COMMENATRY

Note: During the current election cycle, FPL has made more than $4.5 million in political contributions. 

MARK SCHUMANN

Much as reality TV star Donald Trump is now out on the campaign trial promising to “win, win, win,” Vero Beach City Councilman Harry Howle, as a candidate last fall, promised to “sell, sell, sell.”  With the death this week of State Rep. Debbie Mayfield’s bill designed to supposedly “help Vero Bech exit its contracts with the Florida Municipal Power Agency,” Howle is in the precarious position of not being able to deliver on his promise.

When Howle ends his two-year term on the Council in the fall of 2017, Vero Beach will still own and operate Vero Electric. There will be no sale, at least not in the near-term, and certainly not under the terms of the contract hastily put before voters in 2013.

Howle assured the public a vote for him would lead to success in a two-front assault on any and all impediments to selling Vero Electric to Florida Power & Light. Howle’s promise was to seek help from the Florida Legislature and, if necessary, to sue the Florida Municipal Power Agency.

Largely because Mayfield’s  Glenn-Heran-inspired notion of a “willing buyer and a willing seller” makes no sense in the real world of public power, her bill ran into opposition from those members of the Florida Legislature who are still interested in only passing laws that make for good public policy.

Even FPL’s generous campaign contributions were not enough to persuade the legislators to pass Mayfield’s nonsensical bill. FPL’s influence was enough, though, to gain the support of State Senator Wilton Simpson. Simpson, who sponsored Mayfield’s bill in the Senate, attended the NextEra Energy Resources 250 race in Daytona last Saturday as the special guest of FPL C.E.O. Eric Silagy. Speaking before a Senate Communication, Energy and Public Utilities Committee this week, Simpson said that if the current bill is not passed, he would introduce still stronger legislation aimed at tightening regulation on the FMPA.

Meanwhile, Mayfield’s bill has apparently died in the Florida House of Representatives.

On the litigation front, Indian River County and the Town of Indian River Shores have already spent/wasted more than $1 million dollars seeking to force Vero Beach to abandon its out-of-city customers. The County got no help from the Florida Public Service Commission, and has appealed that decision to the Florida Supreme Court. Oral arguments before the court last December did not go well for the County. Court watchers are not optimistic of a final ruling in the County’s favor.

Three of four counts in a lawsuit brought by the Shores were dismissed by Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Cox. Shores’ lawyers turned next to the PSC, which is expected to issue a ruling next week affirming the state regulatory board’s sole and exclusive authority to determine electric utility service territories.

Though the $1 million Indian River Shores and the County have squandered in legal fees does not equal the $2 million the Carroll-Fletcher-Turner City Council spent negotiating a flawed contract with FPL, it is still a lot of money, money that could have been saved or put to good use in other ways. In the face of these expensive legal setbacks, will Howle now propose suing the FMPA directly? As Trump would Tweet, “BAD IDEA!”

When all else fails, perhaps Howle, his political patron, Pilar Turner, and their supporters outside the City of Vero Beach, namely the members of the Indian River County Commission and the Indian River Shores Town Council, will finally be willing to work with Vero Beach officials to encourage and support efforts to run Vero Electric as efficiently as possible. As much as these ten egotistical white men don’t like it, the ultimate solution, God forbid, may be collaboration and compromise.