BY MARK SCHUMANN

During a City Council meeting two weeks ago, Councilwoman Pilar Turner said the move to sell the city’s electric system has always been about “liberating the riverfront.”

Addressing the City Council this week, utility activist Mark Mucher said the two objectives in the proposed sale of Vero Electric have “always been” to get Florida Power & Light rates and to remove the power plant from the riverfront.

Notice what Turner and Mucher do not say.   They make no mention of wanting to negotiate the best deal possible for the city and its taxpayers.

Yet, if you ask most city residents who have supported council candidates in favor of selling the electric system, they will tell you their priority is get electric rates down.  They make no mention of wanting to sell the city down the river in the process.  In fact, for many, achieving lower electric rates, while leaving the city on sound financial footing, seems objective enough.

For most electric customers within the city, their priority is to get lower rates.   City voters have never said their priority is to have the lowest rates in the state, even if that means bankrupting the city, and they never voted on the so-called priority of “liberating the waterfront.”

For some proponents of the sale, including Turner and Mucher, an equally important objective seems to be to clear the waterfront.  But clear it for what, and at what price?

Fully $25 million of the value of the deal is going to pay for transmission upgrades, substation relocation and the eventual demolition of the power plant, all made necessary in order to “liberate the riverfront.”  This $25 million is money that could otherwise come to the city in the form of cash proceeds from the sale.

Essentially, under the proposed agreement, the city’s taxpayers are being asked to pay $25 million to make the power plant site available, not for a public park, but for some other development yet to be disclosed.

What is the hidden agenda here?  Mayor Craig Fletcher offers shallow assurances that he would never agree to sell the land.  Well, by the time the sale finally closes in late 2016, or later, Fletcher may not longer be in office.  Secondly, a promise to never sell the land is hardly an assurance it won’t be offered to developers on a long-term lease.

Fletcher and others are quick to point out that the City Charter protects the land.  But if the city ceases to exist, there will be no City Charter.  By a simply majority of the County Commission, the land could be sold and the height restrictions removed, allowing for a high-rise development.

By far, the most compelling reason to oppose the proposed asset purchase and sale agreement between the city and FPL is that it will not lead to lower rates for at least four more years, if ever.

Another sound reason to oppose the deal is that it has woven into it a hidden agenda – one that may benefit a few, but will be of no value to the majority of the city’s taxpayers.

Next Tuesday is the day for the average city resident to have their voice heard and their vote counted.  Otherwise, the city will continue to have what it has presently, a government of the privileged, by the privileged and for the privileged.