Amendment 4 is Overkill, Not Democracy

I know I will piss off many of my progressive friends with this one, but the Hometown Democracy is not a good idea, and I am voting against it.

I know as well as anyone the problems urban sprawl can create. I grew up in Central Florida, and have covered county and municipal governments across the state. I recognize the unholy alliance which can exist between big developers and donation-hungry officials fighting to keep their small time jobs in big media markets. But this amendment would stop good growth along with bad, and it would probably stick us with bad decisions of the past which still have the potential to be reversed.

For the uninitiated, the Hometown Democracy referendum would require that all comprehensive plan changes approved by local officials also go out to a vote from the people. The vote could happen during a regularly scheduled election, or it could be put on a special election ballot, likely funded by the developer.

Activist Lesley Blackner has been working for years to get this on the ballot. Her story is classic NIMBY but her goals were always noble. She wanted to stop those big, bad developers from paving over Florida's paradise to make a quick buck, and she worried intervening in hundreds of municipal elections was an insurmountable task.

But this proposal is straight-up overkill. And I am afraid its desired effects would not be the end result. Consider, should a special election on a sprawling subdivision be held, who will fund the better campaign? The rich developer with millions already invested in a project? Or the local chapter of the Sierra Club?

To use an example dear to my heart, developer Gary Morse has done tremendous damage to Central Florida with creation of The Villages, an enormous mess that now spans three counties. I don't like what it has done to the area I consider home. He got way too much approved by buying the souls of County Commissioners. And when the officials in one county got fed up, he went to another and started buying officials there. Sometimes, officials would get fed up, and Morse would just fund an opponent to take them out next election. He also owns state leaders in both parties, so no resistance was provided in Tallahassee either.

But what would have happened if the needed comp plan amendments had gone to ballot? He would have launched a massive media, promoted his own point of view in the newspaper his own company publishes, convinced people living in the area that growing the community was best, send out his own employees to vote for the change, and he would win, the same way he wins county elections when he wants. None of this is illegal, even if it all seems unsavory. The Villages would be built anyway.

Now think of a smaller development, perhaps a redevelopment effort which looks to take a blighted area which wasn't planned to last. Changes may need to be made to allow commercial development in areas designated today for sprawling residential growth. Would it pass? Probably, but there would be no glossy campaigns to ensure it. And if even a small part of the plan was controversial, it may not. Because of the uncertainty, most developers wouldn't even try. Instead, slumlords would sell to other slumlords, who would build with existing conditions, and the cycle would go on and on.

We don't need a disincentive to job creation right now. We don't need a hindrance to positive development ever. The system will never be completely free of corruption. Amendment 4 sure wouldn't eliminate it. But it could eliminate a ton of economic prosperity for a lot of hard-working people.