COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

Press Journal opinion columnist and community news editor, Larry Reisman, recently suggested controversial issues can be avoided, if everyone would simply agree with him. End of discussion.

That Reisman would offer a simplistic solution for avoiding what he considers “controversial” issues – such as the Twin Pairs and the proposed power sale – should come as no surprise. What is both surprising, and disappointing, is that Reisman continues to stoke controversy by misleading his readers with his truly simple-minded insistence that selling Vero Beach’s electric utility to Florida Power & Light is within the power and authority of the Vero Beach City Council.

Regarding the proposed sale of Vero Electric to FPL, Reisman recently wrote, “It’s time to put that issue to bed – it’s been discussed for more than 40 years — and get it sold.”

…and get is sold? What could Reisman possibly be thinking? Or, more to the point, is he thinking?

Given FPL’s proposed $1.325 billion rate increase, a plan which has yet to be reported by Reisman or any of his pro-FPL colleagues at the Press Journal, and considering Vero Beach’s continued progress in reducing rates, the rational for selling may well be evaporating. But the shifting cost-benefit calculations are almost beside the point.

The undeniable truth, the truth Reisman will not accept, is the fact that Vero Beach has significant, long-term investments in power generating assets that are so underwater financially not even FPL is willing or able to pay what it would cost to unburden Vero Beach of its contractual obligations to the Florida Municipal Power Agency and its bondholders.

Reisman would have his readers believe the animus now permeating Vero Beach politics is all about the power sale. He is missing the point and the real story, for the push to sell Vero Electric, proposals to hand over to the County Vero Beach’s well-run and profitable water and sewer utility, attempts to gut municipal services, and the constant pressure to force Vero Beach to go the way of the County in deregulating transient boarding houses are not about seeking lower rates, or greater efficiency, or better government.

Quite simply, Vero Beach is squarely in the crosshairs of the limited government debate. Radical, fundamentalist Libertarians like Pilar Turner and Harry Howle and their wealthy supporters have in Reisman a true friend and a strong ally – one with access to enough ink and paper to serve as an effective propagandist for those who worship at the alter of so-called limited government.