JEA chief executive testifies in Jacksonville City Council workplace investigation

JEA CEO Vickie Cavey faced questions Monday from a Jacksonville City Council Special Investigatory Committee in its probe of alleged workplace toxicity at the city-owned utility.

Committee members pressed Cavey on the treatment and dismissal of JEA’s senior leadership team members during her tenure. The utility CEO also denied any influence from the Mayor’s Office when questioned about a canceled lobbying contract with Ballard Partners. 

Cavey was the highest-ranking JEA executive to be subpoenaed by the committee in its three-month investigation of JEA’s workplace culture and the utility’s struggles to negotiate with companies that owed unpaid water capacity water fees.

Cavey answered questions for nearly two hours at City Hall, in what could be the committee’s final meeting. Incoming council President Nick Howland told committee members he planned to issue a memo Friday outlining the future of the committee and its investigation. 

The investigation and committee has faced criticism from Mayor Donna Deegan, regional business leaders at the Jacksonville Civic Council, and City Council members from both sides of the isle.

Council President Kevin Carrico launched the investigation in March and was the first to make public allegations of workplace toxicity against Cavey. In February, a State Attorney’s Office investigation subpoenaed documents from Carrico linked to a withdrawn JEA board appointment he made to repay “a big favor.”

Cavey’s two-hour hearing

Council Secretary and Legislative Council Jason Teal and committee members began the hearing by pressing Cavey on the transparency of the process of her own appointment as CEO.

Cavey was named JEA’s permanent chief executive in a 5-2 vote by the board in September 2024. She previously served as interim after former CEO Jay Stowe resigned over spending concerns.

Committee member Rory Diamond said he didn’t blame her for the process but wanted to know if she raised concerns to the board about how discussions of her appointment were primarily done in one-on-one meetings outside the public view.

“There wasn’t a single public meeting until you were nominated. Is that right? Nothing was public. There was nothing out there that you could watch or see until it was decided that a nomination is in front of the board, is that right?” Diamond said.

“It was done quickly, I’ll say that,” Cavey said. “Mostly because Jay (Stowe) was resigning and they needed an interim quickly. I’d like to also add that anyone could have nominated anyone else.”

Committee member Ju’Coby Pittman asked Cavey whether she knew another employee — former JEA Chief Operating Officer Raynetta Curry Marshall — was interested in the CEO role. The JEA board did not perform a national search to replace Stowe. And the committee argued that the lack of an application process left out other JEA executives.

Cavey said she was unaware that Marshall was interested in the job and told the committee they never discussed it. 

That led to broader criticism by the committee of the way Cavey reworked her senior leadership team after she became CEO. They listed several executives whose positions were either eliminated or were dismissed.

The executives discussed were a handful of Black and Latino employees, and Pittman noted that Cavey’s senior team had few African Americans. Pittman’s point appeared to be directed at so far unsubstantiated claims levied by Carrico of racism in JEA’s corporate headquarters.

They pressed Cavey on why Marshall’s position was eliminated, and committee Chair Ron Salem asked why many of the positions were not publicly advertised to allow more people a chance to apply. 

Cavey argued that it’s prerogative of JEA’s CEO to pick her leadership team. She also pointed to the appointment of Charles Moreland in November 2024 as JEA’s chief customer experience officer as an example of an African American in a senior role.

Pittman also asked Cavey why she wanted the general counsel’s office to replace JEA Chief Legal Counsel Regina Ross. Cavey said it had to do with response time to questions. 

Without naming the employees, Pittman said she’d heard from JEA employees who declined to speak publicly.

“I feel like based on information I’ve received — I didn’t go out and ask — I had staff contact me and they shared with me the culture issues,” Pittman said. “I was told … there was one individual walked out who was African American. The other white employees that worked, they’d never been walked out. 

“So that was an issue. I’m just sharing. I don’t know, I don’t work there. I’m just sharing with you some of the issues that were a concern,” Pittman said. 

Call for Cavey’s resignation

The committee also wanted to know if Cavey approached employees about a complaint brought in February about her leadership to then-board Vice Chair Rick Morales III. Cavey said it “eventually came out,” but she stopped short of saying she actively tried to find out who raised the concern. 

Cavey testified that she never agreed to resign when Morales asked her to leave the CEO position. Morales lost out on the board chair position in late February when other board members were concerned he approached Cavey unilaterally. At the same meeting, the board also took a vote on confidence in Cavey.

There were multiple instances in Monday’s hearing where Cavey said she did not recall interactions with employees, texts and conversations linked to her leadership style and workplace culture.

This frustrated committee members. But a city attorney representing Cavey reminded the council members that she was under oath and that was an acceptable response to questions. 

“What’s disturbing to me — I’m not an attorney — but we waited three weeks for preparation and everything else in order to get Ms. Cavey here,” Salem said. “And I’m under the assumption, if she does come with all this preparation time, we’re going to get a lot of straight answers.” 

Political influence at JEA? 

The committee also turned Monday to lobbying contracts JEA canceled with Ballard Partners, a Florida-based firm that employs former Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry and former city Chief of Staff Jordan Elsbury.

The focus was a comment made in a recent employee survey that said leadership brought politics into its decision-making process. 

Diamond then questioned Cavey on whether the office of city Chief Administrative Officer Mike Weinstein had tried to influence her decisions or contracts entered into by JEA. 

Cavey said no. But this brought the city’s general counsel, Michael Fackler, to the podium to remind the committee that there are active subpoenas from the State Attorney’s Office and the State Attorney General as part of criminal investigations in part looking into Ballard’s contracts with JEA.

Fackler also argued that the Ballard contracts were not included in Carrico’s charge for the committee. Salem previously told Jacksonville Today the committee would not address the contracts.

The Ballard contracts are also a subject of a state attorney’s subpoena of Carrico’s records. 

JEA “does not know if it is the subject, we do not know who is the subject of this. So this is an extremely sensitive area with potential criminal liability to the agency and to individuals,” Fackler said. 

Diamond then accused the general counsel of “working so hard for the mayor, again” before ending his line of questioning. 

JEA investigating CEO and HR chief

City Deputy General Counsel Kristy Gavin said an outside investigation into Cavey’s conduct, stemming from any employee complaint made after the workplace allegations went public, will be complete in three weeks. 

Gavin said city lawyers are also supervising the investigation of a second complaint against Chief Human Resources Office Diane Moser. She said attorneys are conducting employee interviews as part of that probe, but no details have been released about the complaint. 

These reviews are separate from an employee survey released last week by JEA that showed employees, overall, were happy with their jobs but were less satisfied with the utility’s leadership.

Cavey says she has no details about who’s being questioned, which is standard policy at JEA. The JEA chief said she welcomes the internal investigation, but she noted in her testimony that it’s unusual for these kinds of human resources issues to be publicly discussed.

“These kinds of things should never be discussed in public in a forum like this. It’s really unfortunate that this has happened. Really unfortunate,” Cavey said.

Salem responded to Cavey, “I would agree with you. It’s a shame that it got to this point. I think you and I would both agree with that.”

The committee’s future and legacy

It’s unclear how or if Howland will allow the committee’s probe to continue under his presidency. That’s despite its own pending JEA employee survey and is supposed to issue a final report with recommendations to the utility’s board.

Howland says he talked to JEA board members, business leaders and people on both sides of the issue to make the decision. 

City Council member Matt Carlucci, after sitting through the two hours of Cavey’s testimony, continued his longstanding criticism of the committee’s motives for the investigation. 

He said the council itself has not always been transparent in its hiring practices. Carlucci says council did not hire a search firm to fill the newly created role of in-house legislative counsel when Teal was hired. The council’s DOGE Committee did not put its outside legal counsel contract out for public bid or notify the full council directly, Carlucci said.

“That’s not transparency. And we’re up here on our high-horse talking about transparency,” Carlucci said. “We’re just assuming there’s a toxic work environment at JEA, but when I look at the survey, I don’t see that. What I do see is that Ms. Cavey is probably at 47%. Which by the way Ms. Cavey, you’re about 20% higher than most of the council members up here in terms of popularity.

“But what I’m going to share is that she’s got some work to do with her employees. And I think she knows that,” he said.

Carlucci also accused Salem of not being an “honest broker” as the investigatory committee’s chair.

Carlucci pointed out that the survey comment highlighted by the committee about political influence at JEA also expressed a lack of trust for the City Council. He asked the committee to trust JEA’s board of directors to handle any personnel issues. 

“Some of the things we accuse them of, not being transparent, we haven’t been transparent of ourselves,” Carlucci said. “If there’s a toxic environment anywhere, it is in the City Council’s hallways.”

He apologized to the committee for interrupting the meeting about an hour in. Carlucci could be seen and heard repeatedly tapping something against the council dias during Teal’s questioning of Cavey. Carlucci said “my frustration just got the best of me.”

“I sat here and I watched an interrogation going on by Jason Teal with a council secretary plaque in front of him. That doesn’t feel right to me,” Carlucci said.

Before the meeting ended, Carrico defended the committee’s use of authority throughout the probe.

“There’s a lot of misinformation about what this committee is doing — people trying to weaponize it and say that you guys are just up here being a bunch of bullies,” Carrico said. “You’re just trying to get to the truth. You’re just trying to ask questions in protection of the people’s utility.”