Current print subscribers can create a free account by clicking here
Otherwise, follow the link below to join.
To Our Valued Readers –
Visitors to our website will be limited to five stories per month unless they opt to subscribe. The five stories do not include our exclusive content written by our journalists.
For $6.99, less than 20 cents a day, digital subscribers will receive unlimited access to YourValley.net, including exclusive content from our newsroom and access to our Daily Independent e-edition.
Our commitment to balanced, fair reporting and local coverage provides insight and perspective not found anywhere else.
Your financial commitment will help to preserve the kind of honest journalism produced by our reporters and editors. We trust you agree that independent journalism is an essential component of our democracy. Please click here to subscribe.
Some Sun City residents want the Recreation Centers of Sun City Board of Directors to alter their meeting format again.
Last year the RCSC board approved a new meeting policy that eliminated the early month member/director exchange meeting and its closed door workshop meetings. The board adopted a two-meeting month schedule with both gatherings open to cardholders. That left no closed door meetings except for executive sessions.
But two people made a request to get the exchange meetings back.
“I was one of the ones last year who supported more open meetings,” said resident Karen Schuermann. “But now I don’t think the first meeting of the month is functional.”
RCSC officials believed by changing the format cardholders who start attending meetings in greater numbers. While there was an attendance increase following the April 2019 change, it tapered off toward the end of last year and early this year. In addition, the meeting agendas were sparse in the past two months. The Feb. 10 meeting had no action on the agenda.
“For the last meeting (Jan. 30) it took me longer to drive down here than the meeting lasted,” Ms. Schuermann said.
Gene Westemeier, a former RCSC board member and president, agreed the board’s first meeting of the month should be less formal.
“You’re up there on the stage and I’m down here in the pit,” Mr. Westemeier said.
Ms. Schuermann believes a less formal first meeting would help people feel better about speaking up.
“This setting is kind of intimidating for some people,” she said.
Rusty Bradshaw News Editor | Sun City &
Sun City West @SunCitiesEditor
Rusty Bradshaw is a 40-year veteran of community journalism, having worked at newspapers in Wyoming, Oregon and Arizona. He has been with Independent Newsmedia 15 years.
Rusty earned a junior college certificate from Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming and a bachelor of science degree from Eastern Oregon University in LaGrande Oregon.
An avid football fan, Rusty also enjoys photography, reading, spending time outdoors and enjoying life with his wife. He also authored three books of fiction, “The Rehabilitation of Miss Little,” “Moist on the Mountain” and "Gorge Justice." Visit www.rustythewriter.org.
By 
