COMMENTARY

MILT THOMAS

In Sunday’s Press Journal, columnist Russ Lemmon’s headline was “Good thing FPL hasn’t flipped the switch” under the “Shaping our future” banner. He says there’s plenty of time to complete the sale and FPL spokesperson, Mrs. Amy Brunjes, says it’s worth continuing the effort for a sale. Lemmon added, “Whew. What a relief.”

Now, Russ is a decent guy, but it just seems, well, implausible, that he is unaware of where the FPL deal now stands. So maybe a quick background summary will help.

It all began when FPL’s Pro-sale minions found a voice within our city council. Led by Tracy Carroll, Pilar Turner and Craig Fletcher, they decided Vero Beach should under no circumstances be in the utility business and FPL was our only option to get out of it.

Their cheerleaders, Heran, Faherty et. al, stirred up a frenzy with wild claims and promises that went unchallenged in the media. As the drum beat for this deal grew louder, stirring up the Vero Electric customers’ emotions, it seemed all but inevitable. “Lower rates! Lower rates” was the war cry, the people have spoken —  please FPL, free us from this terrible bondage – let our people go!

InsideVero began our online news magazine in December 2012 on the strength of facts about the deal that were being withheld from the public, even by the media. The drum beat of pro-sale sentiment and sentimentalists tried to drown out our cry for facts. But as more and more negative aspects of the deal, most specifically contractual impediments to the sale, were being presented almost daily by InsideVero, the drumbeat began to lose intensity. Another drumbeat was emerging, from people who began to question whether this was a good deal or not, or whether the sale could ever be concluded.

The first battle was between FPL and its pro-sale minions including Scripps (whose president, Bob Brunjes, is married to FPL vice president Amy Brunjes) and led by candidate Tracy Carroll (whose campaign was heavily financed by FPL), against those in favor of looking at the deal more closely, led by Jay Kramer, Dick Winger and Amelia Graves (representing the city’s interests). It was a battle between those who felt any deal to get lower electric rates was good against those who said, wait a minute, this deal may not be good for the future and even the existence of Vero Beach. Carroll lost.

The deal is now on life support because of key factors that would have prevented it from happening regardless of who was in office. The facts about bond holders, bond counsels, stranded costs and manipulated rate increases to make the FPL deal more appealing, have become common knowledge, in spite of the pro-sale crowd’s attempts to minimize them and blame everything on the FMPA. And that includes our Board of County Commissioners, who approved $80,000 of tax funds to hire a lobbyist whose only accomplishment was getting $200,000 put in this year’s budget to audit FMPA.

The current city council is ready to look now at how to reduce costs, but their hands are tied because FPL wants to wait until 2016 for their contract with Vero Beach to expire. Therefore we cannot, for instance, renegotiate our power deal with the Orlando Utilities Commission that could result in significant rate payer savings.

So why won’t FPL just call it a day and release us from the dead end contract? The simple answer is because this deal was never about FPL trying to get Vero Electric customers lower rates. It’s about FPL and its parent company trying to find more growth for stockholders by eliminating municipal electric companies and Vero Electric is their important test case. It will have tremendous implications in the state and nationally.

There is also an agenda within the pro-sale movement that is just as much a factor in this battle as FPL. The agenda pushers, referred to here as “those who shall not be named” (Harry Potter reference), would like nothing better than to cut off all sources of enterprise income from the city so it will bleed to death. The prior city council tried deconstructing city operations from within last year, turning police dispatch over to the county, outsourcing services, selling assets and guillotining expenses. Those efforts largely failed, but like FPL, they keep hanging around waiting for the next opportunity.

I can’t blame Russ for what he writes for his boss, Mr. Robert Brunjes. As I recall, Mark Schumann also worked for Mr. Brunjes. He tried to question the sale, but was given the boot, which resulted in the creation of InsideVero. We should all be thankful for that.

So, Mr. and Mrs. Brunjes, all we can say to FPL is “Let our people go” and go find someone else to pick on.