COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

“There are reasons, good reasons, why the local press, the Indian River Neighborhood Association and others cannot bring themselves to endorse Carroll.  Voters might do well to consider that FPL’s interests are not the only ones of merit in this election.”

After listening to Florida Power & Light External Affairs Manager Amy Brunjes make a pitch for Tracy Carroll’s re-election before the Rotary Club today, I was left thinking it is increasingly difficult to know what is true.

Brunjes would have us believe the deal between the City and FPL will fall apart if Carroll is not returned to office.  Her claim could only be true if FPL plans to stick the City and its taxpayers with some or all of the additional cost that may be involved in reaching a deal with the Florida Municipal Power Agency.

However Brunjes, Carroll, Glenn Heran or anyone else tries to spin it, the fact remains that as long as changes to the sales agreement do not cost the City, the Council is legally obligated to move forward with the sale.

FPL’s real interest in retaining Carroll on the Council is to ensure the company will have in place a Council majority (Carroll, Craig Fletcher and Pilar Turner) willing to accept additional costs on behalf of the City.

Heran, who is heading up an FPL-funded electioneering communications organization working for Carroll’s re-election, recently asked the five candidates running for City Council to sign a pledge to sell the electric system to FPL, regardless of how the terms may change.  Carroll gladly pledged her allegiance to FPL, but the remaining four candidates declined to commit to yet-to-be-negotiated terms.

In a column titled “What’s good for the goose…“, Inside Vero associate editor Milt Thomas wrote FPL President Eric Silagy asking him to pledge to conclude the sale without any additional cost the City and its taxpayers. The pledge Thomas proposed read, “As an executive of Florida Power & Light, I pledge to uphold the will of the voters of Vero Beach and that the final signed agreement between the City of Vero Beach and FPL will not have any further negative impact on the City’s finances.”

Predictably, Silagy has not responded to Thomas’ proposal that he assure the people of Vero Beach FPL will ask nothing further of them in order to conclude the sale of Vero Electric.  One has to wonder why FPL, through Heran, sought a pledge from the Vero Beach City Council candidates, when the company’s executives insist on preserving their options.

Carroll and her supporters want to make this election about the electric sale, despite the fact that all five candidates have said they will honor the will of voters.  With FPL backing Carroll, the state’s largest utility giant is seeking to ensure it will be able to negotiate an amended sales agreement requiring the City’s to pick up some or all of the additional cost of settling accounts with the FMPA.

FPL would rather not bring more of its own money to the table, at least not if the company can get Carroll, Fletcher and Turner to agree to accept the bill.  The problem for the city, though, is that out of $111.5 million in cash FPL has offered, no more than $3 million to $5 million will be left once all the pipers are paid.

FPL wants a Council majority that will compliantly agree, if necessary, to put back into the deal what were to be already slim proceeds of $3 million to $5 million.

FPL’s spokespersons will deny this, but can they be trusted?  Last year, in advance of the March 12 referendum, FPL representative, Ryan Fair, said he was confident that a deal could be made by early 2014.  No one, absolutely no one now claims a closing in the first quarter of 2014 is even remotely possible.

Today, Brunjes reiterated FPL’s revised assertion that it is confident of closing by the end of 2014.  Others involved in the negotiations are not nearly so confident.  Whenever FPL finally takes over Vero Electric, if Carroll is re-elected, the deal will likely be amended at some cost to the City’s taxpayers and to the benefit of FPL.

When steering listeners to vote for Carroll, Brunjes makes no mention of the fact that the embattled Vice Mayor was not endorsed by the Press Journal, though the newspaper has twice before given her its blessing.  The island weekly, a newspaper than fancies itself a king maker, also endorsed Carroll the first two times she ran for office.  This time around, the newspaper simply listed Carroll as one of three candidates voters might consider supporting for two open seats on the Council.

In fact, just two months ago the island weekly called for Carroll to step aside.

There are reasons, good reasons, why the local press, the Indian River Neighborhood Association and others cannot bring themselves to endorse Carroll.  Voters might do well to consider that FPL’s interests are not the only ones of merit in this election.