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Charges dropped in PSC inquiry

A 7-1 vote dismisses charges against four Public Service Commission members. But other complaints are pending.

By JONI JAMES
Published October 15, 2005

TALLAHASSEE - Three years after Florida regulators attended a Miami Beach conference partially underwritten by utility companies they regulate, the state Commission on Ethics voted Friday to dismiss charges that the officials broke state law.

In a 7-1 vote that drew sharp rebuke from one of its newest members and was contrary to staff recommendations, the ethics commission decided it was pointless to pursue prosecution of the four current and former members of the Florida Public Service Commission.

The reason: The 2005 Legislature five months ago adopted an exemption to the PSC gift ban to specifically allow such hobnobbing at utility-sponsored conferences.

Friday's decision prompted one of the four accused, former PSC commissioner Lila Jaber, to shed tears of relief. She and PSC commissioner Rudy Bradley, who attended the meeting, left without speaking with reporters. Neither of the other PSC commissioners who faced charges, Braulio Baez and Terry Deason, were present.

"All that tension she's carried for 21/2 years just came out," said Mark Herron, a Tallahassee attorney representing Jaber and the other PSC commissioners. "We're glad we got to this point."

But the man who triggered the ethics commission investigation, 77-year-old Lloyd Brumfield of Stuart, was disgusted.

"The ethics commission should be disbanded; it's useless," said Brumfield, a retired school administrator who filed the four complaints against PSC commissioners in December 2003 after reading press reports of the 2002 Miami Beach conference.

The ethics commission member who voted against dismissing the allegations was outraged.

"They operated like we were in a Third World republic and they had their hands out for gifts," said Mike Carr, a Naples lawyer who joined the commission just last month. "They knew it was wrong when they did it."

The ruling is likely to do little to restore faith in the PSC, which has come under fire repeatedly in recent years on allegations that commissioners are too close to the utilities they regulate, such as Progress Energy, TECO, BellSouth and AT&T.

Three ethics commission complaints are pending against PSC commissioners - including charges that Baez and Bradley failed to adequately pay for a private dinner they attended during the same conference with a Florida Power & Light executive.

Just last week, after appointing PSC commissioners to replace Baez, Bradley and another outgoing commissioner, Gov. Jeb Bush acknowledged that the PSC had faltered.

There "is a perception of conflict" at the agency and "it's very easy to resolve those things," Bush said. "Yet the PSC seems to be stymied - unable to do that. Having people with a new perspective, I think, will help in that regard."

Bush also complained when he signed the law in June that the ethics standards were too low. But he said other items in the law changing PSC oversight warranted his support.

The 2005 law allows commissioners to attend conferences and eat related meals that are open to all conference participants as part of their conference registration fees. The bill specifies that commissioners may attend conferences that are attended by utility company officials who pay higher fees to attend.

Friday's decision to drop the conference-related complaints came just a month after a short-handed commission deadlocked 3-3 on the issue. Staff members had argued the commissioners should be judged under a 1990 state law that bans commissioners from receiving anything from the companies they regulate. The 2005 law makes no mention of being retroactive, noted Linzie Bogan, an assistant Florida attorney general assigned to work with the ethics commission.

Some ethics commissioners conceded that point Friday, but said they felt it was in their discretion to dismiss the charges out of common sense.

"If we go ahead and prosecute this (under the 1990 law), these will be the only people ever prosecuted because the Legislature has changed the law," said ethics commissioner Norman Ostrau, a West Palm Beach lawyer who was a member of the 1990 Legislature.

"Clearly there has been a change in legislative thinking," Ostrau said.

And other ethics commissioners countered Carr's contention that the commissioners were guilty. No administrative hearing had taken place to judge them, they noted.

"The comment has been made that the law is very clear and they violated this - that these folks knowingly accepted gifts or knowingly accepted covered meals and coffee breaks and receptions," said Charles Lydecker, an insurance executive from Daytona Beach. "I think that is still left to be determined."

Friday's action, however, means there will never be such a determination.

Michael Twomey, a Tallahassee lawyer who leads a consumer advocacy group Florida Utility Watch, said he wasn't surprised. "It's clear the Legislature passed that law to forgive that very kind of behavior," Twomey said. "The law was unfortunate to say the least."

Brumfield, the citizen who filed the complaint against the commissioners, has filed a second series of complaints concerning the dinner Baez and Bradley attended during the conference. That complaint is pending.

Bradley is facing a third ethics charge related to his reading during a 2002 PSC hearing of remarks that turned out to be identical to those contained in a Verizon Communications talking-points memo.

Joni James can be reached at 850 224-7263 or jjames@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 15, 2005, 01:15:22]