JACKSONVILLE, Fla — Dozens of public records requests will be submitted to JEA as Jacksonville City Council's special investigatory committee enters a months-long probe into the utility's failed invitation to negotiate (ITN) process.
"For the first time in the history of Jacksonville, a special investigatory committee has been created to investigate part of our own city government," said Councilman Rory Diamond, District 13. "We're here because something has gone wrong with JEA."
Diamond is the chair of the committee announced by Council President Scott Wilson in January, which also includes Councilwoman Brenda Priestly Jackson and Councilwoman Randy Defoor.
During Monday's meeting, council members began by hearing from union representatives who expressed gratitude for the investigation but made it clear that there is still hesitation on the part of JEA employees to come forward with information.
"It's a shame that we've had to come to this point," said Tim Wing. "There are so many employees that are fearful to this day to come down here to this city council and say anything."
The city's Office of General Counsel presented an 84-point draft list of record requests to be submitted to JEA. The full list can be viewed here:
Notable records requests put forward by the OGC include numerous references to the controversial bonus plan known as the "Performance Unit Plan" or PUP.
As first reported by the Florida Times-Union, former JEA CEO Aaron Zahn told city attorneys he knew the bonus plan could have resulted in a $280 million bonus for city employees if the utility was sold.
Other points presented in the draft request list include:
- All documents regarding the forecasting of JEA revenues, expenses, sales or customer demand (#22)
- All documents and communications regarding the ITN, including documents identifying when any SLT (senior leadership team) members began discussing the ITN (#39)
- All communications to or from Mayor Lenny Curry, Brian Hughes, and Tim Baker (#71)
As the separate suggested requests were being presented, Councilman Garrett Dennis asked the committee to add former Chief Administrative Officer Sam Mousa and each ITN negotiation team to point 71.
In 2018, First Coast News reported that Mousa refused to be put under oath as the Special Committee on JEA convened.
Several amendments to the list provided include extending the dates which some requests incorporate and requesting documents surrounding all 17 responses to the ITN.
After the points were presented, Councilman Dennis made the suggestion that all members of the city council should testify, under oath, to their involvement with the ITN process.
Priestly Jackson said council members should be trusted enough to disclose their communications without going under oath.
"I'm going to presume my colleagues are gonna be honest and open," she said. "I don't want to have colleagues on the council swearing under oath. If I can't believe the 18 of you going forward, I don't know how we'll get anything done as a body."
The decision was made that Council President Scott Wilson would be asked to send a letter to every council member asking for the voluntary disclosure of communications around any of the 84 request points.
Diamond ended the meeting by calling out what he said are efforts to hinder and discredit the committee, although he would not specify by whom.
"They don't want us to investigate, they want all this to end and go away," Diamond said. "They're making efforts to make that happen. I simply won't allow that to happen."
Below is a breakdown of additional points in the meeting.
Scope of the Investigation
The city's first investigatory committee tasked with investigating part of the city government convened at 8:12 a.m. The first item on the agenda: the committee's responsibilities.
In creating the committee, Wilson had asked the members to “hold accountable anybody who had anything to do with trying to take advantage of our city and the JEA ratepayers."
Council's investigation into the utility is running concurrently to a federal investigation that was originally acknowledged by State Attorney Melissa Nelson.
"We need to do this without prejudging where we are going to go," Diamond said. "We have to be transparent and easy to follow.”
Diamond emphasized that records and communications obtained by the committee would become part of the public discourse, with the goal to reveal as much information about the JEA bidding process as possible by a tentative deadline of June 1.
"I suspect you actually need six months to a year to do this, we'll do our best to do it in about 120 days," he said.
Councilwoman Priestly Jackson and Councilwoman Defoor also joined a call for transparency on the part of the city during the investigation. Both have been critics of the possibility of a JEA sale.
“I couldn’t think about facing my own children and having to explain how in the world we sold our own water," Defoor said.
With other council members joining in, the committee debated the purview of their investigation.
Eventually, it was decided that the documents request by the OGC would set the framework and requests would apply to documents going back to December 2017 without limiting the committee to a set time frame.
Resources for Whistleblowers
A major point of discussion was the establishment of some type of hotline for JEA employees to report information they have regarding the bidding process.
City Ethics Director Carla Miller pointed out that crowd-sourcing information and using it to accumulate data could be a tool for the committee.
"If there's a timeline and people can just blog directly to that timeline, and then you have a lot of various viewpoints coming in, it would be very useful for your committee," Miller said.
Prior to the start of the meeting, officials from unions that represent JEA employees made it clear that they feel employees are not comfortable coming forward with information.
"They feel there will be repercussions from somewhere up above if they do come out," said Ronnie Burris of Local 630.
Defoor suggested that Our Jax could possibly help the committee set up a website that could be distributed directly to JEA employees.
David Jones is a multi-skilled journalist with First Coast News. He can be reached with tips and information at DJones@firstcoastnews.com.