Originally Published: 24 September 2007
The Orlando Sentinel
The caller seemed intent on provoking Lesley Blackner into revealing a darker motive for wanting to give voters a direct say about how their cities and counties grow.
"Who are you mad at?" he demanded, during a talk-radio show earlier this year in Ormond Beach.
"I've lived in Florida my whole life," Blackner answered. "I think the state looks like hell, and it's getting worse."
"So who are you mad at?" the caller persisted.
"I'm mad at a power structure that's under the complete control of the development community," Blackner fired back.
Blackner is the public face of Florida Hometown Democracy, a statewide petition drive whose goal is to rein in Florida's rampant development. If it makes the November 2008 ballot and gains approval, local governments would be required to hold referendums on proposed changes to their growth plans.
Over the years, Blackner, a battle-hardened lawyer from Palm Beach who has volunteered much of her time, has tried to save sea turtles, stop expressways from slicing up wildlife habitat, halt cities from expanding and protect wetlands from bulldozers.
Yet in person she's about as abrasive as a park biologist leading a nature tour.
"I'm a middle-age mom with two kids who lives a sedate lifestyle," said Blackner, 47, adding that early in her career she had a "cute blond" liability of not being taken seriously. "When people meet me, they're shocked that I'm the one who's doing this."
In the increasingly intense campaign against Florida Hometown Democracy, Blackner has been criticized for taking donations from environmental extremists and for being driven by ego more than concern for Florida's well-being.
Michael Caputo, executive director of an anti-Hometown Democracy group Floridians For Smarter Growth in Orlando, said Blackner is not a grass-roots leader.
"If we are special interest, then they are special interest as well," Caputo said.
Blackner said opponents are desperate to smear backers of Hometown Democracy because its goal -- to empower citizens -- is more difficult to attack.
"I think the fact that they have become so hysterical shows the virtue and worthwhile of Florida Hometown Democracy," Blackner said.
For all her legal skirmishes since the early 1990s, Blackner came away with a troubling thought: She wasn't making nearly enough of a difference.
Specifically, cities and counties in Florida are supposed to follow state-sanctioned blueprints for road networks, zoning, utilities, emergency services and other local government operations. But local governments change those blueprints -- called comprehensive plans -- all too often to accommodate developer proposals for the next big subdivision, she said.
"It's government of the developers, by the developers and for the developers," she said.
It was Blackner who came up with the initial idea of the petition drive. But turning it into a viable concept required help. For that, she called a lawyer she initially barely knew, Ross Burnaman of Tallahassee.
In fact, while Burnaman has a low-key personality, it's hard to find a bureaucrat or politician involved in environmental matters in the capital city who doesn't know him.
Since the late 1990s, the two have toiled in parallel but separate paths.
Blackner, a former clerk for a federal judge, has butted heads with the likes of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Army Corps of Engineers.
Meanwhile, Burnaman's resume of jobs reads like an adventure through state agencies, environmental groups and private practice. Through it all, he gathered expertise in the tedious and obscure legal culture that deals with comprehensive plan -- the focus of Florida Hometown Democracy.
"He will absolutely stand up for the little guy and not be intimated," said Don Ashley, a Panhandle resident who hired Burnaman to challenge comprehensive-plan changes by Franklin County and a mega-developer.
Burnaman describes Blackner as the bigger-picture thinker who enjoys public debate. Blackner, in turn, said Burnaman is "a lawyer's lawyer," and should be a judge.
His strength is to lock himself into his home office for 16-hour days to craft an airtight legal brief. His lifestyle includes escaping in a 40-year-old fishing boat, writing a book about the historic evolution of fishing laws and being a stay-at-home dad two weeks each month.
To get on the November ballot, Hometown Democracy needs 611,000 valid voter signatures within the next four months. The state Division of Elections so far has verified 331,000 signatures.
Meanwhile, the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Save Our Constitution and Floridians For Smarter Growth are revving up strategies to stop the proposal.
In many respects, the careers of Blackner and Burnaman have been steps in preparation for Florida Hometown Democracy. But they readily acknowledge that their initiative has grown into something far more bruising than they expected.
"Trust me," Burnaman said. "This is really stressful."
Kevin Spear can be reached at kspear@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5062.
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