list for that business is one of their office phones in the Community Center. They are clearly conducting business that has nothing to do with LWV! PCM should move out of our Community Center and work from their Corporate Offices located a short distance away in Lake Forest. Meetings which all residents are invited (and encouraged) to attend, e.g. Finance Committe meetings, are held on the 2nd floor. LWV residents can make good use of the entire Community Center for its own best interests.
This community was built for senior’s to “enjoy and feel safe”. Instead
the management company has turned this into a community of threats and worry’s to the residents with consulants, attorneys and developers licking their chops to try to get our property. Many Seniors are fighting to protect our property from being sold and our amenities being used by outsiders who don’t live here and even are allowed to come in & use our amenities at a lower cost then we pay sometimes. It has be exposed how much money & waste has gone on here in Lunches, parties etc. from credit cards etc. by the management co..and residents are anger and feel betrayed. When many facts came out about the spending abuse the intimidation started, why, because when someone gets cornered they fight there way out by blaming the other people…and making them look like the trouble makers..For 30 some years no has really checked on budgets etc here…all was just “enjoyable & safe”until we opened our eyes. The only threat here is our furture..if you don’t believe it look at the Building San Sebastian that was built off the sale of some of our property! And also our budget is pricing many enjoyable & safe seniors out of our community.
D. Zuzak
Rasmussen was just recently hired full-time as a PR person for PCM - as yet another addition to the General Manager’s fat staff. Who ever heard of a property management company needing a PR person devoted exclusively to one homeowners association? Of course, residents pay the whole bill.
Worse yet, Rasmussen wasn’t witness, nor was anyone else, to residents supposedly wondering around offices “rifling through drawers, looking at confidential information on desks and others have acted in a threatening and harassing manner to both directors and staff.” It never happened. These are stories made up by the General Manager and supported by his tight staff, in order to cut-off an open-door access policy that has existed for over 40 years. Why? Because PCM has other business agendas and they don’t like the tough questions and heat from residents regarding their misspending.
The GOOD NEWS is that the GRF Board decided last week to drop the matter and there will be no changes to the access policy. Thanks for the attention OC Watchdog!
There is a small but powerful group of directors, mostly living in the “110s” and gate 11 (you know, the manors which sell at or above $800k) who are trying to change the community into a high rent, high income country club. The plan is to keep raising the assessments until lower income people are forced to leave or default while they sell off property and use excess income to fund their county club projects which are not necessary to the majority of seniors living here. Rebuilding clubhouse 2 with a guaranteed-to-lose-money restaurant on top is a prime example.
Meanwhile, PCM opens business after business (all for-profit) sellling services and runs them out of the community center. The outrage is not that PCM and their fellow travellers exploit and rip us off, but that those who object are ridiculed and reviled publicly. Oh, and physically threatened by the Hulk who handles security against those fearful seniors at Milt’s direction. One particularly vocal resident cannot even enter the community center without the security director shadowing his every move. PCM tried to destroy this resident professionally and was forced to settle a defamation lawsuit. Now they are building moats and drawbridges to limit their exposure to residents who seek the truth.
Oh, that the IRS would come in and take a good long look into these affairs and unstated profits!
The inference that “Joe Public” is wandering around the PCM office area of Laguna Woods Village is ludicrous. Most of the non-staff people who frequent this area are Directors and Committee Members from the various Mutuals. Of course, there a considerable number of ex-directors who feel that they are entitled to free reign in the office area. The accusation that individuals are freely wandering the area, pilfering through employee desks for confidential information, and threatening employees, is not supported. PCM would like you to believe that this office are is where we they work on secret government contracts requiring the ultimate level of document control. What PCM information is that confidential that the owners could not be aware of it.
Having worked in a business environment where trade secret information was a way of life, several steps were taken to minimize loss of information; employees were responsible to query anyone wandering the halls that they were not familiar with (by asking if they could be of assistance), employees never left confidential material on their desk when away from their office, and employees always locked their desk when away from their office.
As to visitors threatening employees, how does making one get a visitors pass prevent that. If it is one’s intent to antagonize an employee, perhaps having the employees assist the visitor in answering their questions would do more good than initiating a procedure that does nothing but start out on the wrong foot.
It would be in PCM’s best interest to understand why these things might be happening and, as our employee, work toward transparent harmony rather than closed confidential secrecy.
PCM and the Boards seem to have difficulty in defining the basic problems in the community.
The inference that “Joe Public” is wandering around the PCM office area of Laguna Woods Village is ludicrous. Most of the non-staff people who frequent this area are Directors and Committee Members from the various Mutuals. Of course, there are a considerable number of ex-directors who feel that they are entitled to free reign in the office area. The accusation that individuals are freely wandering the area, pilfering through employee desks for confidential information, and threatening employees, is not supported. PCM would like you to believe that this office area is where they work on secret government contracts requiring the ultimate level of document control. What PCM information is that confidential that the owners could not be aware of it.
Having worked in a business environment where trade secret information was a way of life, several steps were taken to minimize loss of information; employees were responsible to query anyone wandering the halls that they were not familiar with (by asking if they could be of assistance), employees never left confidential material on their desk when away from their office, and employees always locked their desk when away from their office.
As to visitors threatening employees, how does making one get a visitors pass prevent that. If it is one’s intent to antagonize an employee, perhaps having the employees assist the visitor in answering their questions would do more good than initiating a procedure that does nothing but start out on the wrong foot.
It would be in PCM’s best interest to understand why these things might be happening and, as our employee, work toward transparent harmony rather than closed confidential secrecy.
PCM and the Boards seem to have difficulty in defining the basic problems in the community.
Milt Johns Fiefdom.
Suck ‘em dry, Milt. It’s good for the company.
[...] It’s your building, but KEEP OUT! [...]
[...] It’s your building, but KEEP OUT! [...]
[...] It’s your building, but KEEP OUT! [...]
[...] It’s your building, but KEEP OUT! [...]
[...] It’s your building, but KEEP OUT! [...]
[...] It’s your building, but KEEP OUT! [...]
Just Sick…
I have considered housing in Laguna Woods and keep running up against the same problem. GRF and PCM don’t really get it about seniors. I am a senior still in the working marketplace and I cannot believe what they get away with. I also have worked with many senior nonprofit organizations and understand the needs of older seniors. I think there must be more compassion for this growing segment of the population and fewer restrictions. PCM really learn about the population you “serve”.
[...] It’s your building, but KEEP OUT! [...]
[...] It’s your building, but KEEP OUT! [...]
[...] proposal to keep all residents from wandering the second floor of their community center was floated, and tabled, last year. Residents had shouted, threatened the [...]
[...] It’s your building, but KEEP OUT! [...]