COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

Together, the campaigns of Harry Howle, III, Pilar Turner, Charlie Wilson, and two political committees supporting them — one heavily funded by Florida Power & Light — spent some $66,000 in the Vero Beach City Council election. When the dust settled Tuesday evening, it was clear Vero Beach voters were not interested in placing control of the City Council in the hands of candidates so heavily funded by and beholden to outside interests.

Though Turner retained her seat, coming in third behind Jay Kramer and Randy Old, she is now a one-person minority on the Council, and is likely to be outvoted every time she attempts to aid the Indian River County Commission and Indian River Shores Town Council in their efforts to take without fair compensation 60 percent of the City’s electric utility.  Turner is also not likely to find any allies on the Council in her efforts to further cut City services; and she will surely be a lone voice when she argues for increasing the tax burden on Vero Beach residents in order to cut electric rates for out-of-city customers.

The County’s and the Shore’s hostile moves against Vero Beach may lose their momentum later this month, when the Florida Public Service Commission is expected to respond to the County’s request to redefine PSC service territory agreements as subordinate to franchise agreements. Every public and private electric utility in Florida, including FPL, has lined up in opposition to the County’s effort to re-define franchise agreements between local governments and utility providers as superior to the PSC’s underlying service territory assignments.

If the PSC affirms the supremacy of service territory assignments, as many expect it will, the Shores’ lawsuit against Vero Beach will have still one more hurdle to clear.  In fact, a PSC ruling rejecting the County Commission’s novel interpretation of established utility law could be so damaging to the Shores’ case that the County Commission may be persuaded to withdraw its complaint before the PSC can rule in Vero Beach’s favor.

The Press Journal, the island weekly and Turner all continue to stress that the franchise agreement between Vero Beach and the Shores expires in 2016. What they fail to explain is that the termination of that agreement may ultimately have no effect on Vero Beach’s right and responsibility to serve its Shores customers. Assuming the Shores Town Council presses ahead with its lawsuit against Vero Beach, the neighboring municipalities could be locked in litigation for years. In the mean time, Kramer and Old, along with Amelia Graves and Richard Winger, can be expected to move ahead with efforts to lower electric rates.

If the new Council majority is to significantly lower electric rates, it will need to push for the best deal possible with the Orlando Utilities Commission, even if that means being willing to explore alternatives to a negotiated agreement. For example, Vero Beach has a contractual right to terminate its agreement with the OUC, but at a cost.  If the price of walking away from the OUC agreement is significantly less than the savings to be gained from buying power at lower rates, the Council, it would seem, has a fiduciary responsibility to fully consider that alternative.

The new Council is also likely to move aggressively to address the Lagoon crisis, to more adequately fund road maintenance and long-term capital improvement needs, to explore the formation of a utility authority, and to restore services that may have been cut too deeply, such as lifeguard protection at the City’s beaches.

The day may come when Vero Beach leaders will be able to work with the County Commission and the Shores Town Council for the benefit of all Vero Beach and Indian River County’s residents. For increased cooperation to be possible, though, leaders at the County and the Shores are going to need to accept the fact that the people of Vero Beach are not willing to surrender their city to outside interests.

In short, Vero Beach voters yesterday placed the leadership of their city squarely in the hands of four Council members determined to keep Vero Vero.