FPL pushes its weight in South Miami elections: the attempt to destroy South Miami mayor Philip Stoddard … by gimleteye

A glaring example of corporate abuse is unfolding in a small south Florida municipality, where one of the nation's largest electric utilities is backing an effort extract a two term incumbent mayor, Philip Stoddard, who is leading the charge against two new nuclear reactors at sea level in another municipality, scarcely twenty miles away.

On a one to ten scale, what is happening in South Miami -- through a smear campaign it is directing at Mayor Philip Stoddard -- Florida Power and Light (FPL) tips the scales at a twelve.

Through carefully placed lobbyists as intermediaries and dark money channels through which sources of money are routinely scrubbed, FPL is slugging its weight in a local election in ways that can be described, simply, as shameful including telephone push polls requiring listeners to react to slander it may have invented in the first place.

Among those helping: Jorge Luis Lopez, a FPL lobbyist and long-time Miami-Dade political operative. The entities opposing Stoddard and supporting a pro-FPL slate of candidates go by benign names: "Progress for the People ECO" and "New Leadership Network". The telephone push poll enumerates issues of importance to South Miami voters and ends with "would you be more or less likely to vote for a candidate who" does something revolting.

What the push polls and efforts to stack the mayor's office and city commission deck don't disclose are the reasons why FPL wants to extract Mayor Stoddard. Money. Its money.

FPL is inching toward state approval of a plan to build two new nuclear reactors about twenty miles from South Miami. The cost, $20 billion, and promises of jobs (6,000) has politicians salivating except for a few thorny problems. Those problems manifest for FPL in the political influence of Mayor Stoddard.

Stoddard, a science professor at Florida International University, opposes the nuclear reactors at Turkey Point in Homestead, Florida. Among the chief reasons; the plan by FPL to route new high voltage power lines directly through highly populated South Florida municipalities in order to deliver power wherever and whenever it is needed, inside Florida and out of state. For good reasons, voters strongly object to new lines stretching overhead through their communities.

Mayor Stoddard is the visible leader of the opposition among other mayors and municipalities in South Florida. In 2011, he wrote and the city commission passed a resolution opposing nuclear cost recovery, the measure approved by state regulators that allows FPL to charge its customers for the "planning" of the new nuclear reactors and their permitting. FPL has generated well over $100 million a year; a potent source of hush money that keeps most of the political and economic elite in South Florida very quiet and complacent.

But not Mayor Stoddard. South Miami hired its own economist to evaluate the soundness of the FPL transmission line plan, and Mayor Stoddard then persuaded nearby municipalities, including wealthier neighbors like Coral Gables and Pinecrest, to oppose the transmission line plan preferred by FPL. He also testified four times in the state capitol, Tallahassee, against FPL with the Governor and Cabinet.

Unsurprisingly, the slate of candidates supported by the FPL says it is time to drop opposition to the FPL.

Alone, Mayor Stoddard's leadership against the transmission lines would be enough to trigger the corporate backlash and dirty tricks. But Stoddard has also taken aim against the electric utility at one of its most hallowed and time-honored deals that undergird monopolistic practices: the little-known franchise agreement with local governments.

Back in the old days, some Florida municipalities generated their own electricity for consumers. With franchise agreements, governments abandoned their production of electricity in return for a source of income. Through franchise agreements, FPL provides a valuable non-ad valorem revenue stream that can be used to bond other government needs -- in return for an exclusive monopoly.

Mayor Stoddard opposes the thirty year term of the typical franchise agreement that is coming up for renewal in South Miami. Moreover, he has undertaken to explain and to educate other municipalities why the thirty year term that is the gold standard for Florida's electrical utilities is a poor application of government policy. (For one, according to Stoddard, the franchise agreements effectively inhibit municipalities and elected officials from encouraging consumers to micro-generate their own power. The franchise agreements bar competition and also allow utilities like FPL to put in infrastructure wherever and whenever it pleases.)

The South Miami election will take place on February 11th. FPL aims to not only replace Mayor Stoddard but to turn the commission majority in its favor. On the ground operatives are distributing flyers, mailers, and questionable practices on absentee ballots have been raised with the county elections department, itself turned into a virtual fortress because so many illegal campaign activities in Miami-Dade have drawn the attention of the federal law enforcement.

The indelible stamp of big money and big power shows FPL at its most ham-handed self. If corporations are people -- then FPL is someone you don't want to know and can't live without: an oppressor the founders of this republic would have joined to expel from the colonies.

(For the record, I support Mayor Philip Stoddard. I also support nuclear power but not at sea-level at Turkey Point.)