Editor’s Note: The following blog, posted by Bea Gardner on Bea-isms.com, questions if the signing of the power sale agreement before the FMPA issues were resolved constitutes malfeasance.
BEA GARDNER
Let me ask you this. Was the City of Vero Beach in a position to sell the Electric Utility to FPL at the time that the Troika, Tracy Carroll, Craig Fletcher and Pilar Turner, signed the sales agreement? In other words, was the city in a “legal” position to sell the plant?
Now, for most of you who have been following the “trail of the sale” you already know that the answer to that question was – probably not. Until such time that the city of Vero Beach could extricate themselves from existing contractual obligations with the Florida Municipal Power Agency (FMPA) they were not in a position to sell the utility. And, in my opinion, they are still at square one when it comes to that issue.
Indian River Guardian 
Nice cartoon Mark. But, as I said, the transactional attorney should have been getting over that hurdle the moment they were hired instead of billing the City of Vero Beach over $1 million before they began this race to the finish line.
The point of the cartoon is that the attorneys should have first determined if they could scale the wall before charging the city to clear the lower and intermediate hurdles.
FMPA made the legal requirements well known from the beginning. It was the city’s responsibility to do the legal paperwork before signing any contract with FPL. There is no big secret – only misinformation and propaganda to drive the sale. The CEO of FMPA can not make the decision the FPL Pres. is pushing for.
If you really want to know the beginning – do a public record request and ask the city for the FMPA response to the city asking what their obligations were and how to exit the contracts – year 2010.
Whether the FMPA contracts prohibit a sale is strictly a legal question. The city has obligations it has to meet. Until those are addressed we will not know. And all member cities have to approve Vero leaving the contracts.
One question the member cities will be asking is ‘what happens in three years?’. In three years, who takes over Vero’s outstanding contractual obligations?
Bea, this article is on the right track. The FMPA obligations and contracts should have been addressed from the beginning – we will have to go back to the beginning. Something many of us have been saying all along…..
The city needs to hire a rate specialist to compute correct electric rates. One wonders how the electric charges are being spent. The 2013-2014 city budget is set. If we have to ‘fund raise’ for recreation – where has the electric enterprise money gone?
Hopefully the ‘new’ city council will find their voice and not allow their shadows and others shadows to haunt them.
We now have fresh air and a clean breeze to allow free speech and thought.
Time to allow the facts to take precedent over propaganda.