Leisure World Administrator Dan Schaeffer is back on the job. Schaeffer confirmed that fact in a brief telephone interview on Monday, Oct. 17.
Schaeffer would not comment on how long he had been back on the job after being placed on indefinite administrative leave on Sept. 26.
During Schaeffer’s suspension, department heads ran the retirement community, according to Golden Rain Foundation President Addison Arnold.
The retirement community is home to roughly one third the population of Seal Beach. Schaeffer’s apparent reinstatement has displeased a group of Leisure World residents who planned and carried out demonstrations outside of Leisure World last week.
The group is called the Ad-hoc Committee to Demand Dan Schaeffer’s Termination.
The demonstrations began Tuesday, Oct. 11.
The demonstrations did not attract the attention of the press because of the Salon Meritage shootings in another part of Seal Beach on Wednesday, Oct. 12. The demonstrations, however, continued.
Leisure World activist David Lyon speculated that Schaeffer had been reinstated by the Golden Rain Foundation board of directors in an Oct. 7 e-mail to the Sun.
The Foundation runs Leisure World.
Lyon is a long-time critic of the Foundation.
He is also a long-time critic of Schaeffer and openly advocates Schaeffer’s dismissal. Lyon is a member of the anti-Schaeffer committee. According to Lyon, the board met in closed session on Tuesday, Oct. 4, to address a personnel matter.
Lyon wrote that he believed that the board voted on Schaeffer’s position and apparently voted against his termination.
However, Lyon acknowledged this was speculation based on gossip. The board did not report on what happened during the closed session.
“Proper procedure does not allow for motions and votes to take place in ‘executive session,’ and therefore should not be withheld from the shareholders as ‘confidential’ information,” Lyon wrote.
“The purpose of holding a “personnel matter” in executive session is simply to protect the privacy of an employee’s personal information,” Lyon wrote. As previously reported, Schaeffer had been criticized by some Leisure World residents since late May, when the Sun Newspapers broke the news that the Golden Rain Foundation had been late paying the property taxes of 13 of Leisure World’s 16 “mutuals.”
The result was a tax penalty of $272,948.32.
