COMMENTARY
“That Turner can support the Shores and the County in their assault on Vero Beach raises serious concerns about her willingness to protect the interests of the taxpayers of Vero Beach.”
MARK SCHUMANN
Not only does the website for Vero Beach City Councilwoman, Pilar Turner, lack the proper, legally required political advertising disclaimer, it mixes, even confuses fact, fiction and speculation.
The Lagoon
Sounding much like former Vice President Al Gore, who famously claimed to have invented/initiated the internet, Turner now claims to have been “the first in the County to raise awareness of the serious deterioration of our Indian River Lagoon.”
The Electric Sale
Addressing the stalled sale of Vero Electric, Turner wrote,”There has been much mis-information bantered. Here are facts: Although the voters clearly gave the City Council the directive to sell the electric utility, we have been unable to conclude the sale. The Florida Municipal Power Agency (FMPA) is the issue.”
While asserting the FMPA is the “issue,” Turner fails to explain Vero Beach has contractual obligations to its fellow FMPA members and to the joint action agency’s bondholders. She also fails to explain FPL, through two political action committees run by Glenn Heran, has spent no less than $150,000 influencing the outcome of local elections. More importantly, Turner makes no mention of the fact that the Orlando Utilities Commission backed out of the deal, leaving the city without a willing and qualified buyer for its FMPA entitlements.
On her campaign website, Turner wrote, “The possible loss of Indian River Shores and County customers (because they refuse to be shackled by the FMPA rates that continue to be unreasonably high) will leave Vero City ratepayers even more vulnerable. Losing 2/3 of our customers would be in a word, disastrous.”
If the Vero Beach is forced to surrender two-thirds of its out-of-city customers without fair compensation, the financial consequences would, indeed, be disastrous. That fact, though, hasn’t kept Turner from supporting the Shores and the County in their efforts to force Vero Beach to abandon its out-of-city customers and utility infrastructure.
Turner goes on to divine the future of power rates, claiming bills will “skyrocket beyond anything we have seen.” Turner’s claim is nothing but speculation. Adding fiction to speculation, she wrote, “Those opposing the sale point to the loss of revenues to the City, called transfers. How can those transfers continue in the face of astronomical rate increases the City can’t control?”
Careful not to mention the divisive influence Florida Power & Light has had in Vero Beach politics, Turner warned, “We must not let FMPA splinter our community. Just like the threat of the All Aboard Florida train, we must stand up and fight. We cannot let FMPA break our resolve for local control of assets. Let’s join Indian River Shores and The County to find an exit from the FMPA contractual ‘handcuffs’.”
Essentially, the Indian River Shores Town Council and the Indian River County Commission, supported by Turner, allege Vero Electric is a miniature ENRON, manipulating accounting and data, willfully gouging customers, mismanaging operations and skimming exorbitant profits.
Meanwhile, Turner dismisses efforts to reduce Vero Electric’s rate, while posturing as if FPL’s position as one of the lowest cost providers in the state is guaranteed. Turner voices no concern for bond holders, abandoned assets, the impact of the sale on City finances, all of which are significant compared to the benefits of lower rates.
That Turner can support the Shores and the County in their assault on Vero Beach raises serious concerns about her willingness to protect the interests of the taxpayers of Vero Beach.
Post-Employment Benefits
Turner claims the “shocking truth” about the City’s pension obligations is that “every man, woman and child” in Vero Beach is on the hook for $66,000. What Turner asserts is not the truth, but, rather, is a shocking exaggeration.
The City’s post-employment obligations include pensions and health insurance benefits. The pension funds will be fully (90 percent) funded in fewer than 10 years, sooner if any employees in the General Fund staff quit or retire early. Most pension experts, Turner excluded, believe a 90 percent funding level is prudent, since overfunding, which can occur in a year of unanticipated high rates of investment returns, only serves to tie up City assets. Further, the City is negotiating with the union to convert to a define contribution plan, which would limit the City’s long term pension risks.
Federal and Florida laws require cities to account for the present value of other post-employment obligations for all current and future retirees, including health insurance benefits. Though the numbers are big, maybe even “shocking” in Turner’s mind, the reality is these costs are covered year to year. Turner’s use of the $66,000 number is a scare tactic. She is practicing what Tracy Carroll used to refer to as “fear mongering.”
The City’s practice of paying year by year for the cost of non-pension post-employment benefits is analogous to a homeowner who owes several hundred thousand dollars on their home mortgage, and who makes payments month by month, year by year. Virtually all public entities pay non-pension post-employment expenses year to year, since the alternative is to create something like a pension trust fund. Back to the analogy of a home mortgage: No one seriously suggest the homeowner is insolvent simply because he does not have $300,000 in reserve to cover his mortgage.
For all municipal governments, the future of managing the costs of retirement and other post-employment benefits, as well as controlling the costs of current health care benefits, is and will continue to be a challenge. As with pensions, municipal government may follow the lead of the private sector, where some companies are now implementing defined contribution health plans. Employees and retirees receive an annual stipend to pay premiums and negotiate coverage with insurers.
Turner does seem set on finding a way to convince the people of Vero Beach the sky is falling and that the time may soon come to disincorporate their city.
Below are screen shots of the required political advertising disclaimers on the websites for city council candidates Jay Kramer and Randy Old, as well as a screen shot of Turner’s website taken yesterday. Turner’s site lacks the required disclaimer.
Indian River Guardian 
Vice President Gore never actually said that he “invented the Internet.” What he said was that he was instrumental in its development. This is true because his leadership ensured the research portion of the Department of Defense had the funding for the development of a government wide use of computers on a single platform.
I attended a briefing at the Pentagon when the general outline for the plans was introduced to representatives of each Federal agency. The Department of Defense briefing was a slide show plus handouts that identified iniitial leadership had come from Senator Al Gore,
Additionally, Bill Gates in his book “The Road Ahead” credits Vice President Gore with the leadership that produced the Internet. In the book Bill Gates also gives credit to Vice President Gore for the terminology of the “information highway” and claims it was modeled on the Vice President’s father who sponsored the Federal Highway Act.
The use of the Internet was a portion of an initiative developed by Vice President Gore that was titled “Reinventing Government.” This initiative resulted in significant increases in efficiency and cost savings in many government agencies.
Pat, I realize it is your self-appointed role to defend all things Democratic. The fact remains, while running for President in 1999/2000, Al Gore claimed credit for taking the initiative in creating the internet. In much the same way, Pilar Turner is now taking credit for being the first person in Indian River County to raise concerns about the plight of the Indian River Lagoon.
1999 CNN interview:
Wolf Blitzer: “Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley?”
Al Gore: I’ll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be. But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I’ve traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
One thing is for sure. We can credit Pilar Turner for making sure the entire County has a deep hatred for FMPA….Had she treated them with sugar rather than vinegar we might have had better cooperation with them…but that did not happen during the time when she was the city’s representative with the FMPA.
This latest claim of hers that she supports the Shores and the County in their efforts to sue the city that she says she wants to represent it over the top. How in the heck does Pilar Turner expect any informed citizen in the City of Vero Beach to vote for her?
Along with her undying support of the two entities who are suing the City of Vero Beach, she has a record that is not very supportive of what the residents seem to want. She voted to do away with the Cemetery, she voted down the Dog Park and she put the City in a mess when she voted to sell off the Electric Utility before all the facts pertaining a possible sale were in. Now the City is stuck with a sales agreement that cannot be executed and this fiasco has cost the city millions of dollars and if Ms. Turner gets elected there will be millions more spent on the lawsuits that she supports.
She has made it very clear, especially to those who are really listening, that she has no intention of putting any effort to lower rates.