VERO BEACH — The City Council today directed staff to implement a moratorium on electric shut-offs through the end of December to give customers earnestly trying to pay their bills a chance to catch up and not be in the dark over the holidays.
City Manager Jim Gabbard and Acting Electric Utility Director John Lee have been tasked with figuring out how to postpone shut-offs — some of which were scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday — and get past due customers to come up with at least 50 percent of their overdue balances to keep their power on. This measure was in response to ratepayers complaining about the cumulative affect on their pocketbooks of going-on six months of soaring electric rates due to a bad hedge on fuel, legal fees and penalties related to the city’s contractual relationship with the Florida Metropolitan Power Agency.
Though Lee resisted the idea, saying that people will still keep getting electric bills and their debt to the city will mount despite the moratorium, newly elected Councilman Brian Heady — the self-proclaimed voice of the people — insisted that the city do something immediately that would provide relief to rate-weary customers until the new, promised lower fuel costs kick in in early 2010.
“The last few months, the bills have been extraordinarily high and we’ve been told that the new contract will reduce the rates dramatically,” Heady said. “So that recurring nature won’t be a problem because we’ve been told the bills will go way down.”
Heady said he hopes the city can hold off until the bills do go down and then let customers pay a portion of their past due bills each month until they’re fully caught up.
Council members noted that, after Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne, the city suspended shut-offs for 60 days. Councilman Tom White said that the utility crisis the city has seen over the summer is just as serious financially as the situation residents were in after the hurricanes.
Anyone wishing to make payment arrangements should call the City of Vero Beach Utilities customer service department at (772)978-5100.
