But to any homeowner who pays a phone, light or gas bill, he has been a hero. Standing up for the little guy against the big utilities is his job, and he has done it well.
Too well for his own good.
For years, the utilities conspired with their friends in the Legislature to get rid of the Committee of Consumer Services, or Ball, or both. This past week, they finally succeeded.
What was new was the method. They got Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. to act as their assassin. He fired Ball on Wednesday.
The explanation is lame. There's been a lot of harumphing about the prerogatives of a new administration to bring in a fresh face.
Ball, a proper Englishman, might describe that as codswallop, twaddle, rubbish. And he would be right.
The utilities long have complained that Ball is too "adversarial." What they mean is that he is very good at his job, which makes it hard for them to get the rate increases they want from the Public Service Commission without scrutiny.
And they don't like that.
Why, just the other day, Utah Power, which had asked for a $111 million rate increase, had to settle for a paltry $51 million, poor baby.
Ball battled Questar Gas all the way to the Utah Supreme Court over its charging customers to remove excess carbon dioxide from coal-seam natural gas. The court ruled against Questar and the PSC ordered the utility to refund $28 million to consumers.
Now, Questar is back before the PSC arguing, again, that it should be able to pass these charges of $5.7 million a year to consumers.
Huntsman proposes to replace Ball, an engineer and former executive with British Telecommunications, with Leslie Reberg, a longtime Democratic politico and former mouthpiece and lobbyist for US West, the phone company that was swallowed by Qwest.
Call us crazy, but in the highly complex business of utilities regulation, we would put our money on an engineer, a numbers guy with eight years of experience and a proven record of achievement, to hold his own against the phalanx of engineers, accountants and attorneys that Qwest, Questar and Utah Power bring to these battles. To say nothing of Reberg's prior affiliation.
Consumers should be outraged that their governor has sacked the man who has done so much to stand up for their interests.
Pitchforks and torches, anyone?
