BY MARK SCHUMANN

For the troubled state of negotiations between the City, Florida Power & Light and the Florida Municipal Power Agency, activist, perennial candidate, and former Vero Beach City Councilman Brian Heady is pointing the finger of blame in virtually every direction but his own.

Heady is critical of the deal the city has negotiated with FPL, yet he participated in bringing FPL to the table.  Based on the criticisms Heady levels during his regular appearances before the City Council and the television cameras, it would seem he expects the public to believe he would never have let the utility giant dominate the negotiations.  Somehow the former one-term Councilman doesn’t seem to understand that once the camel’s nose is under the tent, it’s all over.

For example, now that the Council troika, with whom Heady once collaborated, has signed a contract with FPL, they have no leverage to renegotiate the location of FPL’s new, large transmission and distribution substation.  Even though an alternate site has been made available that could preserve the southwest corner of 17th Street and Indian River Boulevard for a higher and better use, the company’s negotiators are balking at the plan.  Rather than being cooperative, FPL’s negotiators seem inclined to hold the city up for another $1.6 million before they will agree to a site that meets the company’s original criteria.

Convinced other cities should follow Vero Beach’s lead, Heady once accompanied Glenn Heran on a trip to Lake Worth in an effort to persuade that city’s leaders of the wisdom of selling their electric system to FPL.  Heady even joined a group of Lake Worth leaders on what turned out to be a bizarre bus trip to the FMPA’s offices in Orlando. Surely to Heady’s surprise, the pilgrims from Lake Worth promptly made peace with the FMPA, then turned around and headed home.

In addition to once presenting FPL as the potential savior for all of Florida’s municipally owned utilities, Heady also recommended and participated in the hiring of the city’s $500-per-hour transactional attorneys who have already billed $1.2 million.  Despite charging the city for some 2,000 hours of work, the city’s outside counsel is not even close to resolving key issues that could derail the deal.

Heady seems set on distancing himself from a deal that, figuratively speaking, has his fingerprints all over it.