By Sam Richards

Staff writer

 

Thursday, September 5 (10:00 a.m.): The GRF Board on Thursday approved raising fees of some “individual benefit” services, but also went along with recommendations to leave others unchanged for 2025.

Among the fees that will go up beginning on Jan. 1, 2025 include:

• Guest fees for golfing nine or 18 holes, and cart rental, going up anywhere from $1 to $4. An example: To play 18 holes on a weekday day, the fee for a guest will go from $46 to $48.
• The cost of a new Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag, which prompt the security gates to open and allow vehicles into Rossmoor, will jump from $24 to $25; RFID annual renewals will jump from $12 to $15, and golf cart permits, required for any golf cart operating within Rossmoor, will go up from $10 to $15.
• Various Mutual Operations Division (MOD) processing fees will go up 10%, as will Alterations and Resales fees; and rental fees for storage spaced in the Contractor Yard – where contractors working on Rossmoor projects store equipment and materials – will go up 25%.
• The Excursion Handling Fee, paid by people who go on trips organized by the GRF Excursions desk, will go up from $7 to $8 per trip.

Some other fees, including room reservation fees, Handyman services and Rossmoor News advertising rates and subscription prices for non-residents, will stay the same for 2025.

Board member Dwight Walker questioned the lack of fee increases, particularly for room reservations, noting that employee wages and other major expenses are rising, at cost-of-living rates or higher. He suggested money not raised through fee increases might have to come instead through an increase in the coupon.

Rossmoor General Manager Jeff Matheson said many options will be explored. “There are a lot of different factors we want to look at, and we want to take it incrementally.”

One change that will happen with room reservations, though, is elimination of the optional coffee service. GRF Director of Community Services Ann Mottola said getting the coffee made takes away from other custodial jobs involved with setting up a room, and that, typically, more than half of the coffee brewer is usually not consumed and therefore wasted.

A home sales trend?

Rossmoor CFO Todd Arterburn told the Board Thursday that the Mutual Operations Division (MOD) budget is still running at a deficit for 2024, but that deficit is shrinking, thanks in part to an uptick of home sales in Rossmoor in July.

The membership transfer fee, currently $13,000, is charged when a Rossmoor manor is sold to someone new to Rossmoor. There were 55 Rossmoor manors listed this July, the most of any month so far in 2024. Sales have been down in 2024 from the past few years, due in large part to Rossmoor’s insurance situation; Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have said that because Rossmoor does not have full replacement value property insurance coverage, Rossmoor and other not-fully- insured accounts are “unwarrantable,” and mortgage loans are thus too risky to guarantee.

But all-cash sales seem to be picking up a bit. “We don’t know if this is a blip or a trend,” said Finance Committee Chairman Dan Ring. “Hopefully it’s a trend.”

This situation indirectly benefits MOD, Arterburn said, because MOD charges the Mutuals for processing work the Member Records office – which is under MOD – does in connection with manor sales. MOD does not benefit from the membership transfer fee itself, he stressed.

Golf course bridges

The Board on Thursday approved entering into a contract with BKF Civil Engineers to start a study of replacing two pedestrian bridges over Tice Creek on the Creekside golf course. The cost for this first phase of a “scoping study” is $124,540.

This amount should cover a full topographical survey to map the project areas near Creekside’s Hole 6 and 7 tee box, a geotechnical soils analysis of the creek bank areas and preliminary bridge designs from a consulting structural engineer.

These bridge replacements would be the first of several on Rossmoor’s two golf courses over the next few years.

Board member Ted Bentley asked whether the work this contract includes could also be used during future bridge rebuilds. Mottola said … not really, because each area of the creek bank has different characteristics, studying one isn’t studying all, she said.

GRF Board goals for 2025

Finalizing some basic decisions made in July, the Broad on Thursday approved their formal goals for 2024-2025. They are:

* To investigate additional ways of demonstrating and communicating the value of Rossmoor’s programs

* Investigating and implementing water conservation measures where possible and practical

* Maintaining political activism, with regional and state officials and agencies, on issues of importance to Rossmoor

The water conservation piece is a continuation from this past year, and Rossmoor has already joined the City of Walnut Creek in lobbying for certain legislative actions, Board President Leanne Hamaji said.

“We’re working on these goals right now,” Hamaji said. “We’ve been very active on all these things.”