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LOUIS HAUThe panel in charge of hiring a public counsel extends its deadline in hopes of attracting more applicants.
The state legislative committee in charge of hiring a new public counsel has decided to readvertise the position after it received fewer applications than expected for the job.
In a letter sent last week to all 13 applicants, the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee said it has decided to extend the application deadline to Sept. 26 from the original deadline of Aug. 1.
That will push back the selection of a new public counsel by a month to about late October, according to state Sen. Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, who chairs the committee. The public counsel serves as the state's consumer advocate before the Florida Public Service Commission on utility issues.
"This has nothing to do with the qualifications of the applicants under the first timeline," Atwater said, adding that it was instead a matter of wanting to expand the pool of applicants from the original 13, which was far short of the 20 to 25 candidates he had expected to apply.
Because the committee's July ads in the twice-monthly Florida Bar News and at various state agencies and universities may have missed potential applicants on vacation, it will readvertise the position, possibly via additional outlets as well, Atwater said.
"Maybe we need to be a little more creative," he said.
Mike Twomey of Florida Utility Watch, a consumer advocacy group, said the committee already had two candidates with the experience needed to fill the public counsel vacancy: interim public counsel Charlie Beck and Florida Public Service Commission general counsel Harold McLean.
"There were 13 people and there were two applicants with pretty much unmatched regulatory and utility law experience in the state," Twomey said, adding that "if they want to seek more applicants, that doesn't bother me because the job is in good hands in the interim."
He added that he remains concerned about potential lobbying by utility companies interested in trying to sway the committee's final choice for public counsel.
"The utilities don't have the right to say anything about who their customers' next lawyer is going to be," Twomey said.
Florida Consumer Action Network executive director Bill Newton said he favors Beck for the vacancy because of his long experience in working for recently retired public counsel Jack Shreve.
"Technically, the public counsel answers to the Legislature," Newton said. "But Jack Shreve had enough stature that they were hands off. . . . We need someone of sufficient stature to maintain the independence of public counsel."
The delay comes in the midst of the committee's first full-fledged public counsel search since 1978, when Shreve, then-general counsel to the Florida secretary of state, was first appointed to the job. Shreve was reappointed every year until his retirement June 30.
Unlike PSC appointments, which are made by the governor from a list of candidates submitted by a nominating council partially composed of legislators, the selection of public counsel is a wholly legislative appointment that doesn't involve the governor's office.
The legislative auditing committee can expect to come under scrutiny of its own by consumer advocates, given that nine of its 10 members voted in favor of a controversial phone bill passed by both houses of the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Jeb Bush in May. (The 10th member, Sen. Charlie Clary, R-Destin, did not vote.) The bill, which was drafted by phone companies, would allow them to charge more for basic service in exchange for lower access fees for long-distance service. Supporters said the bill would foster greater competition for phone services, but the legislation was strongly opposed by consumer advocacy groups due to fears that it would lead to a sharp increase in customer bills.
Still, Newton said he is willing to give the committee the benefit of the doubt.
"There's been a lot of negative publicity about (the phone bill) and I'm sure they're not happy about it," Newton said. "This is a chance for them to redeem themselves. Until I see otherwise, I'm going to assume they're going to do a good job."
- Information from Times files was used in this report. Louis Hau can be reached at hau@sptimes.com or 813 226-3404.