MARK SCHUMANN
Year-to-date, the Tallahassee law firm of Gonzalez Saggio and Harlan has billed $81,443.47 to represent the Indian River County Commission before the Florida Public Service Commission. Essentially, the County Commission is seeking approval from the PSC to force Vero Beach to abandon its out-of-city electric customers and utility infrastructure when the franchise agreement between the City and the County expires in 2017.
The latest invoice from Gonzales Saggio and Harlan only bills through Oct. 31. It does not include the cost of work done in November and December, including attorney Floyd Self’s appearance before the PSC Nov. 25, when he moved to delay consideration of the County’s petition. It was the County’s second request for a delay.
At that time, Self told the PSC he would soon submit a revised petition. But just last week, Self informed the PSC the County would stay with its original petition seeking answers to 16 questions, all relating to what rights, if any, the County may have to take over Vero Beach’s electric service to some 20,000 customers in unincorporated areas of Indian River County.
Assuming the County does not move for a third delay, the PSC is expected to respond by early February.
Meanwhile, representatives of Vero Beach, the County and the Town of Indian River Shores are set to meet at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday in a public mediation session to be held at the Community Center in downtown Vero Beach.
The Vero Beach City Council is scheduled to meet later that same day in a special session to begin at 5 p.m. The only items on the agenda are an update on the mediation and consideration of steps forward, including possibly hiring a litigation attorney to assist special counsel Schef Wright in defending the City against the lawsuit threatened by the Shores.
Like the County Commission, the Shores seeks to force Vero Beach to surrender its out-of-city customers and utility infrastructure. The central issue in the County’s PSC filing and in the Shores’ legal action is whether PSC service territory assignments are superior to or subordinate to franchise agreements.
Tomorrow, two City staffers and a member of the Utilities Commission are to hear proposals from firms proposing to conduct a comprehensive rate and optimization study. Absent a sale to Florida Power & Light, which seems increasingly unlikely, Vero Beach’s options for lowering rates include decommissioning the power plant, optimizing operations within the utility and renegotiating the City’s wholesale power agreement with the Orlando Utilities commission.
The current rate differential between Vero Electric and FPL is approximately 15 percent.* Some City staffers and members of the City Council are hopeful that rate differential can be cut in half, though Councilwoman Pilar Turner remains pessimistic.
*According to the latest statewide bill comparisons, Vero Electric’s rates for 1000 kWh is $123.93. Allowing for a six percent franchise fee, which Indian River County assesses on FPL bills, and which the City would also assess, FPL’s bill for 1000 kWh is $105.14. The resulting rate differential, then, is 15.2 percent. In a letter to the editor published recently published in the Press Journal, State Rep. Debbie Mayfield claimed the rate differential is 30 percent.
Indian River Guardian 
Such wise men we have running the county. I suppose us City of Vero Beach residents have paid a good portion of these legal fees so that we can also solely foot the bill to defend ourselves. I love it when I get to pay attorney fees to sue myself. Any City of Vero Beach voter who votes for any of these clowns is a sap.
Suggestion:
When these two ill-advised suits are settled and they are sent packing, all costs to the COVB for our defense should be apportioned to the County and Shores and added to their respective electric bills with no charges to COVB residents..
The County should be made to deduct their legal fees for this silly process from the tax bills of all Vero Beach residents. No one should be charged to both sue and defend themselves.
Debbie is true to form as usual and once again does not know what she is talking about, but she does what she is told to say and do by Bob Solari. BTW, everybody knows Solari will run for her seat when she leaves office. Both are not friends of the city.
When State Rep. Debbie Mayfield, or any of the other FPL stooges talk about the rate difference between the city and FPL being 30% just remember this. They have told that lie for so many years that they probably now truly do believe it. I agree with Vic DeMattia. The County and Indian River Shores residents who are Vero Electric customers should be charged for these frivolous law suits. That just might bring the 15% difference in rates much closer to FPL rates. Notice: I did not say 30%. Just saying.
Indian River Shores residents, at least the 80 percent served by Vero Electric, are paying a portion of the legal costs for the County, the Town of Indian River Shores and Vero Beach. When the Shores lawsuit comes to nothing, as it almost surely will, the members of the Indian River Shores Town Council will have some explaining to do.
Given the high property values in the Shores, those residents are paying a disproportionately high share of the cost of the County’s ill-advised PSC petition. Those five “wise men” owe taxpayers some answers. Beyond the tax dollars squanders in legal fees, there is the intangible cost of the increasing animas in the community. FPL, the Indian River County Commission, the Indian River Shores Town Council and a few utility activists who have done FPL’s bidding are largely to blame for the deepening divisions in the community.
County Budget Director Jason Brown told me today the legal costs of the the County’s PSC filing are being paid out of taxes paid only by property owners in the unincorporated areas, not be residents of Vero Beach and Indian River Shores.
Of course. What else would Mr. Brown say? Wonder how they handle that transactuion and desiginate what part from only those property owners goes to those legal bills?