Oakmont manager Cassie Turner resigns following pickleball vote

The fallout from Oakmont’s great pickleball debate continues to roil the east Santa Rosa retirement community.

Oakmont Village Association manager Cassie Turner resigned Friday, citing difficulty working with a board she says is freezing her out of key decision making.

“I’m being shut out,” Turner said. “They just don’t communicate with me.”

Turner said the “lack of collaboration and the high degree of exclusion” she and some board members have experienced recently left her no choice but to step down from the association, which governs the common buildings and facilities in the community of about ?4,500 residents.

She noted that the homeowner association’s long-time attorney, Malcolm Manwell, and information technology coordinator, Cat Gajarski, have recently resigned as well.

The departures follow the unusually acrimonious April election that swept into power a board majority hostile to a plan Turner and the former board had pursued to build new pickleball courts beside the pool at the Central Activity Center.

The fast-growing sport, a kind of ping-pong/badminton hybrid, is becoming popular in retirement communities across the nation as an alternative to tennis. However, some object to the sharp “plonk” noise the plastic balls make when struck by the wooden paddles.

The four-court complex was viewed by many residents as a recreational and social asset that would strengthen Oakmont’s reputation as an active retirement community and boost homeowners’ property values.

But others viewed the ?$310,000 project as an unnecessary extravagance and argued existing tennis courts could be converted to pickleball at a fraction of that cost.

Board members opposed to the complex won a majority on the seven-member board and, citing an election mandate, immediately voted to halt construction.

The new board has since moved to build a park on the construction site and plan for tennis court conversions. But consensus has to date eluded them.

Recent meetings have been rancorous affairs. The most recent one saw new board President Ellen Leznik fending off a barrage of criticism. Director Frank Batchelor questioned her “unilateral” decision to appoint a sergeant-at-arms. Resident Al Medeiros said Leznik fomented dissent when running for the board and now that she held the gavel was doing all she could to “nip it in the bud.” And she talked over resident John Felton when he tried to bring up what she called “confidential information” about association payments to the contractor on the halted project.

“You’re not a dictator!” Felton vented. “You’re a president!”

Leznik said she would have no comment on what she called a “private personnel issue” other than to say that “the OVA Board will be working to identify a new Association manager and making the transition as smooth as possible.”

Turner came from Calaveras County 3½ years ago to lead the association.

She said she has given the board 30 days’ notice and she and husband plan to leave the area.