COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

Readers of the Indian River Press Journal, Fort Pierce Tribune or Stuart News looking for information about Florida Power & Light’s proposed $1.337 billion rate increase have had to turn to sources other than their daily newspaper. News about the utility giant’s plans to hike rates has been widely reported across the state, except in the three Treasure Coast Newspapers run by publisher Bob Brunjes, whose wife in a vice president with FPL.

Nearly four months ago, in a mid-January letter from company president and C.E.O. Eric Silagy to officials at the Florida Public Service Commission, FPL reveled plans to increase rates an average of $13 a year .

Though there would appear to be a news blackout on the rate increase at Treasure Coast Newspapers, opinion editor, Eve Samples, did slip a few words about it into the end of a mid-April column she wrote about Silagy’s views on the circus that has become the presidential primaries.

Samples wrote, “Also during the board meeting, Silagy defended FPL’s proposed rate increase – which would be phased in starting in 2017 and ultimately increase the typical residential customer’s bill by about $13 a month.”

Sample’s story was based on yet another meeting Silagy had with the Treasure Coast Newspapers’ editorial board.

Reading Sample’s column, with the relevant news tucked under her reporting Silagy’s politics views, reminds me of an episode of Garrison Keillor’s Prairie  Home Companion. Local newspaper editor, Harold Star, who owns and published the weekly  Herald Star, wrote a story about a contentious meeting of the Lake Wobegon School Board. Scores of parents were upset and angry about an impressionist painting on the frontispiece of the new high school French language textbook. To them, it appeared to be a painting of a nude woman. “Burn these books,” the angry crowd of parents demanded.

The last line of Star’s story read, “And text books were also discussed.”

…and a billion dollar rate increase was also discussed.

Editor’s note: Though widely reported across the state, Treasure Coast Newspapers, whose publisher is married to an FPL vice president, has yet to report on the utility giant’s proposed rate increase. Responding to an email from a disgruntled reader, Treasure Coast Newspapers editor, Mark Tomasik, wrote, “I stand behind our body of work on this issue. We have covered the topic independently longer and more comprehensively than anyone else. We have done so without any agenda.”