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Local investigation into JEA sale nearing end; status of federal investigation unknown

DAVID BAUERLEIN | The Florida Times-Union

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IN THE YEAR SINCE THE JEA BOARD voted in July 2019 to put the utility up for sale, the attempt has gone from being potentially the biggest deal in the history of city government to becoming one of the most investigated ventures.

The collapse of an attempt to find a buyer for JEA in December was just the beginning of wide-ranging probes that have put the failed venture under scrutiny by a federal grand jury, a special City Council investigative committee and the city Inspector General’s office.

The City Council investigative committee, which has interviewed key figures under oath but has stopped short of questioning Mayor Lenny Curry, and the city Inspector General are both nearing the home stretch of their investigations. Each has goals to release their findings by the end of September.

The federal grand jury’s probe of whether anyone broke the law has no public timeline and remains the biggest unknown in the autopsy of the doomed sales process. It’s unclear what federal authorities are focusing on, but they have obtained thousands of JEA documents on a range of topics.

Meanwhile, two lawsuits over the firing of JEA chief executive officer Aaron Zahn and the bid amount offered by NextEra Energy are working their way through the civil court system.

And JEA continues to review whether it will pay or reject millions of dollars in bills submitted by law firms and consultants brought on board during the sales process.

Taken together, the various investigations, reviews and court proceedings have already spanned more time than the five-month sales process that met a messy end when the JEA board pulled the plug on the negotiations.

Opponents of selling JEA say the investigations will spotlight the root causes of what went wrong and minimize the chances of it ever happening again.

“To me, it’s a very worthwhile investment by the city because we were potentially on a path that would have been very bad for the city, and this will show us what happened,” said Michael Ward, chairman of Our Jax, a non-profit that formed to push for more government transparency. “We need to know what happened.”

A lawsuit filed by NextEra Energy to block the public release of what it offered to pay for JEA went to closing arguments last week, setting the stage for a future ruling by Circuit Judge Virginia Norton.

A separate suit filed by JEA against fired CEO Aaron Zahn will have its first court hearing on Aug. 10. JEA is trying to stop Zahn from having an arbitration hearing on his contention he was wrongly dismissed with cause, which cost him more than $800,000 in golden parachute benefits.

Then there is the ongoing review by the JEA and the city Office of General Counsel of about $13.4 million in invoices submitted by law firms and consultants in connection with work they did on JEA’s pursuit of privatization. So far, JEA has paid out nearly $3.2 million of those bills, according to the most recent update by the utility.

When the JEA board meets Tuesday, utility administrators will give a report that recommends paying another $1.49 million in invoices and then do further review on $8.8 million in bills.

The biggest outstanding balance is for the Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman law firm that has been paid about $1 million and still has about $5.4 million in invoices pending. McKinsey & Company, which provided strategic planning advice, still has $2.9 million in pending invoices, JEA records show.

General Counsel Jason Gabriel said in February that JEA failed to follow its own procurement code when it used the Pillsbury law firm to award contracts to McKinsey and two other firms in 2019 without going through the competitive bidding process.

The special City Council committee’s investigation also is examining how JEA awarded contracts.

City Council member Rory Diamond said JEA showed “insane willingness to spend money — the ratepayer’s money — without any process that looked anything like government procurement. They just used the Pillsbury Winthrop law firm to go on a spending spree to use whatever consultants they wanted.”

City Council hired the Smith Hulsey & Busey law firm to assist its probe in a contract that will pay up to $750,000 for the firm to dig through documents, conduct interviews and prepare a blow-by-blow report. The council committee currently is set to end its work by Sept. 30.

Diamond, who is a member of the special council committee, said the overlapping federal investigation has put some people off limits to the council committee for interviews.

For instance, the committee had gotten agreement from former JEA executive Melissa Dykes and former chief legal counsel Lynne Rhodes to interview them, but those sessions didn’t happen because federal authorities said it could conflict with their investigation.

“Essentially what happened was we have our investigatory plan which is working up the chain from lesser important people to the most important people, and as we got to some of the very important people, the federal government said we’re also doing this investigation and it would be helpful if you didn’t pursue those further,” said Diamond, who was chairman of the committee through the end of June.

He said the committee still has compiled enough information to give the community a solid take on what went wrong.

“At the end of the day, I think we know what happened, and I didn’t want in any way to undermine the ability of the federal government to get justice for the people of Jacksonville for what happened,” Diamond said.

The council committee has not interviewed Curry and has no plans to do so.

Diamond said there’s “no question” Curry was interested in JEA negotiating a potential privatization deal, but the committee has not uncovered anything that shows Curry directly told JEA to commence the sales process.

“A lot of this evidence circumstantially points back to him, no question,” Diamond said. “I don’t have a document that says he directed person X to do Y.”

The highest-ranking administrator at City Hall to sit down for an interview is Chief Administrative Officer Brian Hughes. His session was Monday.

“He never once questioned that or pushed back,” Diamond said of Hughes doing the interview.

The committee hasn’t interviewed a handful of other figures who declined to voluntarily answer questions: Curry’s former chief administrative officer Sam Mousa, who became a lobbyist and was a consultant for NextEra Energy; Tim Baker, another close ally of Curry who worked on his mayoral campaigns and was an adviser as well for ousted JEA CEO Aaron Zahn; and former JEA board members who were on the board that hired Zahn.

The council committee balked at seeking subpoenas to compel interviews with Mousa, Baker and former board member Alan Howard when the committee met June 22. The committee is slated to meet again at 8 a.m. Monday to chart its next steps.

Mousa’s attorney said previously in a letter to the city that Mousa had provided information to the federal grand jury but did not elaborate. Dykes has said she voluntarily met multiple times with the State Attorney’s Office and federal authorities.

“My understanding is there are a lot of people who are cooperating and have offered to cooperate,” Diamond said.

The U.S. Attorney’s office for Jacksonville issued a subpoena on April

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