MARK SCHUMANN

Representatives of Vero Beach, the County and the Town of Indian River Shores will meet at 9:30 this morning in a public mediation session to be held at the Community Center in downtown.

At issue is the Shore Town Council’s request that Vero Beach cease serving its Shores electric customers and remove its utility infrastructure from within the Town when the franchise agreement between the two cities expires in 2017. The Indian River County Commission, which has joined the Shore’s in its threatened lawsuit against Vero Beach, is at the same time seeking permission from the Florida Public Service Commission to, without compensation, take over Vero Beach’s customers and utility infrastructure in the unincorporated areas of the county.

The franchise agreement between Vero Beach and the County expires in 2016.  Vero Beach serves approximately 20,000 customers outside the city limits, both in the Shores and in unincorporated areas surrounding the city.  Because Vero Beach did not require annexation as a condition for extending utility service beyond the city limits, it now serves more electric customers outside the city than within.

Vero Beach officials contend the City has both the right and the responsibility to continue serving all 34,000 of its customers unless and until the Florida Public Service Commission acts to amend the long-standing service territory assignment which established the current footprint for Vero Electric.

Twice the County has asked the PSC to delay responding to its request for clarification of whether service territory assignments are superior to or subordinate to franchise agreements. Unless the County requests a third delay, the PSC is expected to respond to the County when it meets in early February.

Later today, the Vero Beach City Council is scheduled to meet in a special session. The only items on the agenda for the 5 p.m. meeting 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 Vero Beach against the lawsuit threatened by the Shores.

Despite the Shores lawsuit and the County’s PSC petition, Vero Beach officials are going ahead with plans to lower rates.  Wright is working with the Orlando Utilities Commission on amending a 20-year wholesale power agreement between Vero Beach and the OUC.  SInce the deal was struck in 2008, power rates have dropped.  Last year, in an agreement that went into effect in Jan. 2014, the OUC agreed to charge CIty of Lake Worth a rate some 25 percent lower than the rate it is charging Vero Beach.

In addition to lowering wholesale power costs through negotiations the OUC, Vero Beach officials say millions can be saved each year by decommission the power plant, which sits idle some 95 percent of the time. Looking for further opportunities to improve operations and cut costs, Vero Beach officials are also moving ahead with plans to commission an optimization study of Vero Electric,