Reprinted from Creative Loafing
July 12th, 2010 by Brian Ries in News, Politics
At the end of last week’s Sarasota City Commission meeting, an offhanded comment by Commissioner Terry Turner illustrated some of the problems with the city’s ongoing negotiations with FPL over how electricity will flow to businesses and residents. The real question appears to be: How’s the power flowing in the negotiations?
Commissioners have a few minutes at the end of the meetings to talk about whatever they like, and Turner decided to repeat something he had heard from FPL representative Rae Dowling questioning who was in charge of the negotiations. “She said something that was troubling to me,” said Turner, “she thinks Mr. Wright is in charge of negotiations for the city.” Turner confirmed with Schef Wright — the attorney hired by the city to assist in the negotiations — that he wasn’t negotiating, but “the fact of the matter is that we have some ambiguity in the minds of FPL and some of the public.” Commissioner Susan Atwell had heard similar things from FPL representative Nick Gladding.
Get past the point that Gladding was recently appointed by Governor Crist to the Florida Energy and Climate Commission, seemingly in conflict with being paid to assist FPL in these negotiations, the real meat of the issue came next when Mayor Kelly Kirschner asked if the commissioners could hold a meeting about the negotiations outside of public view. City Attorney Robert Fournier said that would not be possible because of Florida’s Sunshine Laws. Trying to skirt pass Sunshine Laws might seem both a little nefarious and somewhat dangerous — considering the recent spate of lawsuits against local governments — but all of the commissioners seemed to support Mayor Kirschner’s attempt.
“It puts us at a disadvantage that FPL can go in one on one with commissioners, but we commissioners cant strategize and discuss as well,” explained Kirschner at the meeting, while Turner said “this is a particularly awkward time to be in that position.”
Later, I asked Kirschner why he wanted to skirt the Sunshine Laws in this case. “If you look at the communities that have tried to negotiate with FPL, they start off strong but a bunch of stuff takes place in the background,” he explained. “FPL finds weak points.” For him, it’s common sense that being able to have a discussion with his fellow commissioners about the City’s goals and tactics would be helpful, but only if FPL wasn’t able to listen in. As Turner said: “If you’re in negotiation with someone and they know everything you’re thinking and your complete strategy it gives them an advantage.”
Beyond that, a non-public meeting would allow the commission to present a unified front. “FPL’s meeting with everyone one on one and I think that is slowly biting and nipping at what would otherwise be a significant unanimous agreement on what we need to pursue,” Kirschner says. Case in point: Turner’s comment about public perception of who’s in charge of the negotiations.
I asked Turner if he suspected that FPL’s Rae Dowling was purposely fomenting trouble when she claimed not to know who was in charge of the negotiations — after all, the utility has a lot of experience dealing with negotiations like this and surely knows who has the final say. “I take people at their word,” said Turner.
