VERO BEACH — Four Vero Beach City Council candidates vying for two seats met together on stage for the first time Tuesday night at the Indian River County Tea Party candidate forum.
The event, held at the Vero Beach High School Performing Arts Center and broadcast live on AM radio, offered a sampling of the positions of incumbents Councilman Brian Heady and Councilwoman Tracy Carroll and the challengers, former Councilman Ken Daige and newcomer Dick Winger of the city’s Finance Commission.
Heady, though his rhetoric has been somewhat softened by two years on the dais, still delivers a message of transparent government, selling the electric utility and getting the size and scope of the Vero Beach city staff under control.
Joking that he’s run for office many times, Heady admitted that he’s never run for re-election, but he was not shy about asking for votes.
“Don’t vote on what I say, vote on what I did,” Heady said, pointing out that he feels he’s worked to control the size of government. “When you made a choice that you were ready for Heady, that’s what you got. I hope that you’re ready for two more years.”
On the other hand, Daige seemed reluctant to defend his previous three years on the council or to answer questions about actions of councils on which he served.
Several times, moderator Toby Hill of the Tea Party had to press Daige to answer the question asked. Hill also chastised Daige for reading off of “talking points” in written notes he’d brought to the forum instead of answering direct questions.
“I want all the details on the table,” Daige said several times in response to various questions. He emphasized that many burning issues, in his opinion, have still gone unanswered, including the rationale behind the up to $100 million offer initially floated in FPL’s April Letter of Intent to Vero.
In regard to a referendum on the sale, Daige said, “Based on the lack of information at this time, I cannot support” a ballot initiative empowering the City Council to sell the utility.
Carroll said, as she did in her 2010 run for council, that she represents the businesses and families struggling to make it in Vero despite high utility bills.
Carroll’s formerly bombastic platform about selling the electric utility to Florida Power and Light has seemed to fall prey somewhat to the pressure from the opponents of the sale.
Carroll, though she’s clearly still in favor of getting Vero out of the electric business, now talks about being careful to get all the information and extricate the city from nine outstanding contracts which govern aspects of the electric system. Carroll estimated that process could take two to three years.
“I am for a sale if we can find a final number that is of benefit to the City of Vero Beach,” Carroll said.
When comments about getting a “fair price” for the electric utility came up, Winger proudly took credit for originating the concept of a “fair price” and said he was glad to see his idea being echoed by his opponents.
The statement raised the eyebrows of the other three candidates on the panel, who have, in public statements, advocated getting a fair price for the utility.
“We need to get $160 million plus any penalties,” Winger said, quanitifying his idea of a “fair price” based upon a report generated by GAI Consultants, the firm which appraised the utility at close to $200 million.
Winger, who holds a degree in theoretical economics, sprinkled dollar figures and statistics throughout his responses and had to correct himself as he got some numbers wrong.
Winger, who holds a degree in theoretical economics, sprinked dollar figures and statistics throughout his responses and had to correct himself as he got some of the numbers very wrong.
He quoted the city’s pension liability at $53 million and then went back to say that it’s $11 million for the electric utility, but that the debt of the utiity is $53 million.
What Winger failed to ultimately do was to relay the correct information. The electric utility’s pension liability — which FPL would assume in a sale — has been estimated at $14 million. The City of Vero Beach pension liability was estimated recently to be $34.8 million. The $11 million figure Winger cited corresponds with the pension liability of the city’s water-sewer utility, not the electric utility and definitely not the city as a whole.
Where Winger might have fallen down the worst with the Tea Party group was in his comments about not wanting to cut the Vero Beach city staff and about finding ways to “increase revenues.”
The main tenets of the Tea Party organization center around lower taxes and smaller government.
“While I certainly agree that we need to have fewer employees, I think we should do it evolutionarily, not to put people out on the street,” Winger said.
Carroll cited U.S. Census statistics that 12,785 adults live in the City of Vero Beach, as compared to the city’s 492 full- and part-time employees.
“That’s one employee for every 26 residents,” Carroll said, adding that is a staffing level the taxpayers “cannot continue to fund.”
Carroll also pointed out that only 15 percent of city employees and 15 percent of upper management in the city actually live within the city limits and would be affected in their tax bills and quality of life by the major decisions set before the Vero Beach City Council right now.
The next public matchup of the four candidates is scheduled for the Indian River Taxpayers Association luncheon on Oct. 12 at Joey’s Bistro in Vero Beach.
