COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

Next to pro-sale utility activist and FPL apologist Glenn Heran, no one has been more consistently critical of the Florida Municipal Power Agency than City Councilwoman Pilar Turner.  Ironically, Turner represents the City on the FMPA’s board of directors.

Turner was well aware the purchase and sale agreement she signed in February 2013 stood little if any chance of being executed, at least not without a successful political and legislative assault on the FMPA.  Now that State Rep. Debbie Mayfield’s proposed utility legislation is dead for yet another year, it is obvious the only approach remaining is not to maneuver over, under, or around the FMPA, but rather to work with FMPA representatives to structure a deal that will comply with the City’s contracts.

Comments attributed to Turner in the Press Journal Friday underscore the intensity of her animosity toward the power agency.  What many reasonable minds understand to be contractual obligations, Turner continues to refer to as “obstacles.”  “The FMPA continues to put up obstacles,” she said.

Turner’s clear preference for pursuing a win-loose negotiating strategy makes it is difficult to imagine how she can accomplish anything more than to further alienate FMPA leadership.

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 interests in a way that will elicit cooperation rather than enmity.

It is time for the City Council to replace Turner on the FMPA board.