JACKSONVILLE, Fla — According to thousands of emails between JEA's senior staff members and its hired consultants, the utility was hyper focused on their media performance. JEA concentrated on two areas: how employees appeared in interviews to what the media was reporting on across all platforms. JEA would gather the data on local reporters and disseminate the information at least once a week.
JEA began to work with Cavalry Strategies in April of 2018. According to documents, in November of 2019, the consulting firm entered into a new contract with JEA, agreeing on a "monthly retained" of $19,600.
As early as July 2019, JEA also entered into a contract with the local Dalton Public Relations company located down the street from JEA headquarters downtown. Dalton did everything from writing and submitting editorials to the Jacksonville Times-Union under the names of JEA board members to monitoring social media accounts of news companies and analyzing how the news reports impacted the utility's image with the public.
On one occasion, as Dalton drafted an op-ed under the name of JEA Board Chair April Green, it was clear that, even though Green had a chance to eventually look over the article after it was passed around to JEA senior staff members, former CEO Aaron Zahn made the final edits before it was approved.
Dalton also advised JEA to take down at least one article that seemed to put its current situation as a publiclyowned power utility in a positive light, since they were pursuing privatization. In an email from Maddie Milne, a Dalton account supervisor, to Jay Magee, JEA's Digital Communications Manager, Milne said:
"Jay—
Wanted to make sure you saw this article from last week that mentioned how JEA still has “benefits of public power” on your site in light of last week’s board meeting. I think it would be good to search for all content like this on the website to take down.
Just a thought!"
The article has since been taken down from JEA's website.
As early as May of 2019, JEA also spent hours on media training with PowerPoint presentations on the "Dos" and "Donts" for interviews. Green and Zahn were also scheduled to train together for on-camera interviews.
In a constantly updated Excel spreadsheet created by Dalton, JEA listed out the reporters they wanted to target with information. They also sent out a document with "recommended" reporters for JEA to reach out to. On the spreadsheet, JEA lists the option of embargoing press releases from certain reporters for a period of time while letting one reporter have an exclusive.
In the emails, First Coast News also found a major change made to the JEA’s policy handbook, in which former Zahn changed the wording for the policy on employee compensation and benefits. Originally the policy said the CEO shall "not cause or allow jeopardy to financial integrity or public image … and not promote a compensation philosophy". Zahn took that first part completely out and changed it to say, "The CEO shall promote a compensation philosophy."
Additionally, instead of just meeting the salary requirements of the surrounding region, the policy was changed to say JEA would meet the salary requirements of the industry, which could be worldwide.
On the same Excel spreadsheet, Dalton wrote in a scheduled meeting for Zahn and Mayor Lenny Curry at the mayor's Office. Zahn was to ask the mayor about his “funding priorities” at that meeting, which was scheduled to take place a few days before the launch of the sale process.