Editor’s note: It was Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran who reportedly used a lobbyist as a conduit to deliver a threat to Florida Municipal Power Agency leaders that they needed to find a way to make it possible for Florida Power and Light to buy Vero Electric – or else.  It appears that in order to first buy Vero Electric, FPL had to take a significant investment position in the political franchise that is Richard Corcoran. 

Locally, Vero Beach City Council candidates Harry Howle and Val Zudans are being supported by a political action committee that received all of its $50,000 in funds directly from FPL. The PAC is currently flooding local media and mail boxes with misleading advertising greatly exaggerating the savings and benefits to come from the sale of Vero Electric to FPL. 

If the contract between the City and FPL is to be signed before the Nov. 7 municipal election, as FPL quislings Harry Howle, Laura Moss and Lange Sykes have pledged to do, then why is FPL spending big money to control the outcome of yet another Vero Beach municipal election? The answer may be found in looking back to the spring of 2013, when FPL asked the Council to agree to changes to the previous purchase and sale agreement. By FPL’s own admission, those contract changes would have cost the public $26 million. Perhaps what FPL is driving for is a solid Council majority that will follow their every directive as the utility giant takes over Vero Electric. 

MITCH PERRY/FLORIDA POLITICS

While GOP gubernatorial rivals Jack Latvala and Adam Putnam feud over campaign contributions from investor-owned utilities, Richard Corcoran is watching from the sidelines.

As reported by FloridaPolitics last week, Agriculture Commissioner Putnam’s political committee has received nearly $800,000 from the utilities, and another $1.8 million to political committees that may have been re-directed to him. Continue reading…