Florida Public Service Commission Chairwoman Nancy Argenziano said she was “disappointed” by Gov. Charlie Crist’s method of replacing her and Commissioner Nathan Skop on the panel next year with Tampa lawyer Julie Brown and West Palm Beach city official Eduardo Balbis – though not with the actual choices themselves.

“I don’t know the two people personally and I’m not saying anything disparaging about them,” she told the News Service of Florida in a telephone interview Wednesday. “All I know is after being involved (in the PSC process as legislator and a commissioner), this process … is corrupt. Validating this process does nothing to change it.”

Argenziano had urged Crist to ignore the list of seven names the PSC Nominating Council sent him last month after
the panel declined to interview her and Skop, who were seeking second four-year terms on the panel.

“They didn’t have the – let me say this delicately – testicular fortitude to have us come before them,” she said. “They did it in a cowardly way.”

Instead of taking Argenziano’s advice, Crist picked Brown and Balbis, the only two finalists who did not have explicit ties to power companies or state government. The picks, Crist’s fifth and sixth PSC nominations since the fall of 2009, continued a chess match between the governor and the Legislature, which ousted two former commissioners lawmakers said were too inexperienced after the PSC voted down rate increases for the state’s largest power companies.

Argenziano acknowledged that Crist was continuing to try to put utility outsiders on the PSC, saying “I think he picked the best of the list, who maybe he thought were not as connected.”

But she still would have preferred to see Crist let the 30-day deadline during which he had to choose from the list of finalists come and go, she said.

“If I were governor, here’s what my press release would have said: ‘I’ve had enough. It’s a corrupt process. Let (lawmakers on the PSC Nominating Council) pick and own it so their constituents can throw them the hell out,” Argenziano said. “I’m disappointed in our governor. I’ve been a friend of his, and I’ll continue to be a friend of his (but) I think that would have resounded with energy users.”

In picking Brown and Balbis, Crist for a second time passed over Sen. Lee Constantine, R-Altamonte Springs, who had been chairman of the PSC Nominating Council until he became candidate for the commission himself, and former PSC Executive Director Mary Bane, who led the agency's full-time staff from 2002-2009. He also bypassed a former Missouri public service commissioner; a Florida Senate Communications, Energy & Utilities Committee legislative analyst and an engineer who previously worked for Progress Energy, the state's second largest electric utility.

Argenziano, while seen as a maverick on the panel who has consistently opposed utilities, wasn’t technically an outsider when appointed – she is a former state senator, though she was often seen as a rebel there in her own Republican Party.

That notwithstanding, Argenziano said with lawmakers controlling the names Crist can select from, the definition of “outsider” on the list of finalists is still likely to be limited.

“There comes a point when you have to realize everyone involved knows the last time four commissioners got removed (for voting against utilities),” she said. “Does anybody believe they’re going to allow fair people to be on there again, in the majority? They may have two fair votes, but I’m going to say a prayer for them, because they’re in for a jolt if they try to be fair.”

Not every vocal PSC critic was as disappointed with Crist’s decision to tap Balbis, 38, and Brown, 35, to the $130,036-a-year posts. Perhaps the most outspoken PSC critic in the Legislature, Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, praised the governor’s choices, saying he personally recommended Brown to Crist.