{"id":203315,"date":"2026-03-24T02:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T02:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/203315\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T02:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T02:18:13","slug":"former-jea-chief-of-staff-says-employees-fear-ceo-as-jacksonville-city-council-probes-utility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/203315\/","title":{"rendered":"Former JEA Chief of Staff says employees fear CEO, as Jacksonville City Council probes utility"},"content":{"rendered":"

Politics continue to swirl around power and water in Jacksonville, with the future of the city\u2019s utility hanging in the balance.<\/p>\n

The drama continues between the Jacksonville City Council<\/a> and JEA<\/a>, with a former executive in the company giving his version of events revolving around his dismissal earlier this year, saying they point to larger issues with the leadership.<\/p>\n

Kurtis Wilson<\/a>\u00a0is an ally of former Mayor Lenny Curry<\/a>\u00a0whose position was eliminated last month amid a conflict with CEO Vickie Cavey<\/a> about, among other things, his decision to hire Ballard Partners<\/a> for the utility\u2019s federal lobbying. Now, Wilson is addressing the Special Investigative Committee\u2019s ongoing probe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wilson said Cavey was first brought in as a \u201ctrusted advisor\u201d of the board before becoming interim and then permanent CEO, with an eye toward reducing costs.<\/p>\n

He said she \u201cdidn\u2019t recognize the utility\u201d she had left years ago, and didn\u2019t know how to talk to people, making people \u201cnervous to approach her\u201d when she had a \u201ccertain face\u201d on. And she engaged in a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d that is still ongoing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody was scared of their job,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cEverybody out here\u2019s running scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many disgruntled employees are making six-figures and enjoy pensions, Wilson added, and they worry they couldn\u2019t get a similarly lucrative position as their job with the public power and water company.<\/p>\n

Wilson voiced his concerns about her comportment to her in July 2025. She then turned her \u201cvitriol\u201d on Wilson during the second half of the year, particularly after Wilson reached out to Ballard principal Jordan Elsbury, who was Curry\u2019s former Chief of Staff.<\/p>\n

By December, Wilson outlined his exit strategy to Cavey, saying they couldn\u2019t work together. He said he would go to Tallahassee and lobby during the Legislative Session, then go on vacation until June 8, so he could have five years in the role.<\/p>\n

JEA Board member\u00a0Rick Morales questioned Wilson about Cavey\u2019s leadership in December. From there, Morales talked to other people who all believe there are \u201cissues with Vickey\u2019s leadership.\u201d After word got out that Wilson was leaving, an estimated 20 employees emotionally lobbied him not to leave, as he was the \u201cbuffer\u201d between her moods and their tenuous positions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Wilson was dismissed soon thereafter, and was told he would be offered a settlement.<\/p>\n

A press conference followed where Cavey appeared with Mayor Donna Deegan, who alleged a \u201cvile smear campaign\u201d against Cavey motivated by a scheme to sell the utility.<\/p>\n

Wilson said it was part of a larger narrative of defamation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat I\u2019m a criminal, that I have broke the law, I\u2019m part of a conspiracy to sell the utility, are you kidding me? That I\u2019m somehow tied up with a lobby group, all these things to confuse the fact that there is an issue with the leadership of JEA,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Wilson then said that he was blasted for reaching out to Elsbury to discuss the issue of uncollected capacity fees.<\/p>\n

Wilson also said Ballard prevailed in a competitive bid process against Southern Group and Continental, but despite that and the meetings being routine, Cavey balked at sharing utility business with Curry, whom she and Deegan regard as a \u201cpolitical opponent.\u201d Cavey allegedly complained on multiple occasions that Deegan kept saying she was unhappy with contracting with Ballard.<\/p>\n

Ahead of Wilson\u2019s remarks, JEA Board member\u00a0John Baker spoke to \u201crespectfully implore\u201d the JEA Special Investigative Committee not to run its own survey \u201cbased on calls from disgruntled employees,\u201d which would \u201csplit this city right down the middle.\u201d JEA announced last week it was running its own employee satisfaction survey and an internal legal probe into \u201crecent allegations regarding workplace culture\u201d that include racism and toxicity.<\/p>\n

Committee member\u00a0Rory Diamond noted that while he respected Baker, the JEA Board Chair did not allow for City Council Liaison Ron Salem to be heard at a board meeting last month about Cavey\u2019s future, and that the City Council is committed to its own survey.<\/p>\n

For his part, Wilson believes the Committee survey is essential as the utility can\u2019t be trusted to conduct one that keeps respondents confidential, given company email addresses are tied to responses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Politics continue to swirl around power and water in Jacksonville, with the future of the city\u2019s utility hanging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[22941,116,4040,118,117,501,93546,78189],"class_list":["post-203315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-ballard-partners","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-city-council","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jea","tag-kurtis-wilson","tag-vickie-cavey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203315","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=203315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}