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The JEA board member who Jacksonville City Council President Kevin Carrico tried to replace as a \u201cbig favor to a friend\u201d<\/a> is now the board vice chair.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n At the JEA board executive committee meeting on Monday morning, the following slate of leaders were approved.<\/p>\n Donald \u201cWorth\u201d McArthur, Secretary<\/p>\n You can watch the nine-minute meeting as it streamed on Action News Jax\u2019s YouTube page:<\/p>\n CLICK HERE<\/a> to learn more about JEA\u2019s board members<\/p>\n Action News Jax\u2019s Ben Becker first told you February 16<\/a> that he obtained a text exchange between Carrico and Adams that appears to show Carrico opting to remove sitting board member to repay what Carrico called a \u201cbig favor\u201d to his boss, Paul Martinez at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida.<\/p>\n In that exchange, Carrico wrote:<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s up bro\u2026 hey I owed a big favor to a friend and opted to put him on the JEA board as your term is expiring\u2026 Not sure if you wanted to stay but I needed to do this for my guy.\u201d<\/p>\n INITIAL STORY: Carrico text suggests \u2018big favor\u2019 driving push to replace JEA board member with boss<\/a><\/p>\n Adams replied:<\/p>\n \u201cMy plan was to stay\u2026 I\u2019m disappointed – I wanted to serve a full term and felt I was adding real value\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Adams, formerly a 20-year CSX veteran, replaced Edward Waters University President Dr. Zachary Faison Jr. on the JEA board and was serving the final year of Faison\u2019s term. Adams played a key role on JEA\u2019s Capital Projects Committee.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n Emails obtained by Action News Jax show the timeline of the decision to nominate Martinez and that the wheels were in motion to replace Adams before he was told:<\/p>\n February 4: An email from Boys & Girls Clubs VP of marketing to the City\u2019s Chief of Research. It contains Martinez\u2019s JEA board application.<\/p>\n February 5: Carrico sent the text message to Adams, informing him his term was not being renewed because Carrico \u201cowed a big favor to a friend.\u201d<\/p>\n February 6: Another email from the city back to the Boys & Girls Clubs saying \u201cThe legislation for Mr. Martinez\u2019s appointment to the JEA Board was filed today.\u201d<\/p>\n February 10: The bill was introduced to the City Council.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Here\u2019s what\u2019s happened since Becker\u2019s initial story on the text message exchange:<\/p>\n February 18: Martinez announces he will no longer pursue<\/a> the opportunity to serve on the JEA board.<\/p>\n February 19: Carrico accuses JEA CEO Vickie Cavey<\/a> of \u201cracism\u201d and \u201ctoxic culture\u201d after text controversy.<\/p>\n February 20: Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan calls the accusations<\/a> against Cavey a \u201csmear campaign.<\/p>\n February 25: Carrico is served a subpoena<\/a> by the State Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n February 26: Jacksonville City Councilman Jimmy Peluso calls on Carrico<\/a> to temporarily step down as City Council President until the State Attorney\u2019s Office finishes its investigation.<\/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":"The JEA board member who Jacksonville City Council President Kevin Carrico tried to replace as a \u201cbig favor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1913,344,75612,40013,12981,25309,116,4040,118,117,501,5896,73056],"class_list":{"0":"post-175189","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news","9":"tag-action-news-jax","10":"tag-arthur-adams","11":"tag-board-member","12":"tag-boys-girls-clubs","13":"tag-city-council-president","14":"tag-jacksonville","15":"tag-jacksonville-city-council","16":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","17":"tag-jacksonville-news","18":"tag-jea","19":"tag-kevin-carrico","20":"tag-paul-martinez"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175189","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=175189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}