They’ve Got Books That Can’t Be Read
The Leisure World Seal Beach resident was bugged. “Too many of the people who are living in here really don’t know a hell of a lot about what’s going on,” 76-year-old Dick Kissam grumbled.
Moved to action, he was organizing a picket line to protest what he said was the “secret society” mentality of the Golden Rain Foundation that ran the place.
I dusted off Kissam’s comment from our archives. He said it in 1994.
To coin a phrase, the more things change at Leisure World, the more they stay the same.
Last week, a new crop of Leisure World residents learned they’ll have to go to Orange County Superior Court if they want to pry the information loose. They had hoped to do so in small claims court, but a judge said the question of whether the foundation needed to open its books to inquiring Leisure World residents was a matter for a higher court. And foundation lawyers said they’ll file the papers to take the matter up the ladder.
That ended the proceedings for the day and sent Carol Franz, one of the current insurgents, home in a funk. She was set to argue the group’s case and thought she had enough law on her side to persuade the judge that the foundation should, indeed, open its books to residents.
She never got the chance.
I have no vested interest in how Leisure World runs its business, but I sure wonder what the big secret is in its books. I understand why they wouldn’t show them to me, but I don’t understand why the 9,000 Leisure World residents, who pay monthly fees to help finance the community, can’t get an accounting of where their money goes.
Most of them probably couldn’t care less. But why the Kremlin-like kiss-off for residents who do want to know? By what logical or legitimate line of reasoning should the books for a community be off-limits to its residents?
Officials at the Seal Beach Leisure World are notoriously silent when it comes to talking to the media, not to mention their own residents. Maybe they’re just shy, but try to imagine any other pseudo-City Hall that didn’t feel the need to tell residents how it was spending their money.
There’d be a march. Or a recall. But because the average age in Leisure World is 77 and many are dependent on management to keep them comfortable, officials know they hold the cards. They don’t open the books because, they’ve argued, they aren’t legally required to, unlike California homeowner associations.
A few hours after learning that a resolution of their case would be delayed, Franz couldn’t say for sure if the group could afford to prolong the fight. They went to small claims court, because it wouldn’t cost them a fortune. A date in Superior Court probably means at least $10,000 in legal expenses, she says, and while she isn’t ruling out a continuing fight, she adds, “We don’t have the money, and the corporation does.”
A deep-pockets strategy isn’t new, but there’s another twist. Franz told a Times reporter that the foundation probably figures it can buy time, especially when its opponents are getting up there in age.
For now, though, the rebels must regroup. Past the point of wondering what could possibly be in those Golden Rain books, they just want their hands on them.
In the early hours of the forced hiatus, I ask Franz if she by any chance knew Kissam, the rebel of 10 years ago.
She says she does and that he was one of five men who picked up the cudgel back then. I ask her if Kissam is still among those fighting the foundation.
No, she says. At 86, his health is too fragile.
By the way, she tells me, “Three of the other five are dead.”
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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana. parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.
