Christopher McVoy on our Electric Utility

Palm Beach Post
Letter to the Editor
October 29, 2012

In response to Wednesday’s editorial “Stafford over McVoy,” the needed “critical eye” for Lake Worth is the city commissioner who will ensure that the lights will still be on in Lake Worth when our current power contract expires.

To do that, the commission must select a wholesale provider, finalize a contract, initiate transmission agreements and finalize transmission contracts. This is the imperative that faces the commission at this time and one that demands critical, fact-based reasoning, so as to avoid the bad decisions and lopsided contracts of the past.

Putting the question of selling the utility on the ballot is possible, but our charter requires that the terms and conditions of a sale be presented to voters. We could never meet the deadline for a March referendum, the option proposed by what The Post called the “well-informed” Jim Stafford, my challenger.

Our Stanton coal plant and St. Lucie nuclear plant contracts have tax-free bonds that we are prohibited from selling to Florida Power & Light Co. The city of Vero Beach is faced with a $20 million to $50 million penalty to sell its Stanton contract, and possibly a greater penalty to sell its St. Lucie contract, but the sale price ($179 million) won’t necessarily cover that. The city’s own consultants estimate that Vero Beach will net only a fraction of that sale price in the end.

My immediate focus, and that of the city, is on the task before us now — choosing the best purchase contract to continue our rate reductions. My opponent has shown that he does not understand the intricacies of an issue that has financial repercussions that will send shock waves through the city for years to come. He is trying to reduce a very complex issue to the usual campaign rallying cry.

Shifting the focus from choosing the best power provider will find us all sitting in the dark 15 months from now. Buyer, and voter, beware.

CHRISTOPHER MCVOY

Lake Worth