JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The Kids Hope Alliance is one step closer to hiring a new CEO.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the board voted 4-3 to offer the position to Penny Zuber. She currently serves as chief operating officer at the First Coast YMCA.<\/p>\n
Zuber was one of 235 applicants, which originally included former Duval County Public Schools Superintendent Diana Greene, who later withdrew her name<\/a> after receiving public pushback during the selection process.<\/p>\n Grass Gone<\/p>\n Action News Jax first reported in October that the board fired then-CEO Saralyn Grass<\/a> from her $216,000 position. The decision came after Action News Jax Ben Becker revealed communication and transparency issues<\/a> with the board plus Grass\u2019 ties to a private consulting company<\/a>.<\/p>\n KHA history of controversy<\/p>\n The Kids Hope Alliance has faced other controversy in the past.<\/p>\n In 2020, an Inspector General report<\/a> detailed allegations of mismanagement, lack of oversight and a sex scandal involving then-CEO Joe Peppers. The report included accusations that Peppers had an inappropriate relationship<\/a> with a woman who later filed a sexual harassment complaint.<\/p>\n In 2018, Peppers also alleged in emails that he was pressured by the administration of former Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry to direct $350,000 in grant funding to certain organizations.<\/p>\n What\u2019s next?<\/p>\n Before Zuber officially becomes CEO, she and the Kids Hope Alliance still need to negotiate and finalize a contract.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/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 Kids Hope Alliance is one step closer to hiring a new CEO. On Wednesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,347,9322,57671,34069,28,348,116,141692,351,118,117,12982,9021,349,141691,9022,350,346,345],"class_list":["post-345906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action-news-jax","tag-cbs47","tag-ceo","tag-chief-operating-officer","tag-first-coast-ymca","tag-florida","tag-fox30","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-ceo","tag-jacksonville-fl","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-kha","tag-kids-hope-alliance","tag-northeast-florida","tag-penny-zuber","tag-saralyn-grass","tag-southeast-georgia","tag-wfox","tag-wjax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345906","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=345906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}