JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The investigated has become the investigator.<\/p>\n
Council President Kevin Carrico is ratcheting up the pressure on JEA after launching a special investigatory committee to delve into various accusations against JEA Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
Carrico, is himself under investigation by the State Attorney\u2019s Office<\/a>, which subpoenaed his communications after Action News Jax revealed a text message<\/a>, in which he informed JEA Board Member Arthur Adams he would be replaced because Carrico \u201cowed a big favor to a friend\u201d.<\/p>\n Carrico planned to appoint his boss<\/a> at the Boy and Girls Club, who later pulled his own nomination<\/a> after the text came to light.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if anything is going to come out of that investigation or not. We don\u2019t,\u201d Councilmember Matt Carlucci (R-Group 4 At-Large) said.<\/p>\n Councilmember Carlucci said he finds it problematic for Carrico to launch an investigation into JEA when he\u2019s currently under investigation for his own dealings with the utility.<\/p>\n \u201cI just think it speaks for itself,\u201d Carlucci said.<\/p>\n Mayor Donna Deegan went a step further.<\/p>\n \u201cThat this effort is being driven by the Council President, who is himself the focus of a State Attorney investigation around his own JEA board appointment, further calls into question its legitimacy,\u201d Deegan said in an emailed statement. \u201cThis is just more of the same power play that traces back to the people who tried to sell off our publicly owned utility the first time.<\/p>\n Carrico was asked about the optics Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re complying in full with all the requests and making sure that we cooperate fully to make sure that it comes to the light that there was no wrongdoing on my behalf and I\u2019m confident that will happen,\u201d Carrico said. \u201dAs far as the message to the public, this is your utility and when the Inspector General says there\u2019s something here, we need to look at it, I need your help, I\u2019m gonna act on that.\u201d<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n But Carlucci argued patience for the recent barrage of drama in city hall is wearing thin, as is public trust in city council.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd it\u2019s going to get to the extent where its interfering with our ability to conduct our work. And when that happens, we might need new leadership to take the helm,\u201d Carlucci said.<\/p>\n Carrico confirmed he has not yet finalized his response to the State Attorney\u2019s subpoena.<\/p>\n Tuesday was the deadline to respond, but Carrico indicated he has already spent 20 hours working on the response and needed more time to get the records together.<\/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 Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The investigated has become the investigator. Council President Kevin Carrico is ratcheting up the pressure…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[982,77116,77117,77119,72906,18624,77827,88874,77129,23732,18607,81062,56463,1292,969,116,118,117,971,970,10417,501,88871,72902,88873,634,18614,1375,88872],"class_list":["post-190257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-arthur_adams","tag-boys_and_girls_club","tag-carico","tag-cario","tag-carlucci","tag-carrico","tag-ceico","tag-cio","tag-city_hall","tag-council_president","tag-crio","tag-donna_degan","tag-facebook","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jake","tag-jake_stoan","tag-jake_stowan","tag-jea","tag-jesse_lee_mckenzie","tag-kevin_cario","tag-kevin_krico","tag-local","tag-matt_carlucci","tag-mayor","tag-mckenzie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190257","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=190257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}