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In my past judgment over the actions of those who had negotiated changes to our master plan in the spring of 2002, I made certain conclusions regarding information that we as residents were not made privy to at that time. That matter pertains to the community’s then lack of any knowledge that a contingency existed with respect to oral and written commitments presented to the residents to mitigate our Anthem Highlands traffic concerns.
The other day, I had an opportunity to visit with Dick Sovde on this and other matters related to the community. While I continue to have profound differences of opinion on what had taken place at that time, I regret having drawn what I now believe to have been erroneous conclusions that attributed our lack of knowledge about that contingency understanding to actions by our community’s negotiators. In the absence of credible information, I was wrong to have done so and I apologize to those who were involved as well as to our fellow residents for having shared those conclusions and for having created any undue or unwarranted concerns.
While I now believe that our negotiators acted in good faith with the information that was available to them with respect to their communications with us, there continues to be an unexplained mystery over the disparity between their absolute certainty concerning the existence of that contingency and our lack of any such understanding at that time. Mr. Sovde believes that their contingency understanding was reasonable based on then available information. Del Webb clearly exacerbated that disparity when after the fact on 1 May 2002 they wrote to the residents making what we understood were bona fide commitments when, in fact, one of those commitments, on Anthem Highlands traffic concerns, was only a contingent offering and meant absolutely nothing in the absence of their acquisition of that 1,940 acre parcel to our west.
While Dick and I continue to look at what had taken place somewhat differently, I believe we share a common interest in the need for achieving a better community.
Ron Johnson
March 11, 2005
Mr. Sovde was offered the opportunity of a response. He wrote that he would add only a couple of comments that would offer the reader some additional perspective. Those comments follow:
I would like to thank Mr. Sovde for his clarifying and informative comments. Mr. Sovde has placed some if not considerable weight on Del Webb's original intentions to mitigate our traffic concerns based on what he sees as evidence from their subsequent construction decisions on Bicentennial. While we have no quarrel with Dick's reliance, our readers should be aware that those subsequent construction decisions do not go to the issue of their 2002 failure to communicate that one of their primary commitments to the community was based on a contingency. What Del Webb (and the our negotiators) had assumed is one thing and what Del Webb was then willing to commit to the residents are two very different things, as we subsequently learned. While Dick makes the point that none of the negotiators had any reason to believe that DW would not purchase that BLM property, which I am now prepared to accept at face value, I contend that DW had every reason to believe that an opposite outcome was just as possible--otherwise there was no reason for DW to invoke an escape clause by making their commitment to mitigate our traffic concerns contingent on their purchase of that property. Believing in or living under the [false] assumption that DW had offered up a full cup of good intentions to mitigate our traffic concerns does little to address their demonstrated failure to communicate that their intentions cup, based on a contingency, was never more than half full. Dick and I view this matter differently. .
In bringing the Focus Group's attentiveness to our traffic concerns into the picture, Mr. Sovde is optimistic is attempting to convey the message that we are going to be the beneficiaries of their street design plans. While that may be true, I do not share Mr. Sovde's optimism that our efforts will have achieved a positive result for Sun City. All we seem to know at present is that we will have access to their town center from Bicentennial and from there to St. Rose via a re-routed Maryland Parkway, that will extend from Executive Airport Dr. to and through Focus' town center.
Ron Johnson