VERO BEACH — Vero Beach transactional attorney John Igoe announced Thursday that a deal has been struck which will allow a sale of the Vero Beach Electric Utility to Florida Power and Light to go through, if the city council approves.
“We can now make the deal happen,” Igoe said.
Igoe told the council that FPL increased its $100 million offer by $15 million and agreed to pay for and receive the city’s power entitlements from the Florida Municipal Power Agency for the first three years after the sale. Igoe also said the Orlando Utilties Commission will ultimately take over those FMPA assets and will cancel the city’s 20-year power agreement for a penalty of $20 million.
Both Igoe and City Manager Jim O’Connor said that the solution required a total partnership among FPL, OUC, FMPA and the city.
FPL would also take over the city’s $14 million in unfunded pension liabilities for the 112 electric employees and will provide jobs for those employees for two years. Igoe said the negotiating team is looking at a potential closing date for the sale of January 2014.
As was stated in the original draft purchase agreement released in January, FPL will pay to decommission the power plant and to move a substation off the riverfront.
“This is just the first mountain to get over,” O’Connor said. “The rest of these are going to be negotiable issues.”
O’Connor said he thought the attorneys and staff could get a memorandum of understanding prepared by Sept. 4, to the city Utilities Commission by Sept. 11 and to the council for approval on Sept. 18.
If that memorandum did emerge on Sept. 4, that would be exactly 17 months after the April 4, 2011 letter of intent was received from FPL, which sparked negotiations about the sale.
Former mayor Jay Kramer and Councilman Dick Winger urged the council and city residents to be very skeptical of the deal. Winger said he would be “uncomfortable” with going forward on that timeline, that there needs to be a complete look at what the city would look like after a sale.
The discussion is still going on and being televised and live streamed at www.covb.org.
This story will be updated as more information is available.
