Developer Building Over Ancestors' Graves, Native Americans Charge

MONTVERDE, FL-In a pro-development county where elected commissioners get booed if they approve anything larger than an outhouse, Lake County officials may have finally met their match in Diana Combs, a Native American of Choctaw descent.

After Lake County gave developer Bobby Ginn a green light, Combs singlehandedly has stopped development progress on an estimated $75-million, 500-unit single-family and multifamily project with two 18-hole golf courses.

Combs told commissioners she has surveys documenting the existence of six historical Native American burial sites on the mixed-use Pine Island development overlooking Lake Apopka near County Road 455, about 40 miles northwest of Downtown Orlando. She alleges a seventh burial site is on County Road 455 where the county is finishing a $70,000 road drainage project.