JEA CEO Vickie Cavey appeared before Jacksonville’s Special Investigatory Committee on JEA Matters for the first time Monday, answering questions about her hiring, allegations against her and her role in the utility’s uncollected capacity fee controversy.

Cavey opened her testimony by thanking JEA employees.

“I am proud to work with every team member and want to publicly acknowledge and thank them,” Cavey said.

Committee members and city council secretary, Jason Teal,  first questioned Cavey about how she became CEO and whether the process was open and transparent, citing a lack of public meetings surrounding her hiring.

“But you did not have to go through that public interview process?” Teal asked.

“No,” Cavey responded.

“Were you interviewed by the board members at all?” Teal asked.

“I had worked with the board members in the past,” Cavey explained.

Committee members also asked Cavey about the hiring and departure of several top executives and chiefs. Some questioned whether her decision to not open the application process to the rest of the company led to employee resentment.

“Can you understand the perception that that causes when you’re hiring people without going through a process and not giving people a chance?” Councilman Ron Salem asked.

“I’ll just tell you that it is the prerogative of the CEO to pick their team, and it always has been, and it’s been done routinely in the past as well. I’m not the first,” Cavey answered.

Cavey was then questioned about the consulting contracts given to former executives. She said those were given in lieu of litigation.

“So earlier we had Ms. Moser here, your HR director. She said that at least two executives were kept on the payroll after they were essentially eliminated, and they were making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to do nothing under your leadership,” Councilman Rory Diamond said. “How can we be sure as a city council, who’s seeing these rates go up for the rest of the ratepayers out there, that you aren’t paying any more of these folks hundreds of thousands of dollars to do nothing?”

“I will not do it again. And I didn’t want to do it to begin with,” Cavey answered.

“Help me out with that though. You’re the boss. If you’re literally the CEO, and you didn’t think it was legal, you didn’t like it, why don’t you just say no?” Diamond pressed.

“At the time, I took the advice of counsel,” Cavey responded.

As the meeting continued, some committee members expressed frustration with Cavey’s responses.

“I feel like we’re going around in circles. I’ve got so many ‘I don’t remembers’ and ‘I don’t recalls,'” Councilman Rory Diamond said.

Tensions grew when Diamond began questioning Cavey about JEA’s contract with the Ballard lobbying group, which was not renewed this year. The contract has been at the center of what Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan has described as a ‘smear campaign’ against Cavey.

Councilman Matt Carlucci was in attendance to watch the proceedings, but interrupted the meeting to express his displeasure with the line of questioning.

“It’s a simple question,” Diamond asked.

“Please Mr. Carlucci, you’re not recognized and I wish you’d quit your banging and everything. I told you when I’d recognize you,” Salem said.

Cavey was also questioned about the capacity fee issue, where JEA reportedly failed to collect millions of dollars in fees from companies such as Mayo Clinic. She told the committee JEA is continuing to work with its legal team to determine whether they can collect those fees now and no deal has been made.

City Council President-elect Nick Howland also attended the meeting and said he plans to issue a memo Friday addressing whether the investigatory committee will continue once he officially takes over as council president.