An Interview with Lesley Blackner
June, 10, 2007 
By Carl Wernicke
Pensacola News Journal

News Journal Opinion Editor Carl Wernicke sat down with Lesley Blackner, president of Florida Hometown Democracy, to talk about the group's proposal to let local voters decide changes to local growth management plans.

Q: What is Hometown Democracy?

A: It's a statewide petition drive to amend the Florida Constitution. The amendment itself will allow voters to have the final say over comprehensive plan changes that are approved by a city or county commission.

Q: Most people probably aren't aware their local governments have a comprehensive plan.

A: Well, this will change that. It will be good to have more discussion, more debate about whether a proposed change is good for a community.

Q: What is a comprehensive plan?

A: The Growth Management Act was adopted by the Legislature in the 1980s. It mandated comprehensive planning. Basically a comprehensive plan sets forth the allowable development patterns in a city or county. It is supposed to make sure development occurs in an orderly fashion, that it doesn't swamp infrastructure like sewer, water and schools. And also that we maintain certain amenities that people find valuable in a community, such as open space or agricultural land.

Q: But comp plans can have hundreds of amendments -- won't that make for a cluttered ballot?

A: That wasn't the way it was supposed to be when the Growth Management Act was adopted. The Legislature intended that it was supposed to be hard to amend the plan.

But the bottom line is that comp plan amendments are political decisions. And the politics has trumped everything else. Comp plans don't mean anything if they are constantly subject to willy-nilly changes.

But I think it will mean you will see fewer amendments. And it will make it easier for commissioners to say no to bad amendments.

Q: Are voters qualified to make these kinds of decisions?

A: There's a notion out there nowadays that we're not really citizens, we're just consumers. And that somehow voting is onerous and a burden.

So maybe being a citizen means you have to be alert to what is going on in your community.

Growth doesn't benefit everyone equally. Some people get a lot from it; other people don't really benefit at all.

We haven't really had honest discourse about growth and all its implications, because we haven't had to. Local government has basically been an adjunct of the development industry.

Q: Who are the main proponents of Hometown Democracy -- I assume the environmental community is one?

A: Our Web site (www.floridahometowndemocracy.com) has a list of endorsers. We've had a lot of homeowners' associations back it.

But the more I work on this the more I think it is a good government issue. It's not just about the environment.

Because, for example, we don't advocate for or against any particular plan amendment. We just say that this process needs to be more accountable to the electorate.

Down in Palm Beach County, the head of the County Commission recently pled guilty to accepting $9 million in bribes from various development interests in return for votes on comprehensive plan changes.

The whole system is just too susceptible to corruption. When all you need is three out of five votes, and there's millions of dollars riding on it . ...

Q: Is most of your opposition coming from the development and political sides?

A: For sure. Because they like it the way it is. Right now all they have to do is persuade a simple majority on a city or county commission.

They run their candidates, they are the main contributors to the campaigns, they're the ones who have their staff, their consultants, their engineers, their attorneys, their planners, all parked down at city hall night and day.

They meet and hobnob with these commissioners, and many of these commissioners are in the development community themselves.

Q: Opponents tend to describe Hometown Democracy in apocalyptic terms, don't they?

A: Well, for them the sky is falling -- they have gotten what they want for so long, they can't conceive of it any other way. They just can't believe the party is over.

The idea of making these decisions more accountable to the electorate is really terrifying because they realize many decisions are probably not terribly popular with the electorate.

The county commissioners and city commissioners have represented the developers very well over many years. Have they represented the public as well?

I have been to so many city and county meetings, and watched citizens be given three minutes to plead their case -- they wait five hours, and they get three minutes, at 9 o'clock on a Tuesday night, they're exhausted because they have been at work all day, and meanwhile the developers have been working on (the project) for years, and they have personal relationships with the staff and the commissioners.

Q: How did you get started on this?

A: I went back and started reading the law underlying land-use decision making. The law is very clear and has been for many years -- that these are political decisions.

And these city and county commissioners, when they make these land-use decisions, they are standing in the shoes of the voters. They are not supposed to approve a change unless they make a determination that the community is going to be improved -- or at least not harmed -- by the change.

But unfortunately in Florida, the public interest has been redefined to mean keeping the development machine going.

You go to these commission meetings and you hear the commissioners go, "Well, you know, it will bring this amount of tax money in, and if we don't grant this change we'll be sued."

That is not true. No one is entitled to a comprehensive plan amendment -- it is a political decision.

Why are the developers so afraid of people voting? That's the real question.

Q: Don't voters already have recourse at the ballot box -- vote the commissioners out if they don't like their decisions?

A: You can, but the plan changes have been granted. And you have to live with a change that is going to let another 5,000 homes on land that was maybe designated agricultural before.

Nobody says they want more sprawl anymore. You cannot get elected in America, except for maybe a few places, by saying, "I want 50,000 more homes in your neighborhood."

So they'll promise you anything -- but look who is giving them campaign contributions.

We need to change the politics of growth. How are we going to do that? There's really only one way: change who makes the final decision.

Q: Is there practical experience with this?

A: Yes. In fact there are two U.S. Supreme Court cases on the matter of voters voting on land-use decisions.

The court ruled unanimously that if voters want to manage land use down to the site plan level, that is their prerogative.

We're not talking about that. We're talking about comp plan amendments.

Q: Where are you in the process?

A: We've been approved by the (Florida) Supreme Court (to appear on the ballot). We are trying to make the 2008 ballot. We have until the end of the year to get 611,000 petitions. Right now we have almost 300,000.