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• The issue of the reasonableness of the City's retail rates is indeed one for the courts of Florida. Storey v. Mayo, 217 So. 2d 304, 308 (Fla. 1968). Regarding what does or does not constitute "unreasonable" rates, in Rosalind Holding Co. v. Orlando Utilities Commission, 402 So. 2d 1209 (Fla. 5th DCA, 1981),2 the Fifth DCA articulated the standard for complaints regarding the alleged unreasonableness of rates charged by municipal electric utilities, such as the Town's claims in the current dispute, as follows: A person seeking to attack in the courts the rates charged by a utility has the burden of showing that the rates are outside or beyond the "zone of reasonableness," as established by the evidence, and not necessarily by the PSC, so as to be confiscatory or discriminatory. Absent a controlling statute, a municipal utility, like any other utility, is entitled to earn a reasonable rate of return on its capital and its rates may be set so that it earns a rate of return on its equity comparable to other similar businesses. Id, at 1210-11. In Rosalind, the Fifth DCA ultimately affirmed a circuit court's decision that OUC was entitled to earn a return in the range of 13.5 percent to 16 percent; the actual percentage value was disputed by the parties' expert witnesses, but the court held that even the higher value did not violate the applicable standard. As applied to Vero Beach, the City believes that, per the holding of the Fifth DCA in Rosalind, its rates are reasonable.- The City further believes that its underlying costs - while higher than the City wishes they were - are reasonable and prudent, as well as based upon decisions made by previous City Councils that were reasonable and prudent based on all facts known to the City at the time the decisions to incur those costs were made. Objectively, as of October 2014, the City's current rates (using the standard benchmark of the cost for 1,000 kilowatt-hours of residential service) are slightly above the average of Florida's municipal utilities; relative to the rates of Florida's investor-owned utilities, whose rates are regulated by the PSC, the City's rates are less than those of Gulf Power Company and Florida Public Utilities Company, within 1.5 percent of Duke Energy Florida, and greater than those of FPL and Tampa Electric Company. Additionally, the City transfers 6 percent of its revenues to the 2Copies of the Storey v. Mayo and Rosalind Holding Co. decisions are included as Attachment E to this mediation statement. 9 aL4