BY BEA GARDNER

City of Vero Beach signs contract to sell Electric Utility to Florida Power and Light. That’s a fact.

Did you know that the most aggravating aspect of the “sale” is that the City Council gave all ratepayers two rate increases in the last six months leading up to the signing of the sales agreement?

What does that mean? It means that if the sales agreement, signed by only three of five City Council members takes another four years before the City will know if the deal will culminate, we are going to be held hostage to these artificially high rates.  Again, let me reiterate, these rate increases have nothing to do with the cost of power.

Your electric rates were raised once to pay for the high priced attorneys who have already showed us that they don’t seem to have a handle on this deal and the other reason for increasing our rates is because the City paid for the upgrade requirements in cash during the time that the sale is pending. These upgrades should have been considered in the price of the sale. Hmmm.

City Manager Jim O’Connor did not put out the facts concerning how or if the city could survive without the profits they have been getting from their Electric Utility and now we hear he is flitting off to Washington D.C. at the request of FPL to tell regulators what a fabulous deal FPL has offered us. Hmmm.

Oh yes, now I remember. At the jubilant signing ceremony held in City Hall after the troika of Carroll, Turner, and Fletcher signed the sales agreement to sell off the City’s Electric Utility to FPL, Mayor Fletcher said from now on meetings regarding this matter will be closed. Yep, I do remember that. So, O’Connor flits off to Washington to give a plug for FP&L in a closed meeting, and we will probably never know what went on in that meeting. Hmmm. I sure hope an audio of said meeting will be made available for all to hear.

This reminds me of another important meeting that was held with the FMPA and the report we got from the City Council was that things are moving along well. After listening to the audio of the meeting I did not get the impression that things were moving along well. In fact, it was in that audio that we learned that this sale probably will not take place for about three –four years… if at all.

Not to get too technical, let me remind you that the City of Vero Beach had an appraisal on its 34,000-customer electric utility and the professional appraisal company said the system is worth about $184 million. Near as I can tell after following this sale for the past few years, the city “sold” the entire enchilada to FPL and the profits from the sale will only be somewhere in the $3 million range. Some say there will be no profit after the city pays off its obligations. What a deal. Huh?

And, to make matters worse, the City of Vero Beach will suffer approximately a $3 million to $4 million shortfall in the general fund once they no longer have the very profitable utility to count on. Where does that leave the city in the next three, five or ten years? One can only guess.

So, what do we have? We have a signed sales agreement between the City of Vero Beach and  FP&L that probably will not fly as it is written for the next four years, if at all.   That might be akin to selling your house and then spending the next four years waiting and hoping for the closing to take place. After inspection, of course.

Think of all that could happen to this facility in the next four years. As I might say on Bea-isms, that is a think for another day. It tires me to think of all the things that might go wrong with this deal while we are being held hostage to these newly imposed high rates.