COMMENTARY

MILT THOMAS

Did you ever wonder what motivates members of the Vero Beach City Council to vote the way they do? In national politics, it is common practice for a Congressman or Senator to offer a vote in exchange for what is typically referred to as pork. Legislators represent their districts or states, and although they are elected to do the country’s business, they also need to look out for the interests of voters who elected them. So if your representative’s vote is needed to pass a bill before Congress, and your district needs funding for a new highway to nowhere, don’t be surprised if the bill passes with a rider authorizing funding for that highway. That’s pork without the pig attached.

In Vero Beach, elected officials do not represent a specific neighborhood or party – they all represent the same constituency and are supposed to be non-partisan. So theoretically, there is no need for a councilperson to vote on anything other than what is good for all the people of Vero Beach. But pork can come from many different pig parts.

The best example in the past council was Tracy Carroll’s run-in with code enforcement. She rented out her home on a short term basis, which had long been disallowed.  Who wants to live in a nice, quiet neighborhood where one house has a different occupant every week, especially in Vero Beach, which is a city of quiet neighborhoods?

As an elected public official, allowing such rentals does not benefit the neighbors, the city, or the voters who put her in office. However, it did produce a nice income stream for Carroll, so she (and her husband) did the right thing – for them. They managed to convince three members of the Code Enforcement Board with whom John Carroll had previously served to rule the ordinance was vague and thus unenforceable. So that’s a nice pork chop dinner for two.

Notice she isn’t a member of this year’s City Council.

So, the question remains whether there might be other instances of elected officials taking advantage of their office for personal gain. There’s no hard evidence of such activities, but sometimes you have to wonder…..

For instance, let’s take the FPL deal. We know the corporate big brother paid plenty of money toward Tracy Carroll’s re-election campaign hoping she would be the guaranteed third vote for any deal they presented to us. It was all perfectly legal, but I would bet a pound of bacon that it won’t be the last time those folks try to influence local politics for their corporate gain.

A number of pro-sale advocates both elected and self-proclaimed including City Councilpersons Pilar Turner and Craig Fletcher, have supported the Vero Electric/FPL deal without reservation even through all its negative changes. They are like permissive parents, allowing their disrespectful, unruly child to throw dishes at them without fear of even a reprimand. You’ve met parents with kids like that – my child is ALWAYS right! All those other kids, their parents, teachers and police, they are all wrong!

Now, permissive parents have a vested interest in that child and will not do anything that might obstruct his path to adulthood, even if he turns out to be a serial killer. But if Turner and Fletcher don’t have a vested interest in FPL, why do they feel they must say yes to whatever bad deal FPL throws at them?

Mayor Richard Winger has never deviated from his desire to achieve lower electric rates for Vero Electric customers, however that is accomplished. His reservations about the changes to our original deal with FPL have led him to advocate working on other possible ways to achieve lower rates, even walking away from this deal if it isn’t right for Vero Beach taxpayers and Vero Electric customers. No one doubts his sincerity in that or anything else. There are no hidden agendas or pork traps.

Turner and Fletcher, the permissive parents in this scenario, say they want lower rates too – just give the spoiled corporation whatever it wants in order to get them. They also both stress the benefit of dismantling our power plant in order to ‘liberate the waterfront.’ Liberate it from what? Or for whom? Does that have anything to do with lowering electric rates? No, but rumor has it there are developers lined up and ready to turn that property into a waterfront resort or high end development once the power plant is gone. One can’t help but speculate that there is some pork lying around somewhere. The question is who’s getting the prime cuts  and who’s getting the pig in a poke?