COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

In addition to failing to report key facts that would help readers better understand the Vero Beach power story, the reporters and editors at the Stuart-based Press Journal continue to give so-called utility activist and Florida Power & Light apologist, Glenn Heran, seemingly unlimited opportunities to continue to twist the truth and mislead the public.

Heran, who initially built public support for handing Vero Electric to FPL by suggesting the City would net some $156.5 million on the sale, has perhaps been wrong more often and by a wider margin than any other player in the power saga.  Quite simply, there will be no proceeds from the sale. In fact, FPL’s latest proposal called for a $26 million surcharge to be assessed the customers of Vero Electric. Yet, the Press Journal’s editorial board continues to support the sale, and its reporters and editors continue to quote Heran, as if he is an expert on municipal utilities.

If Heran has done anything expertly, it has been to use hundreds of thousands of dollars of FPL money to persuade Vero Beach voters to pass referendums and approve sales agreements that, for legal and practical reasons Heran refuses to accept, can never be executed.

Heran is so committed to FPL that he once vowed to travel the state urging other cities to sell their electric utilities to the the state’s largest utility giant.  It should come as no surprise, then, that Heran is critical of the current city council’s effort to save electric rate payers some $1 billion dollars over the next ten years by either re-negotiating the city’s wholesale power agreement with the Orlando Utilities Commission or by replacing that contract with several new contracts that would leave the city’s ratepayer less vulnerable to large shifts in wholesale power costs.

The Press Journal’s story today on the city council’s most recent action might have mentioned that the decision to seek bids from other wholesale power providers, including possibly FPL, was first unanimously approved by both the Utilities and Finance Commissions.

If the Press Journal’s editors had any interest in offering their readers a balanced story, they might also have reported that in the minds of many experts the council’s current initiative is the most conservative approach. They might also have explained to readers that the greater the rate differential between FPL and Vero Electric, the more likely Heran is to continue to be able to promote the sale, an objective which seems to have become the master passion of his life.

Unlike Heran, the members of the Vero Beach City Council have sworn an oath of office. They have responsibilities, not to promote the interests of a giant corporation, but to do what is best for the city’s residents, taxpayers and customers. In the interest of balanced reporting, the Press Journal might have mentioned that even Councilwoman Pilar Turner, a staunch proponent of the sale, approved the council’s decision this week to seek bids from alternate wholesale power providers.

Finally, it cannot be repeated often enough that the Press Journal’s publisher, Bob Brunjes, is married to a key FPL vice president. As long as the Press Journal continues its poor and biased reporting, the public can hardly be blamed for not fully comprehending this complex story.