COMMENTARY

“Given the harsh and hyperbolic language with which Turner regularly attacks the FMPA, her continued representation of the City on the FMPA board is not likely to come to anything good.  Perhaps Mayor Richard Winger, Vice Mayor Jay Kramer, Councilwoman Amelia Graves, or Power Resource Manager Tom Richards could more effectively represent the City’s needs and interests in a way that will elicit cooperation rather than enmity.”  

MARK SCHUMANN

Vero Beach’s effort to sell its electric system to Florida Power & Light is stalled, or perhaps it is more accurate to suggest the so-called Rate Relief Train has run off the tracks.

At the crux of several vexing issues is the question of how to offload Vero Beach’s share of three Florida Municipal Power Agency power projects through Dec. 31, 2017.  Beyond that date, in exchange for $34 million in cash and other considerations, the Orlando Utilities Commission has agreed to assume Vero Beach’s position in the Saint Lucie Nuclear plant and the Stanton I and Stanton II projects.

Through the end of 2017, though, another qualified buyer will have to take the power, if the sale of Vero Electric to FPL is to go forward.  Some, including Councilwoman Pilar Turner, seem more interested in fixing blame and in casting the FMPA as a villain in this story than they are in working toward solutions that will protect the legitimate interests of all parties.

As the city’s representative on the FMPA board, Turner should know better than to characterize the agency’s $52 million offer to take on Vero Beach’s power entitlements and obligations through 2017 as “outrageous.”  Further, she was completely off base accusing the FMPA of establishing a $52 million in order to block the sale.  If Turner doesn’t know better, at least she should.

As Vero Beach’s representative to the FMPA board, Turner should know what FPL President Eric Silagy now knows, having receive a letter today from FMPA General Manager Nicholas Guarriello.  Guarriello wrote, “FMPA does not need the capacity and energy from Vero Beach’s Stanton and Stanton II Projects interests between now and the end of 2017 and the $52 million payment to the FMPA is not a windfall.  Your assertion that the $52 million payment will ‘provide a significant financial benefit to the municipal members of the FMPA and their respective customers’ is wrong.”

What Turner, the island press, FPL spokespersons and a number of utility activists characterize as a “ransom” demand from the FMPA could just as easily be seen as an effort to bribe the FMPA board into forcing other FMPA member cities to bear costs for which Vero Beach is contractually, reasonably and legitimately responsible.

If FPL’s proposal to pay the FMPA $52 million is not a bribe of sorts, then why isn’t FPL choosing to accept the OUC’s $44 million offer to assume the same power for the same three years?  Guarriello also addressed this point in his March 5 letter to Silagy.  “It seems more straight forward, as I have mentioned before, for FPL and OUC to directly negotiate a price — be it $52 million or any other figure — for the up-to-three-year power sale, which would avoid any IRS private use restrictions.”

So, why is FPL persisting in making a deal with the FMPA on terms Turner characterized as “preposterous?”  The answer is simple.  In a classic bait-and-switch move, FPL asked the FMPA to establish a price at which it could absorb Vero Beach’s power.  After the FMPA put its offer on the table, FPL then added a number of conditions, all of which were announced in yesterday’s Council meeting by FPL attorney Patrick Bryan.

FPL executives clearly live in their own isolated world; and the unfortunate consequence of their limited perspective was never more apparent than yesterday, when Bryan explained the several additional conditions, which in their own way, could be seen as FPL’s poison pill.

By their own admission, FPL spokespersons have said their effort to acquire Vero Electric has proven to be far more complex and difficult than they had expected.  Could it be that FPL is ready to walk and is seeking to fix the blame on the FMPA?

Whether FPL is striving to conclude the sale, or to retreat from the deal without accepting responsibility for several failed strategies, Turner, for her part, doesn’t have to play their game.  She was elected, not to act as a volunteer member of FPL’s public relations team, but to serve the people of Vero Beach, first by squaring her public statements with the truth.

If the City is to have any chance of successfully negotiating the sale, while simultaneously working to lower rates, it will need the FMPA’s cooperation and assistance.  Given the harsh and hyperbolic language with which Turner regularly attacks the FMPA, her continued representation of the City on the FMPA board is not likely to come to anything good.  Perhaps Mayor Richard Winger, Vice Mayor Jay Kramer, Councilwoman Amelia Graves, or Power Resource Manager Tom Richards could more effectively represent the City’s needs and interests in a way that will elicit cooperation rather than enmity.