JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville City Council committee investigating JEA agreed to “play nice” and delay issuing subpoenas to six top utility and city officials.
Members of the special committee formed in the wake of the disastrous plan to privatize the publicly owned utility chose to delay sending subpoenas to executives behind the now-abandoned Intent to Negotiate process.
Of particular interest is JEA Interim CEO Melissa Dykes, who succeeded ousted CEO Aaron Zhan. Dykes has thus far refused to testify; committee members have publicly accused her of delay tactics and “dragging her feet.”
The committee drafted and was prepared to force her to testify under oath with a subpoena. Councilmember Rory DeFoor favored moving ahead with that plan.
“I totally agree with that approach because I think we are running out of time as to how long Ms. Dykes will be in Jacksonville, quite frankly, so I think that’s the proper approach," DeFoor said.
Committee Chair Rory Diamond also favored obtaining the subpoena and “having it in our back pocket” in case the voluntary plan failed.
But committee members Brenda Priestly Jackson and Scott Wilson disagreed. Dykes’ attorney tacitly agreed to have her testify voluntarily, and they wanted to let that process play out before issuing a subpoena.
“I feel a little uncomfortable when we develop an agreement with two attorneys and they say we’re not sure you're going to follow through," Wilson said. "I’m going to let them follow through with what they’ve agreed to, and if they don’t, then come back an issue the subpoena.”
The committee also voted today to also seek voluntary testimony from city of Jacksonville’s Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Stephanie Burch, city Treasurer Randall Barnes, city Engineer Robin Smith, former JEA VP and legal officer Lynne Rhode, and JEA Treasurer Joseph Orfano, and subpoena them if they don’t voluntarily testify.
The committee has been meeting since February and has requested between 1.5 and 3 million documents, many of which they are still waiting to receive. A staff attorney said they have spent about $300,000 thus far, which Diamond said represented “bang for the buck” considering the committee helped save millions in executive compensation through a now-cancelled performance unit plan.
“You aren’t going to find anyone more frustrated with the pace of this than me,” Diamond said. “The good news for members of the committee but also members of the public is I finally feel at a place where we have access to this this massive document request where we can finally do searches and finally get to the bottom of this which is the point of doing this.”
Committee special counsel Steve Busey estimates it will be another month before the committee will be able to search documents they are most interested in – communications among JEA’s senior leadership about the Intent To Negotiate process.