COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

By a 3-2 vote taken in early December 2012, the 2012/2013 City Council majority of Tracy Carroll, Craig Fletcher and Pilar Turner decided to hold a March 12, 2013 referendum on a purchase and sale contract between the City of Vero Beach and Florida Power & Light.

Carroll, Fletcher and Turner overlooked or ignored at least two important details. First, there was no contract for voters approve, at least not a fully negotiated contract.  Second, the City had not yet resolved its issues and obligations with the Florida Municipal Power Agency.

At the February 5, 2013 meeting, Councilman Richard Winger tried to put a stop to the folly.  Winger made a motion to postpone the referendum until the proposed sales agreement between the City and FPL could be finalized.  With fellow Councilman Jay Kramer out of town, Winger could not get a second for his motion.

Winger at the time also voiced concerns that the City’s transactional attorneys, who had charged $870,000 through December 2012, were not making sufficient progress in resolving key contractual obligations to the FMPA.  Winger also objected to approving an additional $200,000 payment to the firm of Edwards Wildman.  “I believe this process is failing.  I have lost confidence in this lawyer,” Winger said.

To date, the transactional attorneys have been paid some $1.5 million, and are now being aided by an outside counsel with utility experience.

As rationale for signing a contract with FPL before resolving perhaps insurmountable obligations the FMPA and its bondholders, Turner said voter approval of even an incomplete contract would serve as “ammunition” to be taken to the FMPA board of directors and to the member cities of the FMPA’s All Requirements Project.

On February 25, 2013, just three weeks ahead of the referendum, Carroll, Fletcher and Turner cut a cake, signed a contract full of blanks and holes and toasted to their success.  Now the deal is on the verge of unraveling. To listen to Turner, everyone but her is to blame.