COMMENTARY

Editor’s Note:  When VeroNews.com photographer, Keith Carson, took a picture of utility activists Glenn Heran and Stephen Faherty apparently coaching Vero Beach city council candidate Harry Howle III, he captured what could be the most telling image of the year.  Karson’s picture of Howle receiving a “download” from Heran and Faherty tells a thousand words about the ways Heran, in particular, has interjected himself, and Florida Power & Light’s agenda, in Vero Beach politics.

Connect the dots in the long and divisive struggle over the sale of Vero Electric, and you will find Heran at nearly every juncture, making presentations through the community claiming the City will net as much as $156.5 million on the sale, then later justifying handing the system over for essentially nothing while accepting a $26.5 million surcharge, consulting with FPL, advising local politicians, working closely with the County in its efforts to persuade the legislature to intervene in the sale, attacking candidates who question his rational or his numbers, regularly appearing before the Vero Beach City Council insisting the sale should be the City’s top priority, heading political action committees funded by FPL, and the list goes on.

The following commentary on Heran’s support of FPL’s efforts to acquire Vero Electric was first published in March.

MARK SCHUMANN

Since Dr. Stephen Faherty and Glenn Heran first stepped into the political arena advocating for the sale of Vero Beach’s electric utility to Florida Power & Light, the two utility activists have been seen by many as citizens motivated by nothing more than a desire to bring rate relief to the 22,000 out-of-city customers of Vero Electric.

But is that charitable view a complete and accurate assessment of their motives?  Heran, at least, has worked closely with FPL on several political fronts.  He participated in the formation of a political action committee, Citizens for a Brighter Future, and later an electioneering communications organization, Citizens for a Better Future.

FPL so heavily funded both groups that it is difficult to see them as little more than a front for the company’s political efforts – first to convince voters to approve the contract to sell Vero Electric, and second to secure Tracy Carroll’s re-election.  As a political operative, Heran is batting 500.

Heran is now also working with lobbyists hired by the Indian River County Commission who also lobby on behalf of FPL.  He has also pledged to work to convince customers of municipal utilities across the state that they would be better off as customers of FPL.

In a sense, Heran seems to have a Moses complex, for he speaks as if the master passion of his life is to “liberate” the customers of municipal utilities from “oppression” by freeing them from the “clutches” of the Florida Municipal Power Agency, a joint action agency which he describes as “an institution of inefficiency.”

Set Heran’s criticisms of the FMPA next to FPL President Eric Silagy’s public statements that his company’s prospects for growth lie, at least in part, in opportunities to acquire municipal utilities, and you begin to wonder if perhaps Heran doesn’t deserve to be recognized at FPL’s “volunteer of the year.”

Heran is also active in the Indian River Taxpayers’ Association, recently having served as the group’s president.  Under Heran’s leadership, the local Taxpayers’ Association morphed from a group that monitored government spending to an organization advocating, not so much efficient government, but smaller, “limited” government.

Heran has long argued, along with City Councilwoman Pilar Turner, that the $5.5 million annual transfer from the utility fund to the general fund accomplishes little more than to allow for “bloated” city government.  Heran says the city should limit its scope to what he calls “essential” services, though he has yet to publically enunerate which existing city services should be eliminated.

Heran and Faherty have also worked aggressively in support of the County’s efforts to take over from the city water and sewer service on the south barrier island, and to eventually acquire the city’s water and sewer utility.

Heran touts his credentials as a Certified Public Accountant when he presents financial models showing the supposed benefits of selling the electric system to FPL, though it is not as if Heran’s CPA degree has rendered him infallible.  In late 2009, Heran and Faherty circulated a financial model predicting the city would NET $156.5 million in CASH from the sale.  They went on to claim the interest earnings from the widely exaggerated sale proceeds would more than make up for the loss of the $5.5 million annual transfer from the utility fund to the city’s general fund.  For these and other predictions that have failed to pan out, Heran has received a free ride from the local daily newspaper, the Press Journal, whose publisher, Bob Brunjes, is married to FPL External Affairs Manager, Amy Brunjes.

Heran may well be a CPA, but his is a CPA with an obvious agenda.  His financial models, including those yet to come, should be considered in light of his objective, which is to secure the sale of Vero Electric to FPL, and eventually to bring down the FMPA, an organization he says should no longer existence.

Surely if FPL makes time at its next annual stockholders meeting to recognize a volunteer of the year, Glenn Heran has earned the honors.