COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

Island weekly reporter Lisa Zahner deserves a Pulitzer Prize – for fiction.  Her front page opinion piece this week, which was masquerading as a news story, depicted controversy where it does not exist.

In Zahner’s opinion, the Council’s selection of Jay Kramer as vice mayor was a “rebuff of Councilwoman Pilar Turner,” and a “political freeze-out” which, Zahner claimed, “heightens concern” over the sale of Vero Electric.

Turner is not, as Zahner reported, negotiating with the Florida Municipal Power Agency.  For that assignment, the city has hired a $500-an-hour attorney and has, to date, paid his law firm more than $1 million. Further, the meetings Turner attends are not the ones where negotiations are taking place.

Without the title of Vice Mayor, Turner has for the past two years served as the city’s representative on the FMPA board.  What difference would a slight change in title make at this point? Let’s be clear about the facts.  Turner is not negotiating the sale of Vero Electric.  For her role as the city’s representative to the FMPA board, her credentials as a member of the City Council should suffice.  After all, the vice mayor’s only responsibility is to kiss babies and cut ribbons when the mayor is out of town, and in the case of former councilwoman Tracy Carroll, to threaten citizens with removal from Council meetings.

“Selecting Turner as vice mayor would have been seen as a signal to everyone around the state watching the Vero-FPL sale that the city’s promise to honor the will of the voters and get the dead done is unwavering,” Zahner wrote.

I have news for Zaher.  Vero Beach, and specifically the 32963 zip code, is not the center of the universe.  People around the state have their own lives to live and their own political struggles.  Outside of Vero Beach, and perhaps even within the city itself, most people couldn’t care less who is responsible for kissing babies and cutting ribbons when the mayor is away.

Perhaps it is worth noting that even Craig Fletcher considered voting for Kramer for vice mayor.  As is typical for Fletcher, though, he changed his mind, scratched out his first vote and then giving his nod to Turner, who nominated herself for the esteemed position.

Zahner went on to repeat her claim that Florida Power & Light representatives have said they “have absolutely no interest in buying only part of the (electric) system.”  That may be what FPL spokespersons have told the island weekly reporter in private, but their public statements reveal a far different position.  What FPL has said publicly and officially is that they are focused on crafting a deal to acquire all 34,000 customers of Vero Electric.  That position in no way precludes the possibility of a partial sale, should a deal with the FMPA prove too costly for FPL.

In the next month or two, the FMPA will likely put on the table a number that represents what it will cost the agency to assume Vero Beach ‘s obligations and to absorb the city’s power allotment for three years.  Whatever that figure turns out to be, if the fine folks at FPL are willing to pay it, then the sale of Vero Electric can go forward.  If the costs to the FMPA are greater that the state’s largest investor-owned utility is willing to cover, then it will be time to dust off square one, because that is exactly where the negotiations will be.

In one brief shining moment in June of 2012, Craig Fletcher went on local radio to propose the Council and staff develop a plan for a partial sale, should handing the full system over to FPL prove impossible.  Less than a week later, Fletcher withdrew his proposal.

If negotiators for FPL throw their hands up at some point and conclude the cost of acquiring Vero Electric is more than the company is willing to pay, Vero Beach’s elected officials, professional staff and utility activists will be left asking, “What do we do now?”  If and when that day comes, Zahner and others who have completely dismissed the potential benefits of a partial sale will be feasting on crow.