We’re not OK with taking money from the Rockefeller Foundation to help avoid hurricane damage. So now we’re taking $2.8 million from United Arab Emirates. Two years later we still haven’t fixed some parts of town. Later that year, Hurricane Matthew walloped Jacksonville. Even transparency should have limits.įLOOD MONEY: Not long after taking office, Mayor Lenny Curry decided to turn down a $1 million grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, part of the Resilient Cities program. ![]() Not that I’m suggesting any of our leaders show up for work and say they’re not naked, they’re in the band. Our city colors should be clear, not opaque. Whether it’s a JEA CEO search, the mayor’s trips on the private plane of Shad Khan, political committees wielding power and so-called "dark money," these are matters citizens deserve to know about - and make of what they will. Transparency isn’t just a matter of nosy reporters sniffing around for stories. And it set the stage for what happened Tuesday - a process that was indeed more open, but still left lingering questions and suspicions. It did so with less vetting than is done for many JEA hires, with almost no public discussion and with little explanation. She had guided JEA through two hurricanes (a seemingly important qualification shortly before the start of another hurricane season).īut when a new board member, with no experience running a major utility, said he wanted the interim job, the board gave it to him. She had 20 years in the utility business. Here’s one of the problems with this: The most inexplicable - and still unexplained - part of all of this was the beginning.Īfter former CEO Paul McElroy’s departure amid the tumult about a potential JEA sale, Melissa Dykes became the interim CEO. Zahn to suggest that he could not be selected on the basis of his own qualifications.” It is disrespectful to the candidates who have interviewed in good faith. “Any suggestion that there is a predetermined outcome is disrespectful to this board and its members. “I will say that the search committee and the board of JEA have engaged in a thorough, transparent, open and deliberate process over the last seven months,” he said. ![]() When someone living in Mandarin was appointed to represent people living in a Northside district, it was Deja Duval.īoard chairman Alan Howard bristled at the suggestion the JEA process was opaque, with the Mayor’s Office pulling the strings. Some observers noted how they felt like they had seen this movie before, how this whole process - mayoral appointees picking a former board member and mayoral appointee - felt reminiscent of the search for a leader for the Kids Hope Alliance and other recent events.ĭefinition: a feeling in Northeast Florida of having already experienced the present situation.
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