COMMENTARY
MILT THOMAS
The headline on Friday’s Treasure Coast daily is like a good news, bad news and more bad news joke. The headline says “FPL to pay $26mm in power buyout.” Then the subhead, in much smaller type adds “Vero customers to also pay $26mm. The ‘more bad news’ addendum to the joke is a boxed announcement at the top of the page just below the headline: VERO CHAMBER TOWN HALL, and details a panel discussion put on by the “Vero Beach Chamber of Commerce.”
So why is that more bad news? It misleads readers who think there is only one chamber, so this must be a sanctioned community event if only because the newspaper gave it such a prominent position on the front page. In reality, our official chamber is still the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce, which has served Vero for nearly 100 years.
Yes, the Vero Beach Chamber of Commerce is licensed and operating, sort of. It is the brainchild of Charlie Wilson, the former City Councilman with the shortest term of office on record after being removed by a judge for not meeting the city’s residency requirement. In what has been referred to as Charlie’s latest scheme, he created his new chamber of commerce with his buddies, Mark Mucher and Dan Stump a few months back. Since then, he has sent out unsolicited ‘welcome’ letters to businesses in Vero Beach with an invoice attached.
In a ruse reminiscent of the fake yellow pages attempt at the same thing years ago, the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce and Inside Vero have received numerous complaints and/or questions as to why they received what appeared to them to be a legitimate invoice. In some cases, an unsuspecting bookkeeper might think this is coming from the Indian River County Chamber and write a check. In fact, that has happened.
Yes, it is perfectly legal. If a business receives this letter welcoming them as charter members of the Vero Beach Chamber of Commerce with an invoice for $195, but does not question its validity, Charlie Wilson cannot be held accountable. It’s like the headline stating FPL to pay $26 million in power buyout, then stating electric customers get to pay the other $26 million. This is not a fact. It is a proposal that neither FPL nor the Florida Municipal Power Agency has signed on to. But what the heck, state it as a fact and maybe people will accept it as such, without considering the final FPL deal is nothing like the deal voters approved by referendum last year.
The difference between Wilson and the daily newspaper is that the newspaper has a legitimate responsibility to inform truthfully on matters affecting the public. Clearly, the Scripps Treasure Coast daily has endorsed the sale to FPL, regardless of the red flags that have sprung up from the start. So has Charlie Wilson, although he doesn’t have the gravitas of a major news corporation print publication. In fact, sometimes he seems to defy gravity altogether.
But the Scripps-FPL family continues to band together in presenting the most positive spin on selling our Vero Electric system at a constantly increasing cost. The “power couple” in this deal are Mr. and Mrs. Bob Brunjes, he the paper’s publisher and she the executive with FPL. Charlie is kind of their wayward child, always getting into mischief, unlike their other compliant and proper children, Glenn Heran, Steve Faherty, and several elected officials past and present. Whatever their faults though, they are family and their children can do no wrong. Have you ever tried to criticize someone’s children, no matter how badly they have misbehaved?
Indian River Guardian 
Next thing you will be telling us is that Tracy “rent my houses by the day” Carroll is ready to have FPL bankroll another run for office.
I hope few businesses are sucked in by the Vero Chamber of Commerce statements sent out by Charlie “maybe legal, but morally-deficient” Wilson and company. The FPL proposal to pay half the amount FMPA has asked is absurd. Of course, even if they paid it all, there is no doubt the customers would STILL be on the hook for all or most of that pay-out. The troika (Carroll, Turner, and Fletcher) swore they would solve our problems – condemned previous Councils for mistakes and inefficiencies…..and look where we are today. No, it’s not the fault of a vocal group of us who asked pertinent questions and received no satisfactory answers. And yes, that old saying about not putting the cart before the horse is still true.
Unfortunately there is sometimes a huge disconnect between what is legal and what is ethical. In the case of Charlie Wilson he was neither ethical nor legal in acquiring his brief tenure on the Vero Beach City Council.
The failure to have a legitimate residency can destroy your reputation. However, it is a reality that some people see no reason to comply with that pesky little thing called respect for the rule of law.