COMMENTARY
MARK SCHUMANN
There are several reasons why a sell-off of Vero Electric’s Indian River Shores customers would lead to higher rates for everyone else.
Shores customers represent nine percent of Vero Electric’s total residential customer base, yet collectively they consume more than 14 percent of the residential power sold by Vero Electric. Further, because Shores customers use 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 sell-off 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 would have to pay more to cover fixed costs.
Further, Vero Electric’s remaining customers would assume the portion of Vero Electric’s contingent liabilities now shared by Shores customers. 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 responsible for fulfilling obligations made on behalf of their wealthy neighbors to the north.
Indian River Guardian 
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE , VOTE FOR BRIAN HEADY, KOWLE OR MOSS. IT IS TIME TO STRAIGHTEN OUT THE MESS THAT THE CITY IS IN, GET RID OF THE PROBLEMS, THEY WILL ONLY GET WORSE IF THE ELECTRIC COMPANY IS RETAINED. YOUR CONTRACTS GO FROM THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE. MAKE A DIFFERENCE, BE AN ACTIVIST AND STOP PUTTING UP WITH “AMATEURS” RUNNING YOUR BEAUTIFUL CITY!
Not worth a real reply to this Indian River Shores resident
Larry when are you going to get it thru your head that FPL can’t buy Vero Beach electric not matter who is in office. Rules of Etiquette prevent me from further comments about certain candidates.
Dear Jeanette, why didn’t you speak up three years ago when your city council members, and future candidates for office were all “hell bent” on selling to FP&L. If the City keeps on tying themselves up in contracts that “tortures” their customers, “from the pan into the fire”, perhaps I can’t get it through my head because it is so stupid and unbelievable!
Since the sale is dead,dead, dead why keep up wasting time and internet space. Over and Out.
Larry, if you actually believe Howle and Moss will be able to conclude the sale of Vero Electric, then you must also believe Donald Trump will be successful in forcing the Mexican government to pay the cost of building a wall along the border between the U.S. and Mexico. It’s NOT going to happen.
Or, are you encouraging Vero Beach voters to support Howle and Moss because you are confident they will, in favor of the Shores (where you live), join Pilar Turner in selling out the interests of the citizens and residents of Vero Beach and the customers of Vero Electric.
Come election day, you may find the people of Vero Beach are a lot smarter than you take them to be.
When candidate Moss says we have to get along with our neighbors,what she really means is SELL OUT to Indian River Shores and she knows or should know that it will cost Every Vero ratepayer more. The rumor persists that Charlie Wilson is instrumental in her council bid, but must remain behind the scenes.
Mark, if the residents of Vero were so smart in the first place the City would never be in this mess. It is not a “sell out” to the Shores, it is in fact stopping the theft of their dollars by charging 30+ % higher than FP&L rates. You distinguish us as the as the “loaded” beach residents that should be contributing to Vero’s general fund, well it is time that all of you wake up and realize that charity starts in the home, certainly not in Indian River Shores! We need a change, and it is not in a “whooping” savings of pennies a month in our electric bill. Yes, VOTE FOR BRIAN HEADY, KOWLE OR MOSS, let us not talk about “Heritage” because the electric blunders are a part of that, and let’s really reduce the electric rates, not by nickels and pennies, but by real percentages like 20-40 percent. My choice is based on the real future of “beautiful Vero,Heady, Kowle or Moss!
Yeah ,charity begins at home , so don’t ask me to pay Indian River Shores fair share of the bills. Thirty percent is way off the mark. IRS will pay more than a million in legal fees before they throw in the towel . PS, I have a box of tissues that i use to dry my tears when I read what the SUNSHINE BOYS and others have to say.