INDIAN RIVER SHORES — The Indian River Shores Town Council last week temporarily put off passing an ordinance that would expand the Town’s duties to include regulating electric rates, should the Shores not find a way to get Florida Power and Light as its provider by November 2016 when its franchise with Vero electric expires.
The ordinance in question would task the Shores Town Council with acting in the role of electric rate regulator and would require any electric provider not already regulated by the Florida Public Service Commission to mount periodic rate cases to the Shores Council.
FPL already comes under the PSC umbrella, so if the Town manages to extricate itself from Vero’s electric system in court and signs on with FPL, the ordinance would be unnecessary.
“This ordinance would only go into effect in 2016 if we still have Vero Beach as our electric provider,” Mayor Brian Barefoot said.
Citing the fact that the Town has scheduled a mediation session with Vero Beach and mediator Carlos Alvarez for May 1 in a last-ditch attempt to avoid a jury trial, Barefoot said he’d like to keep the ordinance ready to go but put off voting on it until after the May session.
“We’ve got plenty of time to pass this ordinance,” Barefoot said. “I would just as soon see this as something that could be raised in our mediation session with the city,” Barefoot said, adding, “No one should interpret this as that we’re any less committed to putting this into play.”
Lead utilities attorney Bruce May and the Town’s hired rate consultant Terry Deason – a former chairman of the PSC – recommended the Shores prepare an ordinance exercising its home-rule right to regulate rates.
Town officials have said the measure would serve as a back-up plan in the worst-case scenario that the Shores loses its circuit court lawsuit and can’t get out of Vero’s territory when its 30- year deal concludes in November 2016.
Barefoot also said he expects to meet with his Vero counterpart, Mayor Dick Winger, sometime soon and hopes some progress can be made there.
In late February, the Shores Council agreed to extend the “options review” period in the lawsuit mediation until May 15 to give Vero a chance to come up with some concrete proposals to get electric rates down. The previous cooling-off period had been scheduled to end on March 2 if not extended.
Vero has undertaken a rate sufficiency study and is in the process of analyzing several different options for reducing rates, which include mothballing its Big Blue power plant.
The shuttering of Big Blue would not save much on annual operating or power costs in the short term, but it would shield Vero from increasing and exorbitant maintenance and repair costs on the aging generation plant.
The Vero Beach City Council also voted last month to send attorney Robert Scheffel “Schef” Wright to negotiate with Orlando Utilities Commission officials in efforts to get better terms on a wholesale power contract signed in 2008. The OUC would also supply peak-demand power to replace electricity that is currently generated at the Vero power plant.
Barefoot encouraged all his fellow council members to attend the mediation session scheduled for 9 a.m. May 1 at the Indian River Shores Community Center.
