COMMENTARY

“Though no one in a leadership position in the Shores seems concerned about economic fairness, or financial realities, or contractual obligations, the issues are important to Vero Beach officials.”

MARK SCHUMANN

Call it a “correction.” Call it an “update.” By any name, island weekly reporter Lisa Zahner’s Friday addendum to a story posted the previous morning on VeroNews.com is nothing short of a retraction.

Two words describe the island weekly’s Thursday morning report on the power sale. Dead wrong!

Apparently eager to serve as a propaganda piece for the Town of Indian River Shores, the island weekly posted a story on its online site Thursday morning claiming attorneys for the Shores and for the City of Vero Beach have separately been working on a deal to sell Vero Beach’s Indian River Shores electric customer to Florida Power & Light.

Shores’ special counsel, Bruce May, in what appears to be a negotiating ploy, wrote a letter to Vero Beach’s special council, Schef Wright, suggesting a partial sale is in the works. Concurrently, Mayor Brian Barefoot posted a letter on the Town’s website in which he created the impression that Vero Beach and FPL officials are negotiating a partial sale.

Contradicting the island weekly’s Thursday report, FPL and Vero Beach officials today denied they are negotiating a so-called partial sale.

In his letter to Wright, May asserted a partial sale could be concluded without approval of the Florida Municipal Power Agency. By a narrow margin, Florida voters last fall rejected a move to legalize marijuana. So, what else could May be smoking?

Even if a sale of Vero Electric’s Indian River Shores customers could be concluded without FMPA approval, the deal would be burdened with significant stranded costs. More importantly, any side-agreement between Vero Beach and the Shores would leave Vero Electric’s remaining out-of-city customers stuck paying higher rates than their patrician friends on the barrier island.

A so-called partial sale of Vero Electric’s Indian River Shores customers would accomplish little more than to bring rate relief only to the wealthiest residents in the county, if not the country. Though no one in a leadership position in the Shores seems concerned about economic fairness, or financial realities, or contractual obligations, the issues are important to Vero Beach officials.

May and Barefoot may have managed to dupe the island weekly into publicizing their propaganda, but the truth eventually rises to the surface.  Again, according to FPL and Vero Beach officials, there are no negotiations on a partial sale.

The larger point here is that Shore’s officials – and their special counsel – are out of touch with reality. When will Shores officials realize they and their residents, though econimically privileged, are not half as special as they believe themselves to be? (Though Shores officials are no longer content buying power from their neighboring city, they are more than happy to have Vero Beach provide them with drinking water and process their sewage.)

Shores officials, along with their allies on the County Commission, continue to believe they can have what they want simply because they want it. In persisting in this self-centered belief, they remain dismissive of Vero Beach’s contractual obligations, and are apparently oblivious to the stranded costs they or FPL would have to pay to conclude any so-called partial sale.

The Know Nothing movement, a long forgotten political party in the mid-1850s that played on popular fears and promised to purify American politics, may be experiencing a rebirth in Indian River County.

Note: Along with Shores’ Councilman Richard Haverland, Barefoot is to appear in court April 21 to answer charges he violated Florida’s open government law.