Residents of Vero Beach, Indian River Shores, Orchid Island, Sebastian, Fellsmere get a free ride

COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

The full cost of the Indian River County Commission’s legal, legislating and public relations assault on the Florida Municipal Power Agency is being paid, not by all the residents of the county, but only by those living in the unincorporated areas – outside any city. Many of those county residents are not even customers of Vero Electric, and so have nothing directly to gain from the sale of Vero Beach’s electric utility to Florida Power & Light.

According to County officials, to avoid asking Vero Beach residents to pay part of the cost of the County’s attacks on their own City the Commission decided to also let residents and taxpayers in Indian River Shores, Orchid Island, Sebastian and Fellsmere off the hook. That may seem reasonable, until you consider that many residents in the unincorporated areas of the county have nothing more to gain from the sale of Vero Electric that anyone living in Fellsmere, Sebastian, Orchid Island, and portions of Indian River Shores.

The worst hit are county residents who are also customers of Vero Electric. They are stuck with the County’s bills, and are also picking up their share the tab for the the City’s attorneys.

After squandering more than $100,000 in a failed appeal to the Florida Public Service Commission, the County Commission is now working through the Florida Legislature, while at the same time launching a statewide public relations attack on the Florida Municipal Power Agency.  Attacking on two fronts, the County Commission hopes to pressure the FMPA to set aside its contracts in order to allow the sale of Vero Electric to FPL to proceed.

It is bad enough that the County Commission is so willing to waste the public’s money waging war.  It is even worse that the cost of these intrigues is not being fairly shared by all the residents of the county.