COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

In an outrageously fictitious account of how and why the power sale has not gone forward, former Vero Beach City Council candidate Charlie Wilson was again before the city council and the cameras this morning criticizing the Indian River Neighborhood Association. Wilson’s attacks raise further questions about whether he is behind an anonymous blog, TheObserver, which employs tactics boardering on fraud.

Given Wilson’s reputation, tactics, and his troubled relationship with the truth, the members and leaders of the IRNA would be justified in considering the political hack’s charges as a badge of honor.

Wilson went on to claim several members of the council “killed” the proposed power sale in 2014 when the declined to immediately approve Florida Power & Light’s proposal to include in the deal a $26 million surcharge on the customers of Vero Electric.

Before the proposal could be seriously vetted by the Utilities and Finance Commissions, Orlando Utilities Commission leaders changed their minds about taking on Vero Beach’s contractual obligations to the Florida Municipal Power Agency. Doing so would have required the OUC to subordinate commitments to its bondholders, a concession OUC leaders said they could not make. Without a buyer for Vero Beach’s FMPA entitlements there can be no sale.

Wilson has long played the role of court jester in local politics, repeatedly failing to win elective office. The one time Wilson won an election was in 2009, when he ran with a slate of candidates pledged to sell Vero Electric to FPL.  One month after taking office, Wilson was ordered by a circuit court judge to surrender his seat on the council. It turned out Wilson had, in the determination of the judge, not be completely honest, at least not intellectually honest, about his residency qualification.

Given that intellectual honesty is not Wilson’s thing, attacks coming from him are a badge of honor.