COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

Though Florida Power & Light’s offer to pay the Florida Municipal Power Agency $52 million to assume Vero Beach’s Stanton I and II power entitlements for three years is no longer being considered, Vero Beach City Councilwoman Pilar Turner, as the City’s representative on the FMPA board, made a public records request today for all documents relating to the FMPA’s calculations.

The $52 million proposal, having come with conditions unacceptable to the FMPA, is now a moot point.  Still, Turner wants to know how the FMPA arrived at the number.  City Manager Jim O’Connor said today he has no need for the information; and certainly Turner was not directed by the City Council to make the records request. Turner may simply want the documents to satisfy her own curiosity, or she may be planning to pass them along to her contacts at FPL.

Given her constant and harsh criticisms of the FMPA, it is hard to see how Turner can effectively represent the City as a member of the FMPA board of directors.  Maybe she is there as the eyes and ears of FPL.

County Commissioner Tim Zorc, who also attended today’s FMPA board meeting in Orlando, addressed the board, not during public comment time, which would have been appropriate for a private citizen, but under the agenda item providing for member comments.  None of the City Council members with whom spoken today could recall ever appointing Zorc to represent the City of Vero Beach before the FMPA.

By bussing up to 150 protestors to the May FMPA board meeting, Zorc plans to stage a scene he hopes will persuade the FMPA to scuttle key provisions in its contracts.  Zorc’s protests will surely have an affect, just not the one he is hoping for.