More misreporting and anti-city spin from Faherty’s ‘Utility Update’o

COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

Utility activist, Florida Power & Light ally, and author of the Utility Update email newsletter, Steven Faherty, is now challenging fellow FPL ally Charlie Wilson for the superlative distinction as the local civic activist least faithful to the truth.

In the edition of the Utility Update released this morning, Faherty told his readers they can expect all but one of five city council candidates to participate in an event to be hosted buy the “Charlie Wilson Chamber” Tuesday evening at 5:30 at the Patio Restaurant.

In fact, at least two candidates, incumbents Amelia Graves and Richard Winger, are scheduled to attend a special call budget meeting of the Vero Beach City Council Tuesday to begin at 5:15. Given that public comment often occupies as much as the first hour of city council meetings, it’s not likely Graves and Winger will make it to the Patio Restaurant by 5:30.

Intentionally or otherwise, Faherty also confused personal commentary by Press Journal pundit Larry Reisman with the position of the newspaper’s editorial board. Reisman may well hold and espouse the bizarre notion that the Florida Legislature should “abolish” the Florida Municipal Power Agency, but the FPL ally has not yet persuaded his fellow editorial board members to publicly support his position.

Faherty, who seems to have committed the remainder of his retirement years to attacking the City of Vero Beach, touted a recent cut in the county’s garbage collection rates, but in doing so Faherty failed to explain that the cost cutting was made possibly by reducing garbage pick up from two days a week to one. City residents aren’t likely to go for that.

Faherty also used today’s issue of his newsletter to reiterate his long-held position that Vero Beach should hand its water and sewer utility over to the county. The county’s system is greatly overbuilt and could very much use Vero Beach’s customer base to help make its system more efficient. But where is the benefit to the city?

In the coming weeks, expect Faherty and other local FPL allies, including wealthy and generous political donors from Indian River Shores, to launch an all-out assault on city council incumbents Amelis Graves and Richard Winger. FPL’s supporters and local operatives will be seeking to replace Graves and Winger with challengers Laura Moss and Harry Howle, two candidates they are counting on to sell out the city’s residents, taxpayers and electric customers.