Last night almost 100 people showed up for the debate on Amendment 4. Florida Hometown Democracy President, Lesley Blackner, faced off against Clifford Schulman, an attorney who belongs to Floridians for Smarter Growth. Helen Ferre moderated.
Blackner believes giving people a say in Comprehensive Land changes --by giving them what amounts to a veto-- will lead to smarter growth. Schulman opposed her, saying the public couldn't be trusted with such decisions, He pulled out volumes and said, how can the public learn this. I was thinking, how can my commissioner either? He said there would be no growth or an economic recovery. Blackner believes the people will do the right thing and blamed the sluggish economy on the outfall from over development.
Senatorial Candidate Maurice Ferre was in the audience at the Rusty Pelican, getting educated for his Sentatorial campaign.
There was a section on St. Pete Beach that Schulman described as having a law similar to FHTD's Amendment 4 and he states everything has gone wrong. He said FHTD funded St. Pete's law. But Leslie countered that she didn't know anything about it until recently. She gave a pictorial presentation about St. Pete's Policies and where they went wrong. This seemed to stop the attack by Schulman.
The Amendment is expected to be on the November 2010 ballot. We are interested to hear your opinions, especially if you were there last night.
Testing the Thin Blue Line
4 years ago
Lesley won hands down, no one cared about the points Schulman was making as it was so obvious that he was a shill for developers, he is a $700/hour lawyer doing this for free, guess why. No one cared if they would have to vote for 3,456,987 different amendments (they won't), or that St. Pete Beach was being sued,(all the referenda St. Pete Beach had that followed State law, as does A4 passed with no controversy) they were in agreement with Lesley's position, furious at the mess the over-development has made in Florida, and not trusting any elected official to get them out. Lesley was passionate and caring, he came over as money grubbing. The only people in Florida who will vote no on this have ties to developers. I and the other residents are crying "Enough" and will vote YES for Amendment 4 gladly.
ReplyDeletei WAS PRESENT AT THE DEBATE.YOUR SUMMARY IS CLEARLY A BIASED ESPECIALLY ON YOUR ANALYSIS OF THE ST.PETE BEACH EXPERIMENT.MS. BLACKNER DID NOT REFUTE ANY OF THE NEGATIVE IMPACTS CAUSED BY THIS ILL CONCEIVED PROPOSAL.HER EXHIBITS WERE NOT RELEVANT TO THE ISSUES RAISED AND THE DETRIMENTAL IMPACTS CAUSED TO THE ECONOMY OF THE CITY. REFORM IS CLEARLY NEEDED BUT THE LESSION LEARNED FROM LAST NIGHT IS THAT THE ELECTORATE MUST BE MORE SELECTIVE IN THE INDIVIDUAL WHO SEEK OUR VOTE.
ReplyDeleteThanks for putting on the debate! It was an education to see the enmity with which each side viewed the other, though the two debaters lost credibility, one for her attitude and the other for his preference for the rhetorical device over facts.
ReplyDeleteI got to speak with both debaters afterward. Cliff Schulman allowed that the state's comp plans would likely be simplified in response to the passage of Amendment 4, which undercut his use of thick books of plans and amendments as props. Cliff repeatedly dropped them on the table for effect, saying development in Florida would grind to a halt under the weight of the plan change process. If the amendment passes, the powerful development lobby will make sure that the next comp plan amendments before the voters would simplify and streamline these plans so that they wouldn't need to be changed so often.
I asked Lesley Blackner if she had a successful example of the Hometown Democracy process, with which she could counter her opponent's example of St. Pete Beach. She said that she had, in California, but that she didn't want to use them because of people's possible negative reaction to California. I really didn't understand this reasoning, but it did sound like Lesley was more interested in slamming the St. Pete Beach story than she was in sharing valid comparisons.
There is indeed a deep distrust in developers, and Lesley's appeal to cynicism may work. But the deeper question to me seems to be this: Florida has a long history of adding steps to the land development process. Has this led to better development? I think the sheer complexity of the process [and Amendment 4 would add another stage to the process] has only encouraged developers to make BIGGER projects, not BETTER ones.
A developer who has to jump through so many hurdles, hire so many professionals and pay the hourly rates of expensive attorneys will want to justify that expense by building as big a project as possible. On the other hand, the sheer scale of the process is beyond the capabilities of most citizens to comprehend--except that they KNOW they don't like these big developments.
Another question: how is it that good projects still occasionally get built? I'm thinking of Abacoa, Celebration, and the other large TND communities. I'm sure there are other examples.
Issues like this were excluded from last night's debate, partly due the mutual demonizing of the debaters and also due to the relatively limited chance for dialog with the audience. Perhaps if we have a second go at this issue, we can choose a different format, focusing on intelligent questions from the undecided voters in the audience and factual explanations from less biased presenters.
Thanks again to all involved!
What I gathered from the debate is that she is dedicated to this cause, however does not realize this amendment as written will not accomplish what she wants and that she is a Disney fan. She is on a magic carpet ride (Aladdin) if she thinks that this amendment is not going to stop ALL development, which includes not only requests by the evil Captain Hook developers (Peter Pan) but also public projects such as schools, hospitals and transportation improvements which are our Bare Necessities (Jungle Book).
ReplyDeleteSecondly, the single item on the ballet to approve 600 modifications to a comprehensive plan is a NIGHTMARE which would make any adult scream like a child (Monster's Inc.). While there are some people that would take the time to look at the changes MOST would not even. What does this accomplish? An Alice in Wonderland whirlwind after drinking the Kool-Aid as Ms. Blackner stated, I agree.
While it is admirable to see the people unite and come together for a cause, Amendment 4 is not going to accomplish anything but stop an already difficult and extensive PUBLIC HEARING process, which gives the people an opportunity to speak and voice their concerns and really make an impact to a modification, as opposed to a Yes or No which accomplishes nothing, but loss of time and expense of the people's money.
I am appreciative to the sponsors of the event, the speakers and moderator for having this event. While Ms. Blackner is obviously a Disney fan, as I, Walt Disney World one of our states largest attractions and money makers would not have been built with an Amendment 4 in place.
This is not a HAKUNA MATATA amendment (Lion King)…..
I was present at the debate. It is a shame that Ms. Blackner had to resort to name calling and hyperbole rather than sticking to well known facts. Her personal crusade - funded by more of her personal fortune than most will make in a lifetime - will cost Florida jobs and our quality of life.
ReplyDeleteMr. Schulman was well informed and stuck to FACTS. His points were well made and always were refuted with emotion rather than facts.
Jim Fried--realtor. Not biased? I think not. Too many condos, too many realtors.
ReplyDelete(1) Amendment 4 is going to act as a veto on the Commissioner's approvals, assuming the general public wants to veto the change-it just becomes the final step in the process;
ReplyDelete(2) bigger projects in all likelihood will be more likely to draw the public's veto (3) I don't necessary think certain developments are automatically better than others because that ignores the carrying capacity argument.
Schulman gets about $500 an hour lobbying for developers. Why is he so afraid of the public getting to vote? Why are they all so afraid of the public. I want my vote on my community. I don't trust the politicians anymore as they are bought off by lobbyists and developers. I also was there and I found Schulman not to be informative, in fact I found him to be misleading. I thought Blackner seemed tired of doing the whole debate thing. She should have sent someone else and stayed home.
ReplyDeleteThis thread could be re-named "An Illustrated Lesson in Ad Hominem Attacks." Her personal fortune and his hourly rate don't keep you from making substantive points, do they?
ReplyDelete