JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Action News Jax is digging more into a text from Jacksonville City Council President Kevin Carrico, where he told a JEA board member he\u2019s being replaced because \u201cI owed a big favor to a friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Action News Jax\u2019s Ben Becker first told you about it on Monday<\/a>. Carrico wants to replace Arthur Adams with his boss, Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida CEO Paul Martinez.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n We reached out to the 18 other City Councilmembers around 11 a.m. Tuesday to get their responses to the text message and to find out if they thought it undermines the integrity of the selection process.<\/p>\n So far, we have heard back from three City Councilmembers. Here is what they had to say.<\/p>\n City Councilmember Jimmy Peluso, District 7<\/p>\n \u201cThis is corruption at it\u2019s finest. I have no doubt Paul is a great candidate, but this story only affirms what we already knew, the leadership in Council is more interested in doing favors as opposed to doing the work of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n City Councilmember Michael Boylan, District 6<\/p>\n \u201cTrue to my usual process, I\u2019m holding off on a final decision until I can sit down with Mr. Martinez. I want to gauge firsthand what he offers the JEA Board, his availability, and his grasp of the utility\u2019s daily challenges. However, the Council President\u2019s stated reasoning for this nomination is deeply troubling\u2014it creates a very awkward situation for both Mr. Martinez and the entire Council.”<\/p>\n City Councilmember Matt Carlucci, At-Large, Group 4<\/p>\n \u201cThe circumstances as I understand them today, and given how this compromises the appointment process and the integrity of the JEA Board, I would be unable to support the nomination.<\/p>\n \u201cBoard appointments are not made to repay favors; they must be based on merit and performance. By all accounts, the current occupant of this position has proven himself to be highly qualified and to have performed very well in the role.<\/p>\n \u201cThis has nothing to do with Paul Martinez personally, and no offense is intended toward him. Unfortunately, he\u2019s been placed in a very difficult position by the way this has unfolded.\u201d<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n City Councilmember Will Lahnen, District 3<\/p>\n \u201cI hope there is a path to allow Arthur Adams to continue serving on the JEA board. Last year, I was proud to co-sponsor Past-President White\u2019s appointment of Arthur to this board (bill 2024-0952). <\/p>\n \u201cArthur and I were long-time work colleagues, where he was a dedicated and well-respected business leader. He was accountable for multi-billion dollar lines of business, including energy markets, has significant experience with capital infrastructure projects, and also working with a heavily unionized workforce; all qualifications that match up well with the type of people we need on our JEA board.\u201d<\/p>\n While seeking responses from Council Members, we also received a copy of a letter that NAACP Jacksonville Branch President Isaiah Rumlin sent to Carrico. <\/p>\n Rumlin called Carrico\u2019s words in the text exchange \u201cdeeply troubling and fundamentally incompatible with the ethical obligations of public office.\u201d<\/p>\n He called on Carrico to take several actions, including to \u201creaffirm in writing that no present or future public board appointment under your presidency will be used to \u2018repay favors,\u2019 and that any perceived conflicts will be fully disclosed and avoided.\u201d<\/p>\n READ RUMLIN\u2019S FULL LETTER TO CARRICO BELOW:<\/p>\n If we receive any additional responses from Jacksonville City Council members on this matter, we will add them to this story.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Action News Jax is digging more into a text from Jacksonville City Council President Kevin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[77122,982,643,34435,77116,77121,77117,77119,72906,9322,77129,18607,14357,28,5677,77128,77125,969,77124,116,118,117,77123,501,18639,77115,72902,634,77130,18614,77120,1275,77118,18643,5242,77126,77127],"class_list":{"0":"post-161066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-aaron_zahn","9":"tag-action_news","10":"tag-action_news_jack","11":"tag-action_news_shacks","12":"tag-arthur_adams","13":"tag-boylan","14":"tag-boys_and_girls_club","15":"tag-carico","16":"tag-cario","17":"tag-ceo","18":"tag-cio","19":"tag-council_president","20":"tag-finn_carlin","21":"tag-florida","22":"tag-ga","23":"tag-gea","24":"tag-isaiah_rumlin","25":"tag-jack","26":"tag-jackson_v_carlin","27":"tag-jacksonville","28":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","29":"tag-jacksonville-news","30":"tag-jacksonville_naacp","31":"tag-jea","32":"tag-jimmy_peluso","33":"tag-kevin_carico","34":"tag-kevin_cario","35":"tag-local","36":"tag-martinez","37":"tag-matt_carlucci","38":"tag-michael_boylan","39":"tag-northeast","40":"tag-paul_martinez","41":"tag-peluso","42":"tag-president","43":"tag-rumlin","44":"tag-rumman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}