JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville City Council's investigation into one of its own in relation to the JEA sale began Wednesday morning, but not without some contention from members of the Special Investigatory Committee.
One of the members on the committee charged with investigating whether Council Member, and candidate for mayor, LeAnna Cumber misled the original committee for failing to disclose her husband's role in the sale of JEA says that the committee is the wrong organization to even investigate the matter.
"I am concerned about the optics," said City Council Member Michael Boylan, "two gentlemen who went to the media who said they want an investigation are now the judge and jury, this process doesn't look good."
Part of that concern stems from the fact that Rory Diamond, the committee's chair, and Nick Howland, the committee's vice chair, both support Cumber's opponent, Daniel Davis, in the mayoral race.
Because of a perceived bias, the committee asked City of Jacksonville Deputy General Counsel Jon Phillips if an outside agency should be in charge of this investigation rather than Council Members investigating a colleague.
"The ethics commission and the inspector general are independent agencies, "said Phillips, "that were they to be investigating this matter would not be susceptible to the accusation that its biased."
Ultimately the four person committee rejected turning the investigation over to another agency by a vote of 3-1.
"This is about finding the truth," said Diamond, "I wish there wasn't a mayor's race so it would be so easy for the public to understand that we're just trying to validate the investigation that we did into JEA originally and we need to make sure that members of our council are honest with investigations in the future."
The special investigatory committee plans to dig into the role Cumber's husband Husein played during the failed effort to sell the city owned utility JEA. The committee created an email for members of the public to submit new evidence and documents related to Cumber's potential involvement of the sale; that email address is: 2023investigatoryofjea@coj.net
Council Member Cumber maintains she did nothing wrong when she failed to disclose his involvement.
At a meeting on Tuesday several other council members criticized the investigation as purely political and a scary precedent
The next scheduled meeting for the Special Investigatory Committee will be February 23rd at 8:30am.