Where are the BlackBerries?
The Florida Power & Light Co. $1.3 billion rate hike hearing is droning on this morning as opponents to the increase grilled the utility’s expert witness Bill Avera on projected earnings and credit issues. FPL reps sit in the audience, as they have each day of the hearing now more than a week into overtime above its planned one-week schedule. But noticeably absent from the FPL pack is what until today had been their constant companions: BlackBerries. Not only are their communication devices tucked away, their ever-present laptops sit idly inside their cases. The change is likely due to the firestorm of controversy over secret messages called PINs exchanged between FPL attorney Natalie Smith and several of the commissioners aides. Critics fear Smith may have communicated with the aides during the hearings about the rate case under discussion. FPL spokesman Mayco Villafana had this to say on the issue in an e-mail: “Regarding pin communications what I can tell you is that Natalie Smith h
