At long last, our audience has been let in on a secret that lies behind season two of JEA’s comedy-drama, affectionately titled My Guy: Some bros on City Council want everyone to know that they are boss.
The last two episodes of My Guy revealed little. However, our central City Council president Kevin Carrico character made an off-stage appearance courtesy of local journalists while our City Council Special Investigatory Committee (our Special Ones) learned about JEA’s gas-powered generating plant and interrogated our Judy Brooks and Regina Ross characters. Brooks and Ross shed a little light, but not much, on JEA’s internal culture.
Our audience must remember that City Council’s boss, our Carrico character, brought us season two after local journalist Ben Becker revealed an embarrassing Carrico email in which Carrico promised to do “a favor” for his boss-friend—“my guy”—by appointing this boss-friend to the JEA board. Following this revelation, our Carrico character, in what many audience members view as a diversionary tactic to distract attention away from himself, appointed the Special Ones to investigate JEA, alleging without evidence that our JEA CEO character Vickie Cavey oversees a “racist” and “toxic” internal workplace culture.
Our Special Ones’ original charge, focused on internal toxicity, morphed into two additional and unrelated charges: a decision the JEA board made to place a deposit on a turbine necessary to operate a gas-powered generating plant, and a problem JEA has had setting and collecting water and sewer impact fees from commercial clients, especially Mayo Clinic.
This last issue dates back to 1979, before JEA owned responsibility for water and sewer services and before Mayo located in Jacksonville. Notably, JEA not only admits that it has difficulty with commercial impact fees, it was JEA that asked the City Council auditor for assistance in understanding and resolving this challenge. Our Special Ones did not need to investigate.
Likewise, the gas-powered generating plant involves no mystery. This topic was in the news well before our Special Ones expressed incredulity at not knowing that JEA’s board placed a deposit on purchasing the turbine. According to JaxToday, JEA officials have struggled with their decision to build a new plant since 2012, complicated over several years by “poor economic conditions” followed by JEA’s former CEO’s corrupt effort to sell JEA. The board’s decision was long-coming, was recommended in JEA’s 2023 Integrated Resource Plan, and was not hidden despite our Special Ones’ claiming they were surprised.
(In addition, The Sierra Club has been fighting JEA’s plans to continue to burn fossil fuels for some time. City Council members may wish to understand JEA’s decision to not pursue cleaner fuel sources, but not because board members placed a deposit on a turbine.)
If City Council members want to be bosses, they need to keep up.
Last week, JEA's staff presentation on the new plant seemed to end any need for our Special One’s power plant investigation. City Council’s incoming boss—newly elected president Nick Howland—stated that he appreciated JEA’s presentation. “I’m satisfied,” he said, “that JEA’s management and board made a good” decision.
Now we learn from JaxToday and other news outlets that our Carrico character, prior to sending the February “my guy” email, texted his boss-friend to assert that, “it’s time they [JEA] get a new board member to show them who’s boss” and asking “You ready to play the game?” This our audience only learned because of our local journalists’ dogged determinism to pursue public records. They requested our Carrico characters’ response to a State Attorney subpoena in February, but our very own City Council bosses and their attorney stymied that request for 100+ days.
In addition, Florida Trib reports that what Carrico did release to journalists were incomplete, redacted, and “show him repeatedly discussing public business with a tone that is at times flippant, at others cryptic and at turns remarkably direct.” Bossy.
Our Special Ones constantly admonish JEA witnesses about “transparency” and “openness,” yet these bosses stymie efforts by journalists who seek public records? “What do you have to hide” has been a constant refrain from our Rory Diamond Special One character, when interrogating JEA witnesses. Nothing so far.
Game playing indeed.
In an excruciating segment lasting almost 3 1/2 hours, our Special Ones interrogated Brooks and Ross, respectively JEA’s chief administrative officer and former legal counsel.
Our Brooks character testified that she never witnessed our Cavey character acting out, and denied that she oversees a toxic workplace. Our Ross character admitted that, on occasion, some JEA employees “stopped by” Ross’ office “to vent,” and that she heard tell of some yelling, fist clenching, and table pounding. But no formal complaints about our JEA CEO’s character behavior, mind you. Venting.
Sadly, our Ross character recounted that five CEOs have led JEA over the past 8 years— Zahn, Dykes, McElroy, Stowe, and Cavey—resulting in feelings of “uncertainty” and “anxiety” among staff members. Much of this chaos began with the boss boys who wanted to sell JEA, and pre-dated our Cavey character’s tenure as CEO.
Our audience must remember that while our Special Ones took the main stage with “we’re the boss” antics, our State Attorney and our Attorney General characters launched additional investigations. The State Attorney is interested in our Carrico character’s emails about JEA board appointments, and email/text revelations that our Carrico character and his boss-friend—Boys & Girls Clubs vice president and president respectively—asked JEA for a land deal to build a new club (that did not materialize). Our Attorney General character wants to know how JEA’s CEO character decided to not renew a lobbying contract with Ballard Partners lobbying firm, where our Lenny Curry character is a partner. Never-mind that our JEA CEO character owns the authority to make these decisions.
Stay tuned for these reports.
In the meantime, our Special Ones need to tie up loose ends. They’ve commissioned a survey of roughly 150 upper echelon JEA employees and they await the report on commercial impact fees being jointly conducted by JEA staff and the City Council’s auditor. Neither of these lines of inquiry will wrap up before our Carrico character steps down from his Council presidency. Which means, of course, our Special One’s investigation will bleed into Nick Howland’s tenure as City Council boss.
Howland could, our audience hopes, heed the advice of our Matt Carlucci “The Elder” character, who once again pleaded with our Special Ones to end these investigations. “This committee . . . should be discontinued,” he argued, ending its investigations into the JEA’s internal workplace culture, the board’s power plant decision, and commercial customer impact fees. Allow JEA staff and City Council auditors to complete their analysis, he said, and allow the JEA board to conduct its internal review of JEA’s culture, but get the City Council bosses out of the way. Presumably, the gas generating plant decision investigation will end, with Howland’s professing his satisfaction.
No doubt our Carrico character, trying to prove that he is boss, has done damage, we hope not irreparably. Why would any dedicated citizen agree to serve on the JEA board, a powerful yet unpaid volunteer position, only to have its decisions constantly second guessed by City Council, and worse, be accused with no evidence of wasting taxpayer dollars, poorly managing the utility, and mistreating its 2,000 employees? Oversight is important, no doubt. Veiled suggestions of financial malfeasance and casting aspersions on people’s characters serves to undermine public confidence, not only in JEA but in City Council. As our Carrico character texted, it’s game-playing, not oversight.
Our Ron Salem character argues that JEA is different from other authorities because it is a “public utility,” making it worthy of intense scrutiny and second-guessing by its City Council bosses. That, my friends, is a specious argument. All our authorities are public and manage millions of dollars—JAXPORT, the Transportation Authority, the Aviation Authority among them—and subject to City Council oversight. Maybe Special Ones should commission intense scrutiny of all our authorities, examining leadership styles, employment practices, and board appointments.
One hopes our citizen audience will tell boss Nick Howland that he has bigger fish to fry. Bring this sorry My Guy season to a close. He promised after the unanimous vote electing him to serve as the next City Council president not to practice “retribution politics.”
Let’s make sure he knows the citizenry is boss, and hold him accountable for building a civil and respectful governing culture. He could do worse than sit at The Elder’s knee and learn a thing or two.
Jaxlookout Redux will not publish next week. But we cannot wait to delve into our Cavey character’s testimony scheduled for June 22. She may not be boss much longer, but let’s hope our Special bosses give her a fair hearing.
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