County to hire lobbyist for Vero Electric deal

MILT THOMAS

At yesterday’s County Commission meeting, Vero Electric sale advocate, Glenn Heran presented his case for the sale of Vero Electric to FPL based on the high cost of electricity to county residents living outside the City of Vero Beach. “The city has done much to move this along including a signed contract with FPL,” said Heran, “but the most significant obstacle to completion of the sale is disposition of our obligations to the Florida Municipal Power Agency.”

This is a subject has been covered in depth in previous InsideVero postings and our monthly print edition. Heran claims that once the sale is completed, “It will save county residents $25 million a year. However, the 30-year franchise agreement with FMPA ends in 2017 and after that we will not have a choice to leave.”

Heran finished his presentation by recommending that the Commission approve hiring a lobbyist for public affairs to educate state and local legislators and customer. Hiring our own lobbyist would counter the FMPA’s lobbying efforts through its affiliated Florida Municipal Electric Association, which is the lobbyist for 32 municipal electric utilities. “The FMEA receives its money from ratepayers.”

Commission Chairman Joe Flescher said, “We have a moral obligation to the citizens of unincorporated Indian River County to help in this effort. Some businesses have been forced to close because of high utility costs and others are clinging on to life waiting for this sale. We need to move forward.”

Commissioner Zorc added that he knows of a restaurant on U.S. 1 that pays $6,000 a month for electric, which is higher than the rent. Commissioner Solari added, “There is no greater economic issue in our county. The city has spent more than $1.7 million to date to complete this sale.”

With that, Solari made a motion to engage with Indian River Shores on a joint effort with the end result to hire a lobbyist to educate state and local leaders on this issue with an initial budget of $100,000.. His motion was seconded and then unanimously approved by the Commission. County Administrator said that staff would start researching for the best company.

7 comments

A lobbyist? What’s really up here, since they have Feheranty working full-time already. As well as the city council troika who focus only on this sale.

The most important issue to the county? hmmm, not the lagoon, not the taxes, and certainly not conserving energy or auditing usage to lower bills? so many ways this is being used to misdirect the people.

They have worked the last 5 years for one solution, and will have to wait 3 more years for the chance to see if this solution works. Don’t tell me they care about the rate payers, every day there is an opportunity to look at other solutions to get the rates down now, but instead their riding the FPL bus over the ratepayers everyday!

Any registered voter of The City of Vero Beach that votes for Solari for the county Commission is a sap. Basically they are voting for someone who wants to destroy the quaint Vero Beach that we had up to three years ago.

Mr. Solari will not be running again for county commission. He, from what I have been told, intends to run for Mrs. Mayfields seat in congress and Mrs. Turner has her eye on the commission seat.Her concerns always have been the county folks, anyway.

A lobbying firm will be hired, but who will they hire to do the real work . Maybe Charlie Wilson or Glenn Heran. I thought this was a done deal.
If there are problems,, why were they not seen and addressed before now ?– Wasted time and money at this time– Only the lobbyists and whomever they hire stand to gain from the commissioners latest move..
Lets face it ,FP&L is in an up hill fight .They fight ,we pay.
Did FP&L think FMPA would would go quietly into the night. Think again.

Anthony is 100% right Solari will run for Mayfield’s seat and Mrs Turner will try to move up to Solari’s seat. These moves have been circulating in Indian River County for several months. At some time Solari will over stay his welcome on the commission as he did in Vero when he chose not to re-run for his council seat.. Sometime people get kicked up stairs just to get rid of them.