Jacksonville City Council member Ron Salem after a Duval DOGE Committee meeting on May 5, 2026. | Mike Mendenhall, Jacksonville Today
Published on May 5, 2026 at 5:40 pm
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The Jacksonville City Council is set to vote next week on commissioning a survey of 144 JEA employees about workplace conditions and culture at the public utility. That’s despite a call from an influential business group urging city lawmakers to shut down their investigation into the public electric and water utility.
Two City Council committees voted Monday and Tuesday to advance Ordinance 2026-268 on a $9,250 contract with human resources firm SelectionLink Inc. to conduct a survey as part of the council’s special investigatory committee‘s investigation into mostly anonymous claims of a toxic and racist work environment a few council members say was perpetuated by JEA CEO Vickie Cavey.
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That sets up a final vote at the May 12 full council meeting.
The near unanimous votes to push forward with the surveys follow a letter to City Council President Kevin Carrico and council members not to continue a parallel investigation with JEA probes by the State Attorney’s Office in Jacksonville, Florida attorney general and the city’s inspector general.
The focus of the investigation by state law enforcement entities does not appear to be personnel but on lobbying contracts JEA canceled with Ballard Partners, a Florida-based firm that employs form Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry and former city Chief of Staff Jordan Elsbury. The city inspector general is looking into decades worth of water capacity fees under-collected by the utility. The inspector general has enlisted the aid of the City Council auditor in its investigation.
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The council special committee is probing all three issues.
The Civic Council is a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization led by 95 CEOs of companies in the region that supports research and comments on public policy in Northeast Florida.
In the letter dated May 4 and signed by 15 of its board members, the Civic Council said the directors of the city’s independent authorities are populated with subject matter experts and have operational autonomy under Jacksonville’s City Charter “for good reason.” The JEA oversight should not be partisan, the Civic Council says.
“Under the Charter, JEA’s board has initiated internal and independent reviews of culture and operations. The City’s Inspector General is examining specific financial questions. The State Attorney and other legal authorities are conducting their own reviews. Theses structures have been established for exactly this kind of situation, and they should be allowed to perform their functions under the Charter and our laws,” the letter says.
“When the reviews are complete, the City Council will have the standing and the responsibility to look at the findings and decide if charges are needed.”
Jacksonville City Council member Ron Salem, who chairs the special investigatory committee and filed the survey bill, pushed back against the business organization’s letter during a Rules Committee meeting on Monday.
He said the City Council’s investigation does not interfere with the other probes.
“I would not be a part of anything if I thought were were interfering in any other law enforcement investigation,” Salem said. “And if they called me tomorrow and said, ‘You need to stop or stay away from this particular subject,’ I absolutely would.”
Council member Michael Boylan was the only lawmaker to vote against moving forward with the survey. The firm’s contract comes with one public presentation for their findings. Boylan amended the bill to reserve that presentation to the JEA board, not in a City Council hearing.
Boylan in 2020 led a council committee to rewrite JEA’s charter language in the wake of an attempt to sell the publicly owned utility in 2019. He called the committee’s work on the utility’s internal employee issues “another example of council overreach.”
“I do understand and appreciate that we have investigative authority. We do — on matters of policy, on matters of practice, but not on matters of personnel,” Boylan said. “And for us to step into this, we all know why we’re here. This is just meant to be another example of redirection and putting attention where it doesn’t belong. And I’m disappointed to see that we’ve gone down this route.”
Boylan pointed to the charter section that gives JEA authority over it on human resources practices:
“JEA may establish employment policies relating to hiring, promotion, discipline and termination, and other terms and conditions of employment, and enter into negotiations with employee organizations with respect to wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment and take such other employment related action as needed to assure effective and efficient administration and operation of the utilities systems,” the charter states. “In order to effectively implement the foregoing, JEA shall perform all functions with regard to its own employees that are performed by the City department or division which oversees city employees in regard to personnel matters.”
According to City Council Secretary and Director Jason Teal, the survey will be complete by the end of June.
Civic Council’s history with JEA
The Civic Council has a history of weighing in on issues effecting or concerning JEA, including the 2019 failed attempt to sell the utility to a private company and the investigations that followed.
In 2020, the Civic Council’s executive board supported the charter changes to split the utility’s board appointments between the mayor and council instead of the appointment power remaining solely with the mayor.
The organization also urged cooperation from City Hall and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in its investigation of the utility’s executive leadership, which eventually led to the conviction of JEA’s former CEO, Aaron Zahn, for conspiracy and wire fraud related to the attempt to sell the utility.
John Baker II is a member of the Civic Council and also a current JEA board member. He did not sign the letter sent this week. But two other members previously associated with JEA did — Henry Brown, a former JEA board member, and Kevin Hyde, a former City Council president and an attorney for Foley & Lardner, which advised JEA officials during the attempted sale.
It also publicly opposed the current City Council’s move last year to cut the city’s property tax millage rate.
