Shores’ lawyers also working for FPL
COMMENTARY
“Interestingly, and probably not coincidentally, the Radey Law Firm has as its primary client Florida Power & Light. One has to wonder if FPL is using the Shores as its battering ram, and in the process managing to get Shores taxpayers to pick up the cost ot its combative approach to growing profits by forcibly acquiring customers from municipal utilities.”
“Connecting the dots, from FPL the Radey Law Firm to Indian River Shores, it seems reasonably to conclude the strategy is to keep the pressure on the current Vero Beach City Council in hopes of defeating Mayor Richard Winger and Councilwoman Amelia Graves in November.”
MARK SCHUMANN
Last Friday morning, in a special call meeting that lasted no more than five minutes, three members of the Indian River Shores Town Council, Gerry Weick, Michael Ochsner and Tom Slater, cast votes that could prove to be the most expensive in the Town’s history. (Shores Mayor Brian Barefoot and Councilman Richard Haverland were absent from the meeting.)
The same day the Shores Town Council asserted the power to established itself as a utility authority, Town Manager Robert Stabe wrote a letter to Vero Beach City Manager Jim O’Connor rejecting Vero Beach’s offer to seek, either through court order or through special legislation, PSC review of and approval of Vero Electric’s rates.
Local utility activists and State Rep. Debbie Mayfield have long contended rates of municipal utilities, such as Vero Electric, should be subject to PSC review and approval. Shores leaders, though, are clearly going their own way.
In claiming authority to dictate the rates Vero Electric can charge Shores residents, the Shores Town Council has set a course that will likely lead to yet another lengthly and expensive lawsuit, this one far more complex and expensive than the Town’s current lawsuit against Vero Beach. In that case, Shores officials are asserting authority superior to that of the Florida Public Service Commission’s in designating utility service territories.
The ordinance, approved by the Shores Town Council last week, will only become effective if and when the current electric utility franchise agreement between the Shores and Vero Beach expires in 2016. Stabe wrote, “…if the City is going to demand the right to serve within the Town after the expiration of the Franchise, the Town intends to regulate the City’s rates in a fair and lawful manner pursuant to the Ordinance.”
Implicit in Stabe’s statement is the assumption that the Town will lose its current legal effort to force Vero Beach to abandon its Shores customers in 2016. Vero Beach leaders contend Vero Electric’s right and responsibility to serve its Shores customers is conferred by the authority of the PSC, which is charged by state law with establishing electric service territories. The PSC has sided with Vero Beach, arguing before the court that state law grants the PSC “exclusive and superior authority” over electric utility service territories.
The County has mounted a similar challenge to the PSC’s authority. That case is now before the Florida Supreme Court. The PSC and every major utility in the state has sided with Vero Beach and against the County.
Casting on the table what he seems to think is a trump card, Stabe noted in his letter to O’Connor that the Shores is being advised by a former chairman of the PSC. The former PSC commissioner to whom Stabe referred is Susan Clark, and attorney and partner with the Radey Law Firm.
Interestingly, and probably not coincidentally, the Radey Law Firm has as its primary client Florida Power & Light. One has to wonder if FPL is using the Shores as its battering ram, and in the process managing to get Shores taxpayers to pick up the cost of its combative approach to growing profits by forcibly acquiring customers from municipal utilities.
Almost immediately after ending her service as a regulator with the PSC, Clark went to work as a contract attorney and lobbyist for FPL. By state law, Clark had to wait two years before officially representing FPL, but she began right away attending meeting, taking notes, and wrapping her mind around how best to represent the interests, not of the electric consumers, but of FPL, the state’s largest investor-owned utility.
Clark’s work for FPL is hardly the first example of a cozy relationship between a state regulators and the utility giant. The following appeared in a 2009 story by Miami Herald reporter Mary Ellen Klas.
“In May, PSC Director of Strategic Affairs Ryder Rudd attended a Kentucky Derby party at the home of FPL vice president Ed Tancer. When the Herald/Times called Rudd in August, he acknowledged attending the party. The PSC then removed him from FPL cases. He resigned last week.
“Rudd was also among PSC staff members who received e-mail from FPL attorney Natalie Smith, seeking private BlackBerry messaging codes. The codes, known as PINs, allow BlackBerry users to communicate directly with each other, bypassing the state’s e-mail server and a paper trail.
“Records show that at least three other staffers provided their PINs to Smith. Bass, Edgar’s aide, even gave the FPL attorney Edgar’s PIN.”
In a report on the PSC’s hiring of Braulio Baez, one of its own, to be the agency’s execute director, Klas wrote, “Baez agreed to pay a $1,169 fine in 2007 after the Ethics Commission found that he accepted a dinner from Florida Power & Light contract lawyer Susan Clark. When billed $30 for the event, Baez paid it, even though it cost $174 per person.”
The following excerpt from a 2009 story by Klas is also illustrative of Clark’s close relationship with FPL.
“After taking the Public Service Commission to court to keep its executive pay confidential, Florida Power & Light agreed to halve the amount of executive salaries and bonuses paid for by its electric customers.
“The salary decision was the second major concession FPL made on Wednesday, as hearings resumed on its request to raise rates by $1.3 billion a year — or 30 percent — starting in 2010. The company also agreed customers should not have to pay for its corporate jets and helicopters for two years, a reduction of about $15 million, reducing the total requested increase by about $52 million to $1.25 billion.
“The company said it will reduce the amount of executive salaries that comes from electric bills from $72 million to $37 million and rely on shareholders earnings to pay for the salary and aviation costs in 2010 and 2011.
“FPL attorney Susan Clark said the salaries “represent only a small fraction of FPL’s overall rate request, and we’re concerned that they have the potential to become a very time-consuming distraction.”
This well documented effort by an FPL staffer to circumvent Florida’s open government laws raises questions about how FPL might now be taking advantage of attorney-cleint privilege to work through the Radey Law Firm to advise, if not direct Shores officials.
It is difficult to understand why the Shores Town Council would pass an ordinance now that will only be go into effect if the Town looses its lawsuit against Vero Beach — unless, that is, one factor’s in FPL’s claim to have some “creative ideas” for moving the sale forward.
Connecting the dots, from FPL to the Radey Law Firm to Indian River Shores, it seems reasonably to conclude the strategy is to keep the pressure on the current Vero Beach City Council in hopes of defeating Mayor Richard Winger and Councilwoman Amelia Graves in November. With a new council majority amenable to whatever FPL is peddling, a sell-off of Vero Electric’s Indian River Shores customers seems all but certain.
A sale of the Shores customer base would lead higher rates for the remainder of Vero Electric’s customers, but even that development would benefit FPL, which seem determined to acquire Vero Electric as a first step in a larger plan to expand its customers base through the acquisition of municipal utilities. (See: FPL president tells investors Gov. Scott is urging other municipal utilities to sell to FPL)
Related reports by Miami Herald, Tampa Bay Times and Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel:
FPL refuses to tell state which former regulators work for the utility
FPL hires former state regulators
Power Play: Political Influence of Florida’s Top Energy Corporations
Indian River Guardian 