(NOTE: This article was actually written in March, 1998, two months before the May 2, 1998 election, and before Lori DeLuca announced her decision to run for mayor. The article was withheld until after the election; although the paper published an article beforehand on her opponent. The Leader's animosity grew against the administration. With increasing complaints against its bias and accusations, The Dallas Morning News eventually closed this subsidiary.)
Lewisville Leader / May 16, 1998 / Tommy J. West
Close-Up: "UNITED FOR A PLAN"
Flower Mound political activist, mayor wants what’s best for town,
commitment to master plan.
It all got started spontaneously, by happenstance – Lori DeLuca was returning from a vacation when she saw two signs on a fence just a short way down the road from her red brick house in west Flower Mound.
One sign said there had been a request for a zoning change for the property; the other said there had been a request for a change to the town’s master plan.
It was August of 1996, about 30 months after Flower Mound had adopted a master plan that reduced the projected "buildout" population of the town from about 115,000 to about 65,000.
DeLuca read the signs and wondered.
"I wanted to find out what was going on," she said.
Enter the world of neighborhood development, the world of high-density vs. low-density, of growth and progress vs. tradition and charm, of taxes and traffic and crime vs. peace and quiet and safety.
It would be such a neat little matter, this issue of zoning and plats and blueprints and specifications. It would be so simple and clear if it were not for a characteristic of the human unit that can sometimes be one of its most potent propellants, yet at other times one of its most bothersome little flaws – the difference of opinion.
And it is not usually that simple when people of different hues and stripes settle down to live side by side.
When DeLuca saw those signs on the fence, she may not have known it then, but she was about to enter the controversy, and enter it big time.
* * *
DeLuca was born in Kansas but moved with her family to Colorado when she was 3. A year later, her parents divorced, leaving her mother to raise DeLuca and three other children.
Her mother had no skills, DeLuca recalls, but she put herself through beauty school and went to work as a hairdresser.
She and four children shared one bathroom in a two-bedroom apartment.
"It was a tough neighborhood," DeLuca said. "Getting in an occasional fistfight was just a way of life".
Her mother kept working, never allowing the family to go on welfare or food stamps, and she passed her determination down to the children.
"She was always pushing us to do things and succeed."
DeLuca took accelerated courses and graduated from Pomona High School in Arvada, Colorado, at the age of 15.
She married young, had a son, and was divorced while she was still a student at a community college in Broomfield, Colorado.
She got a night job in a gift shop to support her son, and then she got sick.
"I had to make a decision", she said. "So I quit school, and I’ve regretted it ever since."
She got another job, booking bands into nightclubs around the country; then she went to work for Beckett Aviation, which provided hangars and service for private aircraft. It was there that she met her future husband, Robert, a corporate pilot who flew Lear jets.
Soon Robert went to work for American Airlines in Dallas and commuted between Colorado and Texas.
Meanwhile, DeLuca took another job, as an accountant with Mannheim Auctions, which deals in new and used cars, jewelry and items seized by the Drug Enforcement Agency all over the world.
In 1988, Manheim bought an auction house in Grand Prairie and offered DeLuca a transfer.
"When the opportunity came for a job in the Dallas area, it just all came together," she said.
The family moved into the red brick house on a rustic, 1-1/2 acre plot off a winding road in west Flower Mound.
* * *
A visitor can drive down the winding road, enter the red brick house and talk with DeLuca, but not for long without getting a briefing on her children.
There are three now.
Chris, the Colorado baby, is 22. He’s a senior at the University of North Texas, majoring in computer science with a double minor in math and technical writing. With a 4.0 grade average, he’s on the president’s list.
Brandon, 9, is a third grader at Old Settlers Elementary School in the Lewisville Independent School District, and he’s heavy into Kung Fu. His mother thinks he may be the youngest person ever to earn a Kung Fu Black Belt – he was 9 years, 2 weeks old.
When Brandon returned from the Junior Olympics in Charlotte, N.C., last year, he brought back 12 medals – six gold, three silver and three bronze.
"No one," his mother says with a sense of pride, "competes in 12 events."
So far Brandon has won about 70 trophies (two are 6 feet in height), about 25 medals and a small wall full of plaques.
"He wants to be another Bruce Lee and make movies," DeLuca said. "Of course, it depends on which day you talk to him. He wanted to be an inventor the other day. He’s just a little boy. It wasn’t too long ago that he wanted to be Superman."
And then there’s Lisa, 5, a kindergartner at Old Settlers. She spent a lot of time in front of the television during the Winter Olympics.
"She wants to ice skate, and she has for a long time. We want to start roller-skating lessons as an introduction to ice skating."
In January of 1994, DeLuca faced another decision. She had been working from her home for about 18 months, but then the company wanted her back in the office. Lisa was still a baby.
"I wasn’t willing to leave her," she said. "I decided to quit and be a full-time mom."
This time there was no regret.
"I’ve never looked back," she said. "I just wanted to raise my kids myself."
With more free time, DeLuca began to volunteer at Old Settlers.
"I absolutely love the work at school – I get so much enjoyment out of it, and the teachers are so appreciative. My kids are still at the age where they’re so excited to see me coming to work with them and have lunch with them. I’m sure in a few years, they’ll probably be horrified to see me coming."
The difference in her children’s ages – 16-/12 years – has given her a special insight, she said.
"Now that I’m older, I have some appreciation for how important it is."
Her volunteer work would not be limited to the school for long.
"I’m really interested in the community," she said. "I believe in pitching in and helping out. You see people complaining about trash around the neighborhood, and they won’t get a bag and pick it up. You see people complaining about the government, and yet they won’t take 10 minutes to go down and vote. I believe that instead of complaining you should do something about it."
And then she saw those signs.
* * *
DeLuca set out to learn more about the requests for zoning changes.
She said she called and learned that the developer of that piece of property wanted to reduce the size of the lots.
DeLuca didn’t agree with the requests – after all, she said, the town had a master plan.
"There is something for everybody in the plan, everything from apartments to large ranches," she said.
"I thought we needed to stick to that."
She talked to some neighbors and they hastily threw together some fliers. When the planning and zoning panel held a hearing, 150 people showed up to protest the changes.
"It was the biggest turnout they’d ever had," she said.
The DeLuca forces formed an organization, but they didn’t have a name. Suggestions came in.
"Protect Flower Mound." "Coalition to Maintain the Master Plan." "City for Sane Development."
Eventually the group chose a name – "Voters United to Preserve Flower Mound."
The debate over the zoning change requests stretched out over six months, but eventually the protesters prevailed.
"I thought, ‘Wow! We won. We’re done. I’ll go back to my life,’" DeLuca said.
But then some more signs went up on some more fences – a developer wanted to build more houses on a site than the master plan specified, and another sought a similar exemption from the master plan.
By this time, DeLuca said she and the group had gotten a reputation for their activist response – a reputation that she said was not entirely deserved.
"A lot of people think that we’re anti-developer, and we’re not," she said. "We just want residential developers to come in and follow the master plan with regard to housing density. We’ve never opposed any development that complied with the rules of the master plan. We’ve never opposed any commercial development."
"A lot of people say we’re anti-growth, and that’s not true. The town is going to grow, and it should. However, it doesn’t have to turn into something that we don’t want."
Faced with the recurring change requests, she said, she sought a new strategy.
"I’m thinking, ‘We can’t spend our time running around town putting out all these little fires.’ We needed to find some permanent solution, and the permanent solution was to elect a Town Council that would follow the wishes of the citizens. And the wishes of the citizens were to support the master plan."
In May of 1997, three seats on the council were up for election. Dissatisfied with the results of a candidate survey on the development issue, Voters United backed a slate of three newcomers and published its own voters’ guide.
All three of the newcomers won by comfortable margins.
* * *
If DeLuca and Voters United experienced that old "Wow – we won" feeling once again, it didn’t last long. She said the group was satisfied with the performance of only one of the three new council members.
This year, though, Voters United decided to get involved earlier in the process to select their candidates.
And it wasn’t long before she proclaimed: "We have three perfect candidates."
* * *
The drive down the winding road to the red brick house, and the visit with DeLuca for this story, took place back in February.
The sun was the sole occupant of a faded blue sky, but it produced only a pale warmth, seeming to have lost some of its vigor during the winter holiday.
Spring was approaching, but it was not yet in sight. And while the political cauldrons were not boiling, occasional stray bubbles were already finding their way to the surface.
The May 2 elections were still 2 months away, but too close, the editors deemed, for comfortable journalistic objectivity. So the story was placed temporarily on the shelf.
And the signs sprang up again – red ones, green ones, blue ones – on the fences, to be sure, but more often beside the roadways. But these signs were not about property. They were about people – candidates asking for the people’s vote.
And one day – lo and behold – a yellow sign sprouted up proclaiming "Lori DeLuca for Mayor".
This business of politics, this democratic process, is a game of issues and ideas and philosophical differences. But ultimately, it is a game of numbers.
As the signs spread, and the sun grew in color and warmth, the people came out May 2.
They came from the one-bedroom apartments and the four-bedroom homes, and they came up the winding roads from the ranches and the sprawling lawns and the edges of the lake and out of the woods. And they registered their opinions.
When it was over, it was as if it had been the year before. The candidates of DeLuca’s organization won. And so did she.
The woman who would fight City Hall now is City Hall.
Will the slings and arrows diminish? Will they fall harmlessly from the air? Or will they boomerang? Whatever they do, to what consequence will it be?
Time will move along, and the sun will grow cool and then warm again, and the signs will return. Once again it will be time for the people to come out.
And as always they will have the answer.
Contact staff writer Tommy J. West at (972) 436-8014, Ext. 103 or by e-mail at Newslead@aol.com.
(Note: the other candidates who ran with Ms.DeLuca and also won were Tom Cawthon, Ted Baze, and Cindy Travis.)