Calm Before the Storm
JEA My Guy About to Get Interesting
Not much drama happening recently in season two of our local JEA comedy-drama, My Guy. Nonetheless, our tuned-in audience can feel the drama building as season two moves toward its climax.
My Guy is about to get interesting. Or, of course, it could just peter out over time. We can hope.
Quick Recap
Our audience must remember that City Council’s Special Investigatory Committee on JEA Matters—our Special Ones—is deep in its investigation into unsubstantiated charges, thus far unproven, that our JEA CEO character Vickey Cravey oversees a toxic and racist work culture; that JEA’s independent board erred in its decision to pursue a gas powered generating plant; and that JEA’s fee agreements with large corporate customers undercharge these customers.
Despite the lack of head turning headlines, our Special Ones are hard at work, as are our State Attorney Melissa Nelson character and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier character, both of whom have issued subpoenas of their own. Our audience awaits investigation results focused on our Kevin Carrico character’s promised My Guy favor for his friend-boss and JEA’s decision to end its consulting contract with lobbyist Ballard Partners.
Now is not the time to turn one’s head to other issues. By the time we celebrate the 250th Anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, JEA shoes may drop and heads may roll.
Calm Before the Storm
Over its past two meetings, our Special Ones have dealt mostly with updates on administrative matters: the process and schedule for its survey of JEA’s leadership team focused on our CEO’s character; legal issues, especially whether or not JEA’s former legal counsel—a Regina Ross attorney character who works for the City’s general counsel—can be forced to answer questions about her former JEA client, the nature of which might violate attorney-client privilege; and complaints about our Cavey character not being available to testify until late June.
Our Cavey character’s schedule and testimony from sworn witnesses rankles our Special Ones. Members want answers they think they are not getting, which led them to ask City Council’s Finance Committee to issue subpoenas for our Cavey and Ross characters, together with a subpoena for JEA’s Chief Administrative Officer Jody Brooks character.
Our Finance Committee complied in an 8-0 vote.
Subpoenas
The upcoming forced appearances by our Cavey, Brooks, and Ross characters are scheduled for June 8 (our Brooks character) and June 22 (our Cavey character). Our Ross character appeared on May 11, and may appear again on June 8 and 22. Attorney-client privilege issues complicated her previous testimony which led, in part, to City Council’s Finance Committee issuing the subpoenas.
These subpoenaed characters must also, according to JaxToday, “produce emails, text messages and correspondence and documents” related to workplace culture, the power generating gas plant, and corporate customer fee agreements.
WOWZA. Here’s hoping JEA’s artificial intelligence search engine is powered up. After all, hurricane season is upon us. Someone must mind the store.
June 8 and June 22
Our Special Ones want answers, and they want them soon. Even they say they wish to wrap this up, and do not want City Council’s investigation to drag on. Maybe they can hear the displeasure of our murmuring audience.
Save the dates! And tune in on June 8 and June 22.
The background noise you hear is the sotto voce voice of Nick Howland who likes to move fast and break things: He's rarin' to go and has minimal self-control over his dark vision. A student of blitzkrieg and kneecapping.
The upcoming year will be Rory Diamond's last opportunity to showcase himself -- like a flawed diamond engagement ring in a north Main Street pawn shop. Who will buy into his oddball schemes for self-advancement? My guess: Only the lonely.
I have a sneaky feeling that things are about to get wayyy more interesting in the JEA Saga 2.0.
Some people never learn 😉