COMMENTARY

“Reisman and those he supports in the pro-sale crowd are certainly free to cling tenaciously to their hopes of selling Vero Electric to FPL. Meanwhile, responsible leaders cannot afford to embrace fantasy. The only way to serve the public good is to face reality, and to do what can be done to lower rates now and to run Vero Electric more efficiently going forward, even if that means handing the system over to an independent utility authority.”

MARK SCHUMANN

Reading Press Journal editorial page editor, Larry Reisman’s, commentary on the conflict assessment meeting held yesterday between the Vero Beach City Council, the Indian River Shores Town Council and the Indian River County Commission, I was reminded of a line from the The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy says, “Some days I have believed as many as six impossible things, even before breakfast.”

Reisman wrote, “Almost everyone I heard – elected officials and the public – agreed: The best strategy for all citizens of Indian River County is to ensure that the city sell its electric operations to FPL, affirming two overwhelming voter referendums on the matter.”

Where to start with Reisman’s simplistic analysis? To begin with, it is worth noting that Reisman’s publisher, Bob Brunjes, is married to a key FPL executive. Amy Brunjes, FPL’s external affairs manager, just happened to be in attendance at yesterday’s conflict assessment meeting.

The first of the two referendums to which Reisman referred was not a vote to sell the city’s electric system, but was an approval by voters for City officials to lease the power plant site to FPL for up to five years, IF an acceptable deal could be negotiated. Reisman knows this, because his newspaper published at least one editorial assuring voters their approval of the 2011 referendum was NOT a vote to sell the electric system. In revising history now, Reisman is pulling a Pilar Turner.

The second referendum, held in March 2013, asked voters to approve a specific purchase and sale contract. (FPL spent more than $100,000 persuading voters to agree to the deal, though many details had yet to be worked out.) That agreement, though, is now dead, because the Orlando Utilities Commission, a party key to the structure of the contract, has backed out. Any new agreement, which will surely come at significantly higher costs to the customers of Vero Electric and the taxpayers of Vero Beach, must also go before voters.

In asserting the “best strategy” is to “ensure that the city sell its electric operation to FPL,” Reisman is dwelling in the Land of Oz. He might as well have claimed the world would be a better place without war, poverty and disease. Like the deep thinking, Russ Lemmon, who has gone on to bigger and better things, Reisman continues to assist the pro-sale crowd in perpetuating the myth that the Florida Municipal Power Agency is “the problem,” and that the joint action agency can be brought to its knees.

At some point, it is worth asking, “What problem?” Vero Electric’s rates are below the statewide average for investor owned utilities and within the statewide average for municipal utilities. Steps the City is taking now will bring rates down well below the statewide average by any measure.

By only comparing Vero Electric’s rates to FPL, Reisman can continue to assist the company that employs his publisher’s wife, but he is doing his readers a disservice. The fact is most discontentment rises out of comparison, and FPL, with the assistance of utility activists Glen Heran, Dr. Stephen Faherty, County Commissioner Bob Solari and others, including the Press Journal editorial board, has done a masterful job of sowing seeds of discontent in the larger Vero Beach community.

Reisman and those he supports in the pro-sale crowd are certainly free to cling tenaciously to their hopes of selling Vero Electric to FPL. Meanwhile, responsible leaders cannot afford to embrace fantasy. The only way to serve the public good is to face reality, and to do what can be done to lower rates now and to run Vero Electric more efficiently going forward, even if that means handing the system over to an independent utility authority.