Florida Power & Light’s parent company, NextEra Energy, announced that CEO Eric Silagy will step down Feb. 15 and then retire in May after assisting his successor, Armando Pimentel, through the transition. Pimentel, a top executive at NextEra, is taking over a company that serves about 5 million Florida homes and businesses, or about half the state.
But FPL has been under scrutiny since last year after the Orlando Sentinel and the Florida Times-Union were leaked documents, texts and emails from a political consulting firm the company hired. The newspapers charged that the consulting company, Matrix LLC, went after politicians FPL opposed and secretly took over a Florida political news website and used it to give the company favorable coverage.
Other similar mystery candidates popped up elsewhere in the state to run against FPL critics, all getting support from Matrix. While others involved in those campaigns have been charged with election-related crimes, no one from FPL or Matrix has been. In Monroe’s file, there were 72 pages of information on him and his family — including a surreptitious photo of him and his wife walking their dog near their home.
Meanwhile, the city of Jacksonville is going to fuck over the citizens who have no choice. We should have sold JEA.