Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
It didn't take NextEra/Gulf Power long to retaliate against the county, once local officials adopted an ordinance to regulate transmission lines.
Jefferson County commissioners adopted Ordinance 2020-0507 20-01 on Thursday evening, May 7. Four days later, they received a four-page letter from the Tallahassee law firm of Hopping Green and Sams, which is representing the power company.
The letter, dated Monday, May 11, is addressed to Parrish Barwick, county coordinator, and David Collins, legal counsel for Jefferson County.
The letter is a public records request relative to the North Florida Resiliency Connection, the formal name for the 176-mile 161kV transmission line that Gulf Power – a subsidiary of NextEra – proposes to install from the Florida Power & Light (FPL) Raven
Substation in Columbia County to the Gulf Power PC Sinai Cemetery Substation in Jackson County. FPL is also a subsidiary of NextEra.
The letter begins by referencing a public records request that Hopping Green and Sams made to Jefferson County Clerk of Court Kirk Reams on Friday, May 8.
“Mr. Reams responded by email today indicating that the request should be directed to you,” the letter states. “Therefore, please consider the May 8 request supplanted by this request.”
States the letter in part, “Pursuant to Chapter 119, Florida Statutes, we submit this request to inspect and copy various public records within the custody and control of Jefferson County, Florida (“County”), including but not limited to, its officers, employees, agents, subcontractors, Planning Commission members, and Board of County Commission members from January 1, 2019, through the date the documents are provided.”
The letter goes on to list 27 separate requests, each consisting of multiple types of records and communications related to the project, including internal and external discussions, audio and video recordings, transcripts, agreements, emails and the like.
The letter requests that the records related to the executive sessions between Collins and county officials be furnished immediately. With respect to the other requested materials, it asks that they be supplied as soon as available, “rather than the county holding back all records until the full completion of the request.”
Collins shared the letter with the Monticello News.
“We received this yesterday from the lawyers representing those good folk at Big Power,” he emailed on Tuesday, May 12. “I guess they are not seeking to be as good of partners as before. Maybe they really never were. Mmmm...I wonder.”
Collins was referring to the representations of Timothy Bryant to the commission during its video-streamed meeting on May 7. Bryant, the senior manager of external affairs for new development at NextEra, repeatedly told the commission that his company wanted to be a partner to the county. Provided, went the caveat, that the commission dropped consideration of the ordinance.
Bryant, in fact, used a stick-and-carrot approach with the commission.
On the one hand he cited the various monetary contributions that he said NextEra had made to local organizations such as Jefferson Somerset, the COVID-19 food assistance program and the Monticello-Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce. Never mind the $11 million that he said the transmission line would contribute to the county in local taxes once installed.
He further mentioned a one-time contribution of $300,000 that the company was willing to make to the county to help out with the recreation park and Fire and Rescue services.
“We are going to be in Jefferson County for the next 30 to 40 years,” Bryant said. “We are a longterm and generous community partner.”
He let it be known, however, that the alternative was litigation. And that in the estimation of NextEra's legal counsel, Jefferson County didn't have a case.
“I have been advised by outside and inside counsel that the ordinance is preempted by the state,” Bryant said. “Regardless of what your attorney has told you, NextEra will not pay Jefferson County's legal fees. I ask that you signal your desire to continue to negotiate with us cooperatively.”
There followed a further warning. If the commission insisted on adopting the ordinance, Bryant said, not only would the $300,000 offer be withdrawn, but the company would have no choice but to expend it in litigation. Plus, he added, the company had no intention of changing the route of the line.
“We have no legal recourse to change the line at this time,” Bryant said, adding that if the company was forced to defend itself legally, the $300,000 would be used for that purpose, instead of coming to the county.
And in the end, he added, “the line will still be in the same location.”
Commissioners went on to approve the ordinance unanimously. And the very next day, the letter from Hopping Green and Sams was sent electronically.
The ordinance that the commission approved, numbered 2020-0507 20-01, does not, as Collins explained it, attempt to regulate transmission lines or their development and construction, areas that are ceded to the state.
“What it does,” Collins told the commissioners during the deliberations, “is it requires that a company that wants to build a transmission line here has to explain why it can't colocate the line and why it wants to go down rural roads. It requires a company to go through different standards.”
The ordinance also requires that utility companies provide an estimate of the cost to bury the line (in case the local community should decide to commit to such a course of action), and it requires that lines not regulated by the Public Service Commission (PSC) self-test for radiation for health safety reasons.
“The sole purpose of this ordinance is to protect the safety of citizens and protect the county from accidents that can occur,” Collins declared.