JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – As the Jacksonville City Council and federal agents continue to investigate JEA, the city-owned utility is still operating in limbo.
Mayor Lenny Curry has identified seven people he would like to appoint to the board of directors to replace outgoing board members, but their appointments have yet to be approved by the City Council. The Council did not take any action on Curry’s recommendations at Tuesday night’s meeting.
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For the time being, four of the outgoing board members have agreed to stick around until their successors’ appointments become official, a Curry spokesperson told News4Jax on Wednesday. That means the board has a quorum, or the number of people legally required to operate, should any decisions come to pass.
Last month, five of six board members resigned in the wake of a board meeting. A sixth board member, Kelly Flanagan, planned to stay on the panel until her term officially ran out.
On Tuesday, City Council had discussed if it should approve the potential board members as an emergency order but then decided against it. The names of potential appointees will now go to the rules committee, which will discuss the appointments starting next week.
The full City Council will vote at a later date on approval, but it could take a month or more for that to happen.
Due to the lack of board members, JEA canceled its board meeting which was set for Tuesday of this week. And it might have to do the same for next month’s board meeting.
The mayor’s picks for the board are all senior executives with ties to Northeast Florida:
- John D. Baker, II, executive chairman & CEO, FRP Holdings, Inc.
- Joseph P. DiSalvo, lieutenant general, U.S. Army (ret.)
- Dr. A. Zachary Faison, Jr., president & CEO, Edward Waters College
- Dr. Leon L. Haley, Jr., CEO, UF Health Jacksonville
- Marty Lanahan, executive vice president & regional president, Iberia Bank
- Robert “Bobby” L. Stein, president, The Regency Group
- Tom VanOsdol, senior vice president, Ascension Healthcare & ministry market executive, Ascension Florida