COMMENTARY
MARK SCHUMANN
Calling for Florida Public Service Commission oversight of the Florida Municipal Power Agency, Indian River County Commissioner Tim Zorc went before the Treasure Coast Legislative Delegation today claiming the FMPA’s member utilities are “vastly not competitive” with Florida’s private sector power providers. One has to wonder what alternate universe Zorc is living in.
In truth, the state’s investor-owned utilities have a higher average rate than do municipal utilities. In fact, the statewide average for investor-owned utilities is $126.46 per 1000 kilowatt hours and just $120.05 for municipal utilities. In claiming the opposite is true, Zorc is simply wrong – again.
Ironically, Zorc claimed some of the FMPA’s long-term investment decisions that have not worked out so could have been avoided with PSC oversight. He did not bother mentioning that Duke Energy, an investor owned utility, with PSC approval passed on to its customers some $2 billion in uninsured losses resulting from foolish cost-cutting measures at its Crystal River nuclear plant.
A review of the latest statewide bill comparison for Florida’s public and private electric utilities reveals that Commissioner Zorc has not done his homework.
Indian River Guardian 
All this great wisdom for someone who declared bankruptcy, leaving a trail of unpaid debt. Some people have no shame.
The man has no shame. Anyone who follows Indian River politics knows he is seldom right. He will have to stand on his poor record and falsehoods when, and if he runs again . Could he be looking for campaign donations from a certain electric company? I am glad someone is keeping an eye on him because the Press Journal only prints what suits Bob and Amy best.
You bet he is looking for campaign contributions. He already knows he will not get much help from a lot of local businesses because he stiffed them all pretty good with his bankruptcy. He has no shame and does not care what he says as long as he says something. He already knows he will not be challenged. He learned from the best….his old campaign manager and business partner, Charlie Wilson.
That Mr. Zorc managed to get elected in the first place does not speak well for us voters. I do know he will not have the backing of our household, and I suspect there are many inside COVB who would be happy to see him go and pursue other money-making ventures. If the trend continues to have communities/counties run by outside entities with large amounts of money to expend, we may have to work doubly hard to regain control.