VERO BEACH — The Vero Beach City Council Tuesday night authorized the law firm of Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP to proceed with talks that would extricate the city from nine contracts and advance a sale of the electric utility to Florida Power and Light.
The council approved a multi-phase proposal for services amounting to about $500,000, with the caveat that attorney John Igoe or one of his partners come back with a progress report once billable hours reach $200,000.
The $200,000 noted by the council is on top of the $50,000 that was initially approved for the law firm to begin work.
Councilman Dick Winger, during his first regular meeting on the dais, attempted to dilute the law firm’s authority to negotiate on behalf of the council by rearranging the scope of services.
Winger also wanted to replace Councilwoman Tracy Carroll as point person on electric issues with City Manager Jim O’Connor.
The council conceded that Igoe and his staff would follow a logical progression of negotiating the largest, stickiest obligations first, but Winger’s fellow council members flatly rejected the ousting of Carroll as point person.
“You’re going to have to live with it because that’s the way we have it,” Vice Mayor Craig Fletcher told Winger.
Councilman Jay Kramer was also shot down in efforts to bring up the need for a second referendum once the details of a sale to FPL are known and once the particulars of a lease of the power plant property are hammered out.
“I don’t believe at this point that you need another referendum,” Igoe said.
Igoe gave the council what he described as an aggressive timeline to run parallel with FPL’s expectations. That timeline estimates the date — if all goes as scheduled — of a closing on the sale at the end of 2013.
FPL had said it would need to lease the power plant property at $1 million per year for approximately five years to make needed transmission upgrades and to relocate the substation currently located at the power plant.
The money being spent on the Edwards Wildman Palmer LLC law firm is in addition to about $273,000 the city is spending on GAI Consultants and the Gray Robinson law firm related to appraisal and contract work on the electric utility.
