In a glittering high rise condo last week, Mayor Buddy Dyer posed proudly with the 2012 “Voice for Equality” Award just presented him by Equality Florida, the statewide LGBT lobbying organization. Behind him, Orlando's inviting downtown skyline twinkled through sheer curtains. In front, more than one hundred LGBT-and-friendly activists and supporters applauded enthusiastically.
Dyer, who hopes to be elected to a third term on April 3, received the award for his efforts to advance LGBT equality during a decade of leadership. When he first took office in February 2003, the city council had just suffered an ugly display of prejudice before voting 4-3 to include sexual orientation among the classes protected by its Human Rights Ordinance. Mayor Glenda Hood, who left office early to become Florida's Secretary of State, opposed the measure.
But things changed when Dyer entered City Hall. Working with Commissioner Patty Sheehan, also a 2012 Equality Florida honoree, Dyer quietly but forcefully turned back efforts to repeal expansion of the HRO. He became the first mayor to participate in Pride parades and rallies. In 2008 he announced that the city would offer benefits to the domestic partners of city employees. In 2010 he publicly opposed Florida's Amendment 2 constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and the ban on adoption by gays and lesbians. And most recently, he championed creation of a Domestic Partner Registry”the first of its kind in Central Florida. The day it was implemented, he served as notary when Sheehan and partner Jocelyn White were among the first couples to register at City Hall.
“Under Mayor Buddy Dyer's leadership, Orlando is leading the region in recognizing and protecting LGBT families,” said Equality Florida field director Joe Saunders in presenting the award. “The creation of Orlando's Domestic Partner Registry has inspired local governments across the state to explore how they too can protect our families.”
Critics and fans
Support for Dyer is by no means universal. His three opponents in the upcoming election, including a sitting councilman, denounced Dyer during a March 7 debate for employing a “Buddy system” of favoritism for well-connected businesses and campaign donors.
“I think the mayor has favored his friends,” said Commissioner Phil Diamond. “I think he's focused too much on downtown special interests, and I think he's cut bad deals with developers.”
Former Orange County Democrats chairman Doug Head chided Dyer for funneling large contributions through the Florida Democratic Party to bypass campaign laws. “This is the kind of behavior that makes everybody doubt whether there is any credibility in the system,” Head told the Orlando Sentinel.
Influential Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell has criticized the mayor for “play[ing] fast and loose with the public's money” in pursuit of ambitious downtown development goals, and “pick[ing] unnecessary fights with peaceniks.”
And Orlando Weekly featured columnist Billy Manes, who happens to be gay, routinely rips the mayor as an elitist self-promoter with questionable ethics.
But his many supporters in the LGBT community are equally passionate.
“Mayor Dyer is a true friend of the LGBT community,” says attorney and activist Mary Meeks. “Every time”and I mean every single time”I have gone to him over the years and asked him to do something to support our community, he has said “yes.' He truly gets it.”
“Mayor Dyer believes in doing the right thing, and he has been a passionate, committed advocate for his LGBT constituents,” says attorney Jeff Miller, who along with partner Ted Maines was named a “power couple” by Orlando Magazine. “Gay and lesbian issues aside, he is just a great mayor for our city.”
“Mayor Dyer is as proud as anyone that Orlando was ranked as the second gayest city in the nation by The Advocate,” notes Randy Stephens, executive director at the GLBT Community Center of Central Florida. “It's been a transition, but I'm grateful that we now have a mayor who will proudly stand by the LGBT community and embrace the unique character we bring to Orlando and Central Florida.”
The Mod Cowboy
Dyer, 53, whose given name is John, grew up in Kissimmee, the son of a bull-riding cattle trucker and a Tupperware secretary who worked at Disney before opening The Mod Cowboy western wear store on U.S. 192 during”you guessed it”the 1970s.
“I still have a pair of boots from The Mod Cowboy,” Dyer laughed during a recent interview at his City Hall offices. “At one point my mother sold more pairs of Wrangler jeans than any non-chain store in Florida.”
At Osceola High School, Dyer was captain of the baseball team and Key Club president. And though neither of his parents attended college, he wanted to attend an Ivy League School. He settled on Brown University in Rhode Island, where he enjoyed being “the hick kid from the South” and played rugby with John Kennedy Jr.
“One time the whole team went to a party at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port,” Dyer remembered. “It lasted well into the morning and at daybreak there were a bunch of people half-sleeping and half-passed out on the lawn. When I woke up, John was running around shaking people to get them up because his mother [Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis] was due by 9 a.m.”
Dyer graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering and worked in that field in Houston and Orlando before attending law school at the University of Florida. Again he excelled, serving as editor of the Florida Law Review and then achieving the highest score on the Florida Bar Exam.
“We worked together and because he was one year ahead of me he was one of the graders when I took the Bar Exam,” remembers Meeks. “For weeks he carried around a stack of blue books and joked that my exam could be in there. He is definitely smart, meticulous, and a great strategic thinker”all qualities that have made him a good mayor.”
In a runoff, Dyer was first elected to the Florida State Senate in 1992. He easily won re-election in 1996 and 2000, and was chosen State Senate Democratic Leader for three of those years.
“When I started there were 20 Democrats and 20 Republicans,” Dyer said. “We shared power, so you couldn't pass anything without working with the other party. We'd go out together at night. We had personal relationships that allowed us to work together. It's become much, much more partisan.”
In 2002 Dyer ran for State Attorney General and lost to Charlie Crist (who needed three tries to pass the Bar Exam). He was preparing to serve as general counsel for Sen. Bob Graham's presidential campaign when people”including Sheehan”began approaching him to run for mayor after Hood's unexpected defection.
Surprise mayor
“I'd never, ever considered being the mayor of Orlando”in fact, I'd never set foot in City Hall. But there was this groundswell of support for the idea,” Dyer said. “My family agonized about it and prayed about it, and then one morning I got a call from Pastor Sam Green of St. Mark's African Methodist Episcopal Church asking me to run to help unite Orlando. That was kind of the final straw for me.”
Dyer inherited a huge budget deficit, rising crime, and a stagnant downtown. Because he'd never worked in local government, he admits there was a steep learning curve. For the first three years, he held twice-weekly meetings with his cabinet and supervisors.
“We went around the room and they told me what they were doing and what was going on in their departments,” he said. “I learned how to listen, and how to create an atmosphere where people aren't afraid to share different points of view.”
He also developed a vision for a sophisticated urban environment fueled by sparkling venues, mass transit, and an exciting and livable downtown populated by a diverse workforce. His tenacity in accomplishing these goals has ruffled feathers. But even detractors concede that Dyer has tackled his biggest priorities successfully.
“Downtown has grown. The deficit is gone. Yet somehow the city's tax rate is lower than any other big city in Florida,” wrote the Sentinel's Maxwell in a recent column. “Crime is down. Amenities are up. Transit is on the way, along with a growing Medical City in the east.”
“I consider the man a visionary,” says Sheehan. “There were many times that we were about to lose big ticket items like SunRail and the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. He kept pushing on, working behind the scenes to build consensus for the good of Orlando. I think that's remarkable in our current climate of food fight politics.”
Economics of Equality
When it comes to LGBT issues, Dyer deflects credit for positive strides taken within the city.
“I think our community as a whole is more tolerant and more accepting than it was ten years ago, so it's become easier,” he said. “You're not going into armed battle like Commissioner Sheehan and others did when the city expanded the Human Rights Ordinance back in 2002. Look at the difference now. We passed a Domestic Partner Registry and only two people spoke out in opposition.”
And Dyer emphasizes that LGBT equality is consistent with his vision for the city.
“Successful cities have to attract bright, talented people, and the way you do that is by showing that you're a tolerant and progressive community,” Dyer said. “Actions that we've taken further that notion”in addition to simple, basic fairness and equality and the idea that good things happen when you treat people right.”
Equality Florida's Saunders says this economic argument for equality is powerful.
“Creating laws that recognize and protect gay families isn't just the right thing to do, it's literally good for business,” he says. “No one gets that better than Buddy Dyer.”
As for the future for LGBT equality in Orlando, Dyer says he's willing to listen and consider different ideas.
“My attitude is that I can't pretend to know what's best for the LGBT community, or what's most important to them,” he said. “I didn't initiate the Domestic Partner Registry; Commissioner Sheehan and a committee of people brought that to me. As far as implementation, I wasn't going to substitute my judgment for that of the people the registry is there to help.”
By the end of a third term”Maxwell says the odds for re-election are “much better than even money””Dyer wants to see SunRail and the performing arts center operational, continued growth for the Medical City (“our most important economic engine for creating quality jobs”), and the first phase of the ambitious Creative Village envisioned for the old O-rena constructed and in use. And he wants to maintain the high level of public safety created by the award-winning fire and police departments.
“We've got a lot of stuff started, so making sure we complete them is my priority,” Dyer said.
Speaking to LGBT supporters at the Equality Florida event, Dyer shared that he believes being Mayor of Orlando is the most important job in Florida.
“Where we go, others follow,” he said. “What we do, others emulate.”
Ten years ago, who would've thought that would include strides toward LGBT equality.
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and Watermark publisher Tom Dyer are not related.
