New activist stirs up town and politics

Author: Dave Lieber Star-Telegram Writer   

Date: October 5, 1997 

Section: METRO

 

The Player of the Year in greater Northeast Tarrant County is Lori DeLuca.

 

She's a homemaker with three children who lives in Flower Mound.

 

With E-mail, a fax machine, a bulk mail permit and steely determination, she has changed the course of development in her town.

 

Her group is called Voters United to Preserve Flower Mound.

 

In only one year of civic activism, she and her followers have knocked out three residential developers for the count. Their original project plans were scuttled after DeLuca and her supporters protested the developers' failure to follow the town's master plan for growth.

 

Before the May election, her group supported three newcomers for Town Council. The rookies promptly knocked out the three incumbents.

 

Within weeks, the town manager resigned.

 

She's an unlikely political boss. She bristles at the term. But DeLuca is a trial-by-fire political player, already rumored to harbor interests in running for mayor. It's a rumor she denies.

 

Unintentionally, DeLuca is a teacher in the art of late 20th-century suburban activism. No one else in greater Northeast Tarrant has organized 1,500 of her neighbors into a powerful network.

 

No one else so willingly acknowledges her mistakes, takes her licks and keeps coming back at you.

 

"I'm very embarrassed," she said about her first political flier, handcrafted last year to stop a developer from building what she saw as too many houses in her west Flower Mound neighborhood. "I've learned so much between then and now. " The color of that first flier was all wrong. Hot pink. Too flashy.

 

"My favorite now is rocket red," she said. "You need something people can see on their front doors when they drive into their garages. " That first flier borrowed unconfirmed information from somebody else's flier. Now she does her own research, checking with university professors, reading articles on the Internet, talking to government experts. Information is power.

 

That hot pink flier warned, "Instead of complaining, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! " "That one line in my first flier proved quite a prophesy," she said.

 

Her first flier attracted 150 people to a Town Council meeting. "I was stunned," she said.

But the rookie mistakes continued.

 

Another flier warned, "We don't want to see an increase in school notices about child molesters moving into our neighborhoods. " Now she realizes that it was a scare tactic.

"It wasn't my style," she said.

 

Developers thwarted by DeLuca and her group declined to comment.

 

Flower Mound Mayor Larry Lipscomb, whom DeLuca says she supports and she calls a "great mayor," also declined to comment.

 

Before the May election, DeLuca worked night and day on a voters guide. She surveyed the incumbents and their challengers, then sent the results to 12,000 residents. On election day, voters arrived at the polls clutching her guide. The incumbents lost by about a 2-1 margin.

 

"I'm not anti-development," DeLuca said. "I'm just against uncontrolled development. " A local weekly newspaper, The Pipeline, attacks DeLuca and her supporters with a relentlessness rarely seen in North Texas suburban politics.

 

One editorial commented, "And then up jumped the devil. Lori DeLuca, self-appointed no, not anointed savior of Flower Mound's rural ambiance saw red and gathered up the forces to crush the evil dragon once again. " Said another editorial, "When did the jackbooted, fist-shaking `thugs' inherit the keys of control for Flower Mound? " And still another: "I don't know who was God when these people were chosen as caretakers for all the `poor, dumb slobs like you and me. ' " "Sure, it bothers me," DeLuca said. "How can it not? But it doesn't bother me as much as if it were said by a real honest-to-goodness journalist. " Frankly, it's difficult to understand how this rookie has done so well so fast with no prior experience. The answer is probably energy, instincts and creativity.

 

Attacking one proposed development, she created a chart showing ambulances representing traffic accidents on the nearby road. The chart was covered with tiny ambulances to show how the development would make the road more hazardous.

DeLuca is not a media-created star. She's never been interviewed by a local television news station. Still, she's recognized by strangers at the local supermarket.

 

Whether you agree with her ideas, DeLuca can teach us all about community involvement. Here are her "Five Golden Rules for Community Organization:"

 

1. Stay organized. Don't fall behind in your work.

2. Don't try to do everything yourself. Accept offers by others to help.

3. Check and double-check your facts.

4. Don't burn out your supporters by asking too much of them.

5. Stick to the issues. Don't try to get involved in everything.

 

Most important, show you care about your community by getting involved. Or as she once put it: "Instead of complaining, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! "

 

Dave Lieber's Northeast Beat column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays in the Star-Telegram. You can read his past columns at Dave's Closet at www.star-telegram.com/homes/wow/lieber

Copyright 1997 Star-Telegram, Inc.