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,-Mw Accordingly, the City' s interests are to maintain its highly reliable service and to earn a reasonable return on its investment, consistent with the standard articulated by the Fifth DCA in Rosalind. Consistent with those interests, the City will continue its active and ongoing efforts to reduce its rates, but the City will insist on its ability to charge rates that generate sufficient funds to pay for the capital and operating expenses necessary to do so. The City's Efforts to Resolve the Pending Disputes While not styled as "settlement offers, " the City of Vero Beach has undertaken extensive action to address the concerns of all of its customers, including the concerns raised by the Town and the County. As noted above, in its ongoing efforts to address the desire of the Town, the County, and other customers for lower rates, the City spent more than two years and expended substantial sums - in excess of $1.7 million - in its efforts to consummate the sale of its electric utility system to FPL. Further, the City remains willing to sell its system to FPL, but at this time, neither FPL nor the City have been able to identify a way forward to consummate that sale. Again, the insurmountable obstacle to closing the sale to FPL is the failure of a critical, necessary condition precedent to the sale, which is finding another municipal utility willing and able to take assignment of the City's rights and responsibilities under the project contracts for the Stanton Project, the Stanton II Project, and the St. Lucie Project of the Florida Municipal Power Agency, through which the City has obtained virtual ownership interests in the named power plants . After it became apparent, at the beginning of June 2014, that this critical condition precedent would be difficult if not impossible to meet, the City turned its attention to addressing the concerns of the City Council and the concerns of the City's electric customers. The most important of those concerns is to lower the City's electric rates, and additionally, the City has moved forward with efforts to hold the referendum sought by the Town and also to work collaboratively with the Town and the County to establish a utility authority. The City's Efforts to Lower Electric Rates. In its efforts to lower its retail rates, City representatives have met several times with OUC senior management to discuss ways in which the pricing under the OUC-Vero Beach PPA might be adjusted in a fair way that would enable the City to reduce its retail rates. Those efforts and discussions are ongoing; they are summarized in a memorandum dated December 1, 2014, from the undersigned to the Vero Beach City Council. See Attachment B. In short, OUC has proposed two different sets of potential amendments: one set would provide greater cost savings but would entail keeping the PPA in place through 2029 and other value 11 a (O