Michael Mayo: FPL executive pay jolts the outrage meter

Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo has been doing some further reading into executive pay levels at FPL ... and he's outraged.

In the face of a 30% base-rate hike request, he's outraged at FPL executives' shameless "country club memberships, home security systems, leased vehicles and gasoline, even flights and lodging for an annual physical."

FPL's response? Spokesperson Jackie Anderson resonded to a query from Mayo that given record profits last year the executives' perquisites were "reasonable, appropriate and in line with the needs of the business."

Huh?!?!?!?

Want to read more? Take your blood-pressure medicine first, then sit down at your computer screen to read Michael Mayo's full column online, here.

PSC should just say No to FPL rate-hike request: Miami Herald editorial

The Miami Herald editorial this morning took on FPL and the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) in its editorial this morning condemning the FPL request for a billion-dollar rate hike request, to begin January 2010:

The Public Service Commission should emphatically deny the request, though not for the sheer audacity of FPL's timing. The request should be rejected because it isn't warranted -- and because it is asking too much of too many who have too little.

If granted, the rate increase would push FPL's monthly base rate to $51.71 from $39.31. This is what FPL gets before adding other charges for taxes, fuel conservation, franchise fees, customer charges, capacity payment, environmental charges, etc.

What's more, the Herald challenged FPL's misinformation about whether or not the huge rate-hike would result in higher electric bills:

Customers could actually end up with lower bills even with the rate hike once the improvements take effect and are combined with current and projected lower costs for fuel, FPL says. This is, in fact, true, although not very likely. As they say in car-mileage commercials, ``Actual results may vary.''

FPL was kind enough to list the many ways that ''actual results may vary'' in its press release last week. Information about the rate-hike request was presented in one-and-a-half pages. Possible variances to the lower-payment scenario required four-and-a-half pages of small print, in legalese.

That explains why some papers around the State actually portrayed the hike as a reduction ... accomplishing the FPL Corporate Communications strategy of misinforming the media and the public in order to have its way with the Public Service Commission (PSC).

Kudos to the Herald for clearly spelling this out and standing up in the public defense on this one!

The full text of the Miami Herald's editorial is online, here.

Ummm, how do you spell "sellout" ... B-U-B-R-I-S-K-I , is it? Former Obama flak to put on new FPL hat

This just in from the "Post on Politics" blog: "Former Obama, Florida Democratic Party communications director heads to FPL"

In a post by Michael C. Bender of today's date ...

Word is Mark Bubriski, who led the communications effort for Barack Obama’s Florida campaign last year, has accepted a job to become director of media relations for Florida Power & Light, the electric utility serving all of South Florida and the state’s east coast.

Bubriski, who worked as communications director for the Florida Democratic Party before joining the Obama campaign, is expected to start next week at the company’s Juno Beach headquarters.

We'd like to say, "Say it ain't so!"

But, WTF ... in this world of so little principle in which we live, it's not really surprising, is it? I mean, Stop FPL has already established that several leading Democrats in our State were not remiss in lining up for the FPL campaign cash swill in 2008, not to mention previous election cycles.

It was disappointing enough that Barack Obama played along with the "nuclear-as-renewable" gang in order not to stir up too much opposition to efforts to go toward wind and solar. It WAS a political campaign and lots of things get said in a political campaign in order to win.

But, that Democrats who worked on Obama's Florida campaign seem now to be joining with certain environmentalists who look the other way when it comes to FPL's environmental record and justify their palling around with the utility on the the basis of a few recently installed megawatts of solar- and wind-generated power ... that's just tiresome!

So, now we get to see Ivy-League fasttalker Mark Bubriski, formerly of Dartmouth University, Harvard University School of Education and Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, put his Northeast liberal principles to work and show us how fast he can talk on behalf of Florida Plunder and Loot!

Hey, you know them by the company they keep! And, if Bubriski truly has declared for FPL, then Mr. Bubriski ... welcome to the front lines!

FPL Corporate Comms now following Stop FPL!

Received notification today that "Anne-Louise Seabury is now following you on Twitter!"

So we checked out Anne-Louise's twitter profile here and then Googled to find her LinkedIn profile here:


Turns out Anne-Louise works in Corporate Communications at FPL, which means that Stop FPL has obviously come to their attention and they're interested in seeing what's being said here about them.

Which gives us an idea: maybe we can find out what percentage of the average monthly electricity bill goes toward marketing, advertising and public relations work at FPL -- all designed to convince us that we need things like nuclear plants and high-voltage transmission lines in our neighborhoods that were never requested, not wanted and now not needed by customers of FPL, given the disastrous economic downturn that unmitigated corporate greed and lack of real regulation has caused in our country! Just a thought ...

But, back to Anne-Louise ... Welcome Aboard! And enjoy the show!