FMPA, after about ten minutes, should have been asked immediately to end its presentation Tuesday night. Actually there was NO back-up and there was no Power Point. Not one person on the Commission had received a copy of the presentation and therefore could not really ask any questions based on it. Even ten minutes was too long for me to listen to the con, which lasted 45 minutes, and his choke hold that was getting tighter around the neck of the City of Lake Worth. You could almost feel that noose, crunching bones, as Fred Bryant spoke.Mr. Bryant, a lawyer for 40 years and now for the past 11 years, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel for FMPA, has his smooth and soft spoken act down to perfection while he tried to convince the Commission that they were in for BIG costs and that our electric bills were going to go way up. He knows that he has 5 years to turn the Commission around and what better way to start doing that then by suggesting that big bucks will be going down the tubes (having to pay for nuclear and then not using it) unless the Commission changes its mind. He also knows that he will have political changes on the Dais that might go his way. He and FMPA started to play hard-ball in January and the Commission didn't yell loud enough then.
So now, FMPA has decided that it wants to buy into the two nuclear reactors in Levy County that are on the drawing board. Members of the FMPA will be paying into this for 7 to 9 years before the reactors would even be finished and who knows for how many years members would be paying on the bond. He never once said why they thought nuclear was the way to go and why FMPA had decided upon this direction. His presence was only to scare and intimidate and to put us in a squeeze. There was no need to have a printed presentation. That was not his purpose. He made his point loud and clear...sort of like a vindictive spouse in a divorce situation. Next we will be hearing how Sue Hersey's report is outdated.
Even as he spoke, the cost shot up by $1 billion to $18 billion dollars. Mr. Bryant is very well aware that we have exited the All Requirements of FMPA. Once we gave notice to exit FMPA, it stuck us with a $60,000 a month bill for a natural gas line. The gas line runs from the Turnpike to our power plant. He even tried to console the Commission by saying that he didn’t agree to that decision. Ah gee, Mr. Bryant, nice guy.
Let’s get another attorney to protect our interests and see if we can accelerate the exit with FMPA. The question now is, will the Commission start yelling loud enough to stop FMPA from any more bone crunching and pushing us further into debt.After FMPA's actions Tuesday night, I would rather see the City forget about any sort of a cost/benefit analysis pertaining to them and nuclear...forget about doing anything further with FMPA....seek legal advice....get out early. Oh, and if they step one foot into our City, unless they are spending money in our downtown, have Cpt. Silva escort them out.
