MARK SCHUMANN

Council members to make individual appointments to Utilities Commission

The Council approved by a vote of 3-2 yesterday evening a motion by Mayor Richard Winger to change the way the Utility Commission is structured and appointed.  City Attorney Wayne Coment will now draft a revision to city code to be read at the Council’s Feb. 4 meeting and then acted on Feb. 18.

Supported by Kramer and Councilwoman Amelia Graves, Winger’s proposal will expanding the Utility Commission from five to seven members. Each Council member will have one appointment, as is the case with the Finance Commission. The Town of Indian River Shores will name one member, and the Council at large will appoint the remaining full position and the two alternate positions.

Winger’s proposal, which also calls for a majority of Utility Commission members to be city residents, was a compromise to an earlier plan that might have led to a Commission with the Indian River Shores appointee being the only representation for out-of-city customers.  Winger’s compromise motion came after a lengthy discussion.

Turner and Councilman Craig Fletcher opposed the change, saying they believe the current Utility Commission is working.  “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it,” Fletcher said more than once.

Utility Commission chairman Scott Stradley, who earlier supported Kramer’s proposal to give each Council member an appointee on the Commission, last night reversed his position. Stradley urged the Council to leave the Commission as it is.

Essentially, the current Utility Commission is made of members all appointed by Turner and Fletcher, who, along with former member Tracy Carroll, “fixed” the Commission in January 2011, by dismissing members who did not wholeheartedly support their approach to selling the electric system.   At the same time, less than compliant Finance Commission members also received their pink slips.

What some have called the “January Massacre,” led to growing frustrations by those who felt the Utility Commission has become a board of yes men and women.  “Have you all forgotten how we got to this pace,” Kramer said at one point in the Council’s debate last night.

Kramer then recounted how Turner came to the Council’s first meeting in January, 2011 with a proposed list of new appointments for the Utility Commission.  With virtually no discussion, Turner, Fletcher and Carroll then sacked several Commission members and approved Turner’s proposed list of new appointees.

County water and sewer rates approved for south beach customers

The Council considered one other utility matter last night, approving 5-0 a motion to charge the approximately 3,000 out-of-city water and sewer customers on south barrier island County rates plus a 6 percent equalization fee.  The Council’s action was taken unilaterally, without County Commission approval, and mirrors the agreement the City reached in 2012 with the Town of Indian River Shores.

Over the past few years, many south barrier island water and sewer customers have, at the urging of utility activist Glenn Heran and County Commissioner Bob Solari, said they want to become customers of the County’s water and sewer utility, or, failing that, to be charged County rates.

Even though city staff and consultants have estimated the County water and sewer rate structure will cost south barrier island customers in total an additional $170,000 a year, representatives of the South Beach Property Owners Association continue to insist they want County rates.

The current 30-year franchise agreement between the City and County, which the County Commission has said it will not renew, expires in 2017.  But the City also has a service territory agreement with the County giving it the right to serve the south barrier island “in perpetuity.”

The County has offered to agree to a new “30-year” franchise agreement, which it could unilaterally terminate in 10 years.  The County’s proposal also calls for the City to renounce ownership of the water and sewer infrastructure on the south barrier island and to split a proposed six percent equalization charge with the County.

County Attorney, Dylan Reingold, spoke to the Council last night, explaining that because negotiations between City and County staff are an impasse, he was asked by the County Commission to approach the Council directly.

“This is like when a homeless person asks you for $20 dollars.  You say no, and he says, ‘Let’s compromise at $10,’” Kramer said.