Trouble at Leisure World
SEAL BEACH, Calif. — The weather is lovely and the golf above par — but all is not well at Leisure World, one of the nation’s first and largest independent living retirement communities.
For nearly two years now, a handful of self-styled dissidents have hounded the community’s management company for details of how it spends millions in resident fees. And not everyone inside this gated slice of coastal Southern California is happy about it.
Angry oldsters openly refer to the dozen or so activists as “crackpots,” and say their lawsuits and accompanying campaign have tainted a retirement otherwise blissfully free of politics and the hassles of the outside world.
“These dissidents contend that all the people in Leisure World are poor, downtrodden, sheepish people who can’t protect themselves,” said Jim Williams, 69, president of one of Leisure World’s community associations and a six-year resident. “But the truth of the matter is, a lot of people are just that way because they don’t want to get involved. They want to retire in peace.”
That’s why residents, their average age 78, pay up to $425,000 for apartments surrounded by a wall that is breached only by two gates, where security guards in white gloves and brimmed hats stand sentinel. Inside this cocoon are amenities including six private clubhouses with shuffleboard and lawn bowling, woodworking and art studios, weekend dances and shows at a 2,500-seat amphitheater.
A peaceful retirement has been harder to find since February 2004, when the activists first tried to examine the financial records of the Golden Rain Foundation, the company that oversees Leisure World.
Along the way, the dissidents have won small court victories — and plenty of blowback for their pickets, letter-writing and hell-raising at community meetings. The mere sight of one walking across campus recently was enough to compel another resident to stop his car and let loose an expletive-laced tirade.
“They consider us troublemakers,” said Betty Keatley, 67, who’s picketed Golden Rain’s on-campus offices. “When we want to talk (at meetings), they slam down the gavel and say, ‘Shut up and sit down.”’
Dissidents such as Keatley maintain that Golden Rain must comply with a recent state law requiring financial transparency from homeowners associations. Golden Rain maintains the rules don’t apply because it’s a nonprofit management consultant — not a homeowners association — hired by the 16 self-governed resident associations that comprise Leisure World.
Golden Rain representatives didn’t return calls for comment. Presidents of Leisure World’s resident associations insist the money is used appropriately and say members have easy access to an audited annual budget that’s projected at nearly $10 million for 2006.
About 9,000 residents pay Golden Rain a monthly fee of $105 per unit, as well as a one-time, move-in membership fee of up to $1,300. It adds up to millions of dollars each year that, among other things, is used for maintenance and landscaping of the 533-acre property.
On the campus, golf carts zip along narrow streets, past postage-stamp lawns filled with American flags and fanciful garden statues. Rows of single-story, cookie-cutter apartments are surrounded by small patios enclosed with white latticework.
“What you see architecturally is what you get with personalities here. It’s very much a sense of conformity,” said dissident David Lyon, a 60-year-old Vietnam veteran. “I became very unpopular because I dared to ask questions.”
Small claims judges have consistently ruled in the dissidents’ favor, doling out about $3,000 in fines to Golden Rain and forcing it to open many of its records.
The dissidents said that at first, they just wanted to know how their money was being spent. But Golden Rain is fighting back so hard that they have come to suspect that the foundation is trying to hide financial improprieties of some kind.
The case was recently elevated into Orange County Superior Court, where a judge is expected to rule by January.
Williams said most residents feel Lyon and his cohorts act as if they’re “deranged, demented, confused or crazy” — and make Leisure World decidedly unleisurely. He added that the foundation has spent more than $100,000 in legal bills, money residents won’t see in services.