JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A News4JAX request for public records related to the ongoing controversy surrounding JEA triggered a cost estimate from the city of Jacksonville for nearly $4,000.
We wanted to find out why, since the records we requested had already been compiled in response to a State Attorney’s Office subpoena issued in February.
Recommended Videos
The ongoing JEA saga has many layers, so first, let’s start with some background.
JEA itself was recently issued a subpoena by the state attorney seeking a broad swath of communication records about the agency’s CEO, Vickie Cavey, as well as discussions involving City Council President Kevin Carrico and a high-powered lobbying firm that employs former Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry.
But the records we requested were related to an earlier subpoena, issued in February, directly to Carrico for calendar entries and various communications.
That subpoena was prompted by text messages that revealed Carrico planned to nominate his boss, Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida CEO Paul Martinez, for a position on JEA’s board because he owed Martinez a “big favor.” Carrico works as the vice president of strategic initiatives at the organization.
After the text messages came to light, Martinez withdrew himself from consideration for the JEA board position.
But the public trust in the city-owned utility’s board appointment process was damaged, some said, and the SAO opted to investigate.
The subpoena, which Carrico revealed to News4JAX, called for the council president to turn over his daily calendar entries from Jan. 1, 2025, to Feb. 24, 2026, as well as emails, text messages, and other communications fitting a variety of categories.
They include communications between Carrico and any JEA board member related to a board appointment, communications with board members about Cavey, communications with former JEA chief of staff Kurt Wilson, and messages matching terms including “JEA,” “Board of Directors,” “lobbying,” and others.
The materials were originally due to the state attorney’s office on March 10, but Carrico told us he requested an extension and plans to fully comply.
Last week, News4JAX made a public records request for the materials Carrico had turned over to prosecutors. In response, city council officials said the estimated cost of our request was $3,976.50.
Under Florida public records law, if a request requires “extensive” time or resources, an agency can charge the requester based on the amount of time and the hourly pay of the person working on the request.
The estimate called for 45 hours of work by Carrico and another 25 hours of work by his council assistant, each at a rate of a little more than $40 an hour. On top of that, it was estimated that the request would require an additional 10 hours of legal review, at a cost of $104 an hour.
When News4JAX asked why it would take 70 hours to pull and review materials that had already been gathered for the state attorney’s office, a city council official told us that no copies were made of the materials given to the state attorney’s office, so they would have to start over to fulfill our request.
Also, the official said, the documents handed over to prosecutors included non-public records, as well as records that were not reviewed for public record exemptions, thus requiring the legal review.
We further asked for additional details about the basis for the cost estimate, including:
- A detailed breakdown of the time estimates for Carrico and his assistant, including the tasks performed and why those efforts had to be repeated if the records were already gathered once before
- A detailed breakdown of the categories of records previously compiled, including the number of pages
- Whether or not any sort of index or inventory of the records exists, and whether it could help reduce the time required to process the request
- Clarification as to whether any of the requested records are already readily available
News4JAX also told city officials that we were willing to work with them to obtain the records and view them in-person, if that would be a reasonable compromise to the costs involved.
City Council Legislative Counsel Jason Teal shared the following response:
The hours spent by Council President Carrico and Ms. Lee represent the actual time spent compiling the documents responsive to the SAO request. Council President Carrico fulfilled the request himself because he is the only person who can examine his records and compare them to the subject matters sought in the subpoena, and he did not keep a copy of what was sent in response to the subpoena. I am unaware of any law or regulation that requires that a copy be kept of subpoenaed and produced documents; however, I would be happy to review any law that you have which says differently.
Therefore, to reproduce the materials provided in response to the subpoena, the Council President and Ms. Lee would be required to duplicate their dozens of hours initially spent. Due to the fact that they are producing the documents this time pursuant to a public record request (and not a subpoena), Florida’s public records laws allow the collection of costs associated with fulfilling the public record request. That would include the initial time to gather the documents, a substantive review to determine which are public records and which are private communications and a legal review to determine whether any of the public records are exempt from disclosure. This results in an additional, yet allowable, cost collection. An in-person review of responsive documents instead of another form of delivery would still require the initial production, review, and analysis to identify responsive documents for such in-person review.
Furthermore, as mentioned above, the initial document production was done in response to a subpoena not a public record request. Council President Carrico still has the original documents responsive to the subpoena in their native format stored in their native and original location. That is all he is legally required to do to maintain public records so that he can appropriately and legally respond to an initial public record request.
Finally, as mentioned twice above, the documents were produced in response to a subpoena. Therefore, your assertions regarding the public policy rationale for Florida’s broad public record laws and maintenance of tracking information and/or logs regarding the documents are irrelevant; however, I would be happy to review any relevant law that says otherwise.
Council President Carrico and the Jacksonville City Council remain committed to strict adherence to and compliance with their duties under Florida law.