MARK SCHUMANN
A little more than a year ago, the Indian River Shores Town Council approved paying a $10,000 retainer fee to hire attorney Bruce May and the law firm of Holland & Night to represent the Shores in its legal action against the City of Vero Beach. Since the payment of May’s initial retainer fee, the cost to Shores taxpayers has risen to nearly $500,000.
According to records provided by the Shores Town Clerk’s Office, Holland and Knight billed the Shores $329,406 through April of this year. The Town has received at least an additional $134,000 in invoices from second law firm, Radey Attorneys, and a public relations consulting firm, Curley & Pynn.
Now that the Town, the County and Vero Beach have concluded what turned out to be six months of unsuccessful mediation, the Shores is taking its case to court. All indications are that as the case goes to court, the cost to Shores taxpayers will continue to mount.
Indian River Guardian 
I hope Glenn Heran is on their Christmas card thank you list for getting them this job.
How much are the County, Shores and COVB into this absurdity for?
Including or not including the $2 million Pilar Turner, Craig Fletcher and Tracy Carroll spent on transactional attorneys who failed to bring about a transaction?
Here we are in a civil war! North part of the island against the South. As a member of the North, the amount we are paying for our attorneys pale compared to the amount we are overpaying to the Vero Beach Utility. Just think, no one gets killed and in the end we still shop at the stores and eat at the restaurants!
Above comment sort of reminds me of the days when the IRC School Board closed Fellsmere High School and many of Fellsmere’s residents started shopping in Melbourne.
It seems likely to me that “in the end,” after perhaps millions have been spend in legal fees, the residents in the Shores who are currently customers of Vero Electric will remain customers of Vero Electric. Unlike the bellicose troika of Carroll, Turner and Fletcher, the current Vero Beach City Council is working quietly and deliberately to do what can be done to lower rates, including seeking new competitive bids for wholesale power and drastically cutting the cost of keeping the power plant in place to meet peak load. The Shores Town Council, apparently sitting on more money and taxing authority that it knows what to do with, is far more inclined to be a part of the problem rather than a part of any solution. Given that everyone is shopping in the same stores and eating in the same restaurants, what a shame to also square off in court.