COMMENTARY
MARK SCHUMANN
Sounding more like a huckster peddling used lottery tickets than a serious politician, Charlie Wilson spent his 15 minutes under the lights at yesterday’s City Council meeting proposing what he humbly called the “Vero Plan.” Wilson’s so-called “plan” is his latest scheme for shedding the City of its contractual obligations to the Florida Municipal Power Agency.
Wilson’s plan is so bizarre it is hard to believe anyone other than Press Journal columnist Russ Lemmon will fall for it. In fact, Wilson’s “Vero Plan” is no more credible than the one he floated in the fall of 2009, when he promised Vero Beach voters the City would net $80 million, not including reserve funds, from the sale of its electric utility.
Wanting to believe Wilson, voters handed him a seat on the City Council. Less than one month later, he was removed from office by court order for failing to have met the residency requirements for council candidates.
As seems to have been a pattern in Wilson’s political life, he again yesterday revealed a troubling tendency to ignore the fundamental fact that ours is a nation of laws. Wilson’s notion that Vero Beach can offload its legal obligations by simply handing its electric system over to a utility authority, which would then sell the utility to Florida Power & Light in late 2016, is no more logical than a debtor trying to shed credit card obligations by cutting off the hand that repeatedly swiped the card.
Wilson, who once described himself as the nation’s worst lawyer, is ignoring a crucial fact. While it is true Vero Electric’s obligations to the Florida Municipal Power Agency are secured by the revenue from its 34,000 customers and not by the City’s taxing authority, the City’s municipal utility is not a separate corporate entity. Consequently, the City’s contractual obligations to the FMPA cannot be voided by simply handing the electric utility off to a newly formed authority, as Wilson proposes.
Wilson may think he has stumbled on to an effective campaign theme by repeatedly throwing back at Mayor Richard Winger a comment he made before the Republican Men’s breakfast group, but the fact is the power sale is dead. Soon, the wheels will also come off the County Commission’s ill-conceived Public Service Commission complaint and the Indian River Shores lawsuit against the City will be revealed for what it is – the absolute worst, most irresponsible idea ever pursued by the Shores Town Council.
The path to lower electric rates does not pass through the land of skulduggery, irresponsibility and pure foolishness. If Wilson isn’t willing to become a part of the solution, it is time for him to step off the stage. His persistant rantings and ravings are consuming valuable oxygen.
Indian River Guardian 
The sad reality is that the Professor of Baloney is in part responsible for the fact that the issue of reducing cost of electricity for all customers has been unnecessarily delayed.
The voters can and should demand that the candidates seeking a seat with the Florida legislature pledge to eliminate the “nuclear tax” that is on every customer’s electric bill so that major corporations have funding available in the event they ever want to build another nuclear plant.
If only we could find a way to get over Charles Wilson and his wild schemes. He appears to know as much about the legalities involved as I do, and that is close to zilch. At least he didn’t yell at the meeting yesterday. That would have been the “End-gate”, as someone has said.
where is the nuke tax? I haven’t seen it and im on fpl. charles r Wilson is a person best to be ignored . he likes to be heard and offers nothing of substance.
Cathy…Charles is the new and improved Captain Kangaroo with a haircut. Sounds like he also went to charm school and learned how NOT to yell and get red faced when he spoke but it is all part of his new and improved disguise. The only problem is no one is listening and no one but his girlfriend cares about the haircut. It still was a pack of undefined crap that came out of his “plan”.