BY MARK SCHUMANN

By a margin of nearly 2-1, Vero Beach voters approved a proposed asset purchase and sale agreement that could turn the city’s electric system over to Florida Power & Light, perhaps as early as January 2014.

Out of 3,664 votes cast, 978 were by absentee ballot.   Fully 74 percent of the absentee votes were in favor of the referendum, providing proponents with half their total margin of victory.

Though proponents of the sale are celebrating tonight, tomorrow they must begin what the city’s transactional attorney has described as an “arduous” path to clearing contractual, regulatory and possible legal hurdles.

Voices for Vero, a political action committee that worked to defeat today’s referendum, has vowed to challenge the agreement in court.

Out of court, the deal faces other obstacles as well.  For the sale to take place in early 2014, as city officials and FPL representatives maintain is still their goal, all 14 member cities of the Florida Municipal Power Agency’s All Requirements Project must agree to grant the city a waiver in order for the city to leave the group before late 2016.

FMPA counsel, Fred Bryant, said last month it will take at least until late 2016 before all the issues could be resolved, and the city then cleared to sell its electric utility.

Beyond ending its membership in the FMPA All Requirements Project, for the deal to close at all, the city must resolve issues FMPA’s bond counsels have raised about provisions in power transfer agreements negotiated between the city and the Orlando Utilities Commission.  The city proposes to pay the OUC $34 million in cash, plus the assignment of gas transmissions rights worth approximately $10 million, in exchange for the OUC taking on its obligations to the FMPA. 

FMPA’s bond counsels have said that because the deal also calls for FPL to buy power from the OUC for three years, the deal would jeopardize the tax-exempt status of FMPA bonds.