COMMENTARY
LYNNE LARKIN
Yesterday’s TCPalm editorial from their Community Editor has Larry Reisman throwing up his hands in dismay that a fake attempt to discredit municipal utilities – a bill written by FPL and filed by their toady Debbie Mayfield – did not succeed in the Florida legislature. “Landagoshin! There’s closed-door hijinks agoin’ on in Tall’ee!!” Stop the presses!! Dog bites man!
Dear Larry, Where have you been, my friend?
This is the gang that demands a sunshine law for everyone but themselves. Who accept jobs to which they need not show up, get paid for books that don’t sell, and that buy houses that lobbyists buy back from them for triple the original price. Magic Kingdom, indeed. TCPalm obviously notes the riches that come to friends of the legislature such as Pruitt and Thrasher. They should recall those facts when touting the “saintly” unpaid lobbyist Glenn Heran. He isn’t forced to disclose any favors done for him in exchange for providing uninformed and unsupported “studies” about the utility business that would be at home on a Donald Trump fact sheet.
Of course, the FMPA group of city utility concerns is run by the city members, subject to those open records laws, and audited/scrutinized annually, if not more often, by its own member cities and outside auditors. The cities choose their representatives to the FMPA board based on their own criteria, most choosing experts in the utility field rather than unschooled politicians that change every year. All Floridians can access the FMPA’s records.
Certainly this level of openness is good, although it does not apply to private utilities, of course. Their political expenditures, lobbying activities, budget plans, cost analyses, past and impending disasters, and most other details concerning operations, live behind the heavily guarded boardroom doors.
But our local paper, which is run from that same boardroom, is only concerned with a solution that has no problem to address. They seem decidedly unconcerned about reporting any news about FPL that does manage to see the light of day, such as large proposed rate increases, regulatory disasters, or impending legal battles.
It would appear that what TCPalm thinks is vital for the FMPA is not the least important for FPL. Because an enormous corporate monster is so much less worrisome than our states independent cities. Mmmmm-hmmm.
Myopic as some in the media have been, it would pay for the rest of us to take a wider, and more factual, view.
Editor’s note: Forty-four days ago, FPL announced plans to seek approval from the Florida Pubic Service Commission for a $1.35 billion rate hike. This news, though reported across the state, has yet to appear in the Press Journal or on TCPalm.com.
Indian River Guardian 
It is interesting that Reisman did not mention the investment Florida Power & Light makes in its lobbying efforts, or the millions of dollars FPL makes each year in political contributions. So far this year, FPL has given $4.5 million in political contributions.
A couple of years ago, then chairman of the Senate budget Committee, Sen. Joe Negron, inserted a last-minute addition to the budget providing $250,000 for an audit of the FMPA. FPL lobbied for the audit, and just a few months earlier, had contributed $50,000 to Negron.
If Reisman is to write a commentary about money in politics, why not write a balanced story, one that also reveals how FPL several years ago successfully lobbied the legislature to have two members of the Florida Public Service Commission fired and replaced with ones more favorable to FPL’s proposed rate increases.
Addressing the undue influence FPL and the state’s other large investor-owned utilities have over the PSC, the Tampa Bay Times editorial board described the regulatory board as “a confederacy of yes men and yes women.” We are not likely to ever see Reisman and his Press Journal/TCPalm colleagues using this kind of frank talk to challenge FPL. After all, they work for a publisher who is married to a FPL vice president.
At the time, FPL was seeking a $1 billion rate increase. Currently, FPL plans to seek a $1.325 billion rate increase, another relevant fact unreported by Rreisman and his colleagues at the Press Journal and TCPalm.com.
No one I know (except for one 90 year old who struggles to read) even subscribes to TC palm anymore; in Vero Beach the huge Press-Journal building has been vacated and the six or eight employees left have been moved to a tiny space by a paint store.
So the point is I don’t think many people read it anymore and their antiquated website only lets you view the first sentence of any interesting topic.
Ha Ha Ivana…you made me laugh.
Why would anyone believe what is written in the Press Journal, TC Palm or for that matter 32963 when it concerns FPL? Debbie, the disaster, Mayfield leaves much to be desired in her governmental position. Intelligent people know all about Glenn Heran and his motives.
So how come we keep getting representatives in Tally-Ho-Land that think and do in the same way? If no one is reading TC Palm/PJ or whatever, where is the misinformation source? Is it the beach news paper? Is it from Royal Palm Point area? Is it printed on yellow paper? Or maybe it is from talk radio? Online subscriptions? Maybe political organizations?
Cathy,
Since everything that has been tried and tried to complete a sale, including Tall-Ho-Land rep. Debbie Mayfield has failed, I don’t think reading all this local stuff matters. They are all in over their heads to keep this dream of selling to FPL going based on the fact that the contracts with FMPA are set in stone and cannot be broken to complete a sale.
BTW, this was a masterful piece by Lynne Larkin. It really put things in perspective.
The sale to FPL may be a dream to some gullible people, but to some sleazy politicians it is a vehicle to get themselves elected by peddling misinformation, phony statistics and outright lies. Anyone with even modest intelligence can see thru the deceit palmed off upon the public.