Applicants revealed for consumer director

The Utah Committee of Consumer Services is one step closer to filling its executive director post.

On Wednesday, three candidates were interviewed by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. A fourth candidate will be interviewed today. They are:

• Sue Ashdown, former vice president of Xmission, an Internet service provider.

• Tim Funk, housing project director for Crossroads Urban Center, a nonprofit organization that helps low-income people.
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• John Gothard, a utility analyst with Utah Division of Public Utilities, charged with ensuring utility customers have reliable service at reasonable prices.

• Reed Warnick, interim director of the consumer committee and attorney to the committee, which is Utah's utility consumer advocate, representing residential, small commercial and agricultural consumers in utility matters before the Utah Public Service Commission.

A six-member search committee recommended the final four names following a national search that generated 34 applications for the position. Each member of the search committee ranked the four candidates. Warnick received the No. 1 recommendation from four of the search committee members. Ashdown received the nod of two members.

Huntsman will make the appointment, although the six-member consumer committee must confirm the appointment by a majority vote. The governor could announce his pick as early as Monday, according to Francine Giani, executive director of the Utah Department of Commerce and chairwoman of the search committee.

Warnick has served as counsel to the committee since July 2001 and as interim director of the committee since March, when Leslie Reberg, the former executive director, announced her decision to run for Salt Lake County recorder.

"I'm not going to be paid as much as I was making," Warnick said Wednesday. "If I do get the job, I'll have to retire as assistant attorney general."

Warnick said as assistant attorney general, he is making in the low six figures. The director position pays about $80,000 annually.

"I do care very much about the committee and that it succeed," Warnick said. "I think it performs a very important function for utility regulation in Utah. I think it's important that it be effective and that it have the support of the constituency."

Warnick's achievements as counsel to the committee included a victory before the Utah Supreme Court that resulted in the refund of $29 million to 750,000 Questar Gas customers in 2004, amounting to roughly $37 to $38 per customer. In March, Warnick helped negotiate a deal reached with PacifiCorp that resulted in roughly $32 million in cost savings to customers stemming from a tax dispute.