COMMENTARY
MARK SCHUMANN
Late this afternoon, the island weekly posted a story about today’s Florida Public Service Commission hearing on its online website, VeroNews.com. Not surprisingly, the island weekly’s report bears some correction. First, Vero Beach’s utility attorney, Schef Wright, is quoted as testifying that Vero Beach has no intention of selling its electric system voluntarily. In the context of the PSC hearing, Wright was asserting that Vero Beach does not plan to capitulate to a forced sale of its utility infrastructure and customer base in the unincorporated areas of Indian River County to the County Commission.
The VeroNews.com report also used out of context Wright’s argument that “rates are utterly irrelevant.” Again, Wright’s statement was made in the context of the legal issues before the PSC. If the Vero Beach City Council and Wright truly considered rates irrelevant, as the island weekly wants its readers to believe, Wright and City officials would not be working to renegotiate the Vero Electric’s wholesale power agreement with the Orlando Utilities Commission. They would not be conducting a rate optimization study. They would not be considering decommissioning the power plant, and they would not be preparing to conduce a system optimization study. “Our rates are higher than we wish they were. We are working on it,” Wright told the Commission.
VeroNews.com’s report on today’s PSC meeting is just the latest example of how the island weekly cannot keep itself from twisting facts and distorting the truth.
Indian River Guardian 
What will she/they write next in light of the county’s very costly loss at the PSC yesterday.