Kelly Hayes
Lake Mary Republican Rep. Scott Plakon is among nine applicants vying for a seat on Florida’s Public Service Commission.
Plakon, along with eight others, are applying for a seat left vacant in February when Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed former Commissioner Julie Brown to lead the Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
Plakon, who has serves HD 29, must leave office in 2022 because of term limits. His wife, Rachel Plakon, has filed to run as a Republican candidate in 2022 in hopes to succeed him.
Plakon is joined by two applicants who are currently working with the PSC — Ana Cristina Ortega, a chief policy adviser at the PSC, and Gabriella A. Passidomo, a PSC attorney.
Other applicants with experience in the public sector include Jeanne Curtin, the former director of the Livable Florida program at the Department of Elder Affairs, Darren Fancher, the director of facilities management and construction at the Florida Department of Corrections, and Pamela A. Johnson, a former deputy director/staff director at the Department of Economic Opportunity.
The applicants also include Monticello Snap-On Tools sales specialist James Allen, Tallahassee-based Rocket Ship Consultants founder Rosanna Catalano, and former operations manager with Evergent, a Duke Energy contractor, William Earl Wheeler Jr.
After received the wave of applications, the PSC Nominating Council will schedule a meeting to interview applicants.
The commission is made up of five-members. The PSC regulates utilities and is expected to grapple with a series of high-profile issues in the coming years, including complex base-rate cases for electric utilities.
The most recent addition to the PSC was Rep. Mike La Rosa, a St. Cloud Republican who faced term limits this past year. La Rosa was named by DeSantis in August to serve on the commission, slated to replace Commissioner Donald Polmann, whose four-year term expired in January. Polmann sought reappointment to the $132,036-a-year post.
While it is unclear when Brown’s seat might be filled, the candidate selected likely will join the commission as it faces major issues, including electric base-rate cases filed by Florida Power & Light and Tampa Electric Co.
