VERO BEACH — With a Dec. 31 expiration date on Florida Power and Light’s April 4 Letter of Intent to buy the Vero electric utility, the Vero Beach City Council voted to give themselves until March 31 to hammer out a contract.
The item was not on the published agenda, but it was brought up by Councilwoman Tracy Carroll during an update by City Manager Jim O’Connor on the FPL deal.
Vice Mayor Craig Fletcher seconded Carroll’s motion and Mayor Pilar Turner voted with them. Councilmen Jay Kramer and Dick Winger voted against extending the Letter of Intent because it contains an exclusivity clause.
Turner said extending the Letter of Intent without the exclusivity would be a “distraction from the process.”
“Other bidding would be a distraction,” said Kramer, who has pushed for the city to try to attract other potential buyers, despite the fact that none of the Florida utilities the city approached followed through on opening up talks with Vero.
FPL representatives Amy Brunjes and Ryan Fair were present at the meeting as observers, but FPL had not formally asked the Board for the extension.
Acting City Attorney Wayne Coment said he would get with FPL’s attorneys and draft an addendum to the Letter of Intent. Coment said he would present the document to Mayor Turner for her signature.
As part of his FPL update, O’Connor said the city’s transactional attorneys are working to extricate the city from its pending electric contracts and cooperative agreements. O’Connor said the attorneys have met with the Orlando Utilities Commission and with the Florida Municipal Power Agency and that Edwards Wildman and their subcontractor engineers are in the process of drafting proposals to both the OUC and FMPA.
“That way we would have some value that we can place on those power entitlements with those two entities,” O’Connor said.
He said the city is also working on navigating the many easements that criss-cross property currently used for the utility assets. O’Connor said there are “too many easements” and those arrangements will need to be simplified prior to a transfer to FPL.
“Overall, the process is going very well and we are building momentum,” he said.