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FPL gives details of potential lease at Vero Beach town hall meeting

VERO BEACH — Florida Power and Light representatives put talks about a sale of the Vero Beach electric utility on slightly more solid footing Tuesday as they revealed more details of their offer to buy.

FPL Spokesman Ryan Fair said FPL would pay $1 million per year to the City of Vero Beach to lease the property under the power plant. Fair also said FPL’s timeline to complete $7.5 million in transmission upgrades to the Vero Beach system and $17 million in upgrades to the FPL system could be completed by 2016 if things on the front end of the process move along by the end of 2011.

Fair said FPL woulc move the substation located at the power plant at FPL’s own estimated cost of $5 to $6 million and then FPL would decommission the power plant, hopefully by 2017.

The public had been asking for these details prior to making a decision about how to vote on the referendum on the November ballot, which if successful, would give the city the power to lease the power plant property.

The town hall meeting lasted nearly three hours, with dozens of people speaking for and against passage of the referendum and some just asking questions of Vero staff, FPL staff and the council.

In accordance with a memo issued by Vero Beach City Attorney Wayne Coment, the five council members were precluded from stating their personal positions on the referendum, as the city is barred from expending public dollars to advocate a position on the ballot question.

Former Vero Beach Mayor Warren Winchester had planned to make a presentation similar to one he gave last week at a meeting he hosted, but instead Winchester took his flip charts and walked out saying the city had violated the law by allowing FPL to make a presentation during the public comment section of the meeting.

The next event related to the November election will be a candidate forum sponsored by television station TV10 at 5 p.m. Thursday at the Bethel Creek House, 4405 Highway A1A, Vero Beach. The event is open to the pubic and will be taped and aired on TV10 all weekend. Talk show host Marcia Littlejohn will moderate that forum.

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