COMMENTARY

“Like “good neighbors,” to use Moss’ term, Shores leaders are only looking out for themselves and their wealthy constituents.” 

Editor’s note: Vero Electric’s Indian River Shores customers represent nine percent of the total residential customer base, yet collectively they consume more than 14 percent of the residential power sold by Vero Electric. Further, because Shores customers consume a monthly average of more than 1500 kWh of power, they pay a higher rate than the typical Vero Electric customer, who uses an average of just 950 kWh per month. (FPL also has a tiered rate structure, charging higher-volume users more per kWh.)

A Turner-Howle-Moss led selloff of the Shores customers base would cost Vero Electric as much as 20 percent of its budgeted residential revenues of approximately $47 million.  As a result, the remaining customers who have to pay more to cover fixed costs. Further, Vero Electric remaining customers would assume the portion of Vero Electric’s contingent liabilities now shared by Shores customers. 

Finally, Vero Electric has made significant, long-term contractual commitments to meet the demands of Indian River Shores’ power-hungry residents. A sell off of the Shores customers base would leave the remaining customers responsibly for fulfilling obligations made on behalf of their wealthy neighbors to the north. 

MARK SCHUMANN

With the City Council expected to approve revisions to Vero Beach’s wholesale power agreement with the Orlando Utilities Commission, Vero Electric’s rate will soon be within the average for Florida’s municipal utilities, and below rates charged by several of the state’s investor-owned utilities.

For the Indian River Shores Town Council, and others fixated on the failed effort to sell Vero Electric to Florida Power & Light, electric rates within the statewide average are simply not good enough. They want rates comparable to FPL’s, the state’s largest, and arguably most efficient utility.

How did we get to the point where some of the wealthiest people on the planet are willing to sue their neighbors and create deep divides within the community over power rates? Using the local press, and working behind the scenes, FPL operatives and allies, including Pilar Turner, Harry Howle and Laura Moss, have done a masterful job of sewing seeds of discontent.

The members of the Shores Town Council are so confident of their claimed entitlement to the lowest electric rates in the state, that they have spent more than $600,000 on a long-shot legal challenge to the Florida Public Service Commission’s authority to establish electric service territories. Given that the Shores’ case has not yet gone to trial, the total legal cost is sure to rise, and may well top $1 million dollars.

Because Vero Electric’s contractual obligations make a sale to FPL impossible at this time, Shores leaders are now pushing for a so-called partial sale.  On behalf of the Shores, FPL recently offered to pay $13 million for Vero Electric 3400 customers located within  the Town.

The problem with FPL’s offer, and with the Shores Town Council’s proposal, is that it would leave the remaining customers of Vero Electric paying higher rates. Seemingly, Shores leaders could not care less if their proposal would lead to higher rates for others.  Like “good neighbors,” to use Vero Beach City Council candidate Laura Moss’ term, Shores leaders are only looking out for themselves and their wealthy constituents.

Articulating a strange concept of what it means to be neighborly, Moss said in a forum Tuesday evening that Vero Beach leaders need to be “more neighborly.”  Given Moss’ disciplined adherence to pro-FPL talking points, and especially given her comments last night, it seems certain that, if elected, she would not defend the interests of the residents and taxpayers of Vero Beach, or of the customers of Vero Electric.

Along with fellow pro-sale, pro-FPL, pro-Indian River Shores candidate, Harry Howle, Moss last night demonstrated a limited understanding of Vero Beach’s city government. Howle and Moss are so focused on helping Shores’ leaders take advantage of the people of Vero Beach and the customers of Vero Electric that they seem to have all but ignored the fact that there is so much more to the City of Vero Beach that simply its electric utility. Like Donald Trump, Moss and Howle are day-two candidates, for they would certainly not be prepared to govern on day one.