JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A former Jacksonville Transportation Authority board member is speaking out 18 months after being removed from the board by Mayor Donna Deegan, saying warnings she raised about the agency\u2019s finances and oversight were ignored. <\/p>\n
Megan Hayward was ousted by Deegan in March 2025, after she repeatedly questioned how the agency was spending money.<\/p>\n
” I wasn\u2019t taken seriously,” Hayward said during an interview with Action News Jax Ben Becker, who first reported Wednesday about widespread layoffs and the fallout. <\/p>\n
\u201cHubris\u201d<\/p>\n
Hayward said she was the lone board member to raise concerns about spending<\/a>, governance, and oversight at JTA, including NAVI<\/a>, which is part of the agency\u2019s Ultimate Urban Circulator program, also known as U2C.<\/a> The autonomous vehicle project became a signature initiative of former JTA CEO Nat Ford and cost tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was given free rein, and I don\u2019t know why,\u201d Hayward said of Ford, who left for the CEO job with Dallas Area Rapid Transit.<\/a> \u201cThere was a lot of hubris behind this. People knew this wouldn\u2019t work, especially on the executive team,\u201d Hayward said. <\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s lying\u201d<\/p>\n Now, as JTA deals with major layoffs<\/a> and the shutdown of both the Skyway and the Navi<\/a>, Hayward argues responsibility extends beyond agency leadership.<\/p>\n She criticized both Ford and Mayor Deegan, accusing them of allowing the agency\u2019s financial problems spiral out of control<\/a>.<\/p>\n The comments come after the mayor\u2019s office released a statement Thursday saying JTA\u2019s board \u201cwas not previously aware of the dire nature of the agency\u2019s financial situation\u201d and that the mayor\u2019s office became aware of the issues when the board did.<\/p>\n Hayward strongly disputed that claim.<\/p>\n \u201cB.S. I say B.S.,\u201d Hayward said when asked about the statement.<\/p>\n She also believes her removal from the board was tied to her opposition to the U2C project.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause she[Deegan] knew I was going to vote off the U2C project, I\u2019m assuming that\u2019s why she kicked me off. She\u2019s lying [in her statement],\u201d Hayward said.<\/p>\n Hayward also blamed members of the City Council and her former colleagues on the JTA board for failing to act on concerns<\/a> she said were raised long before the agency\u2019s recent financial crisis<\/a> became public. <\/p>\n Ultimately, she believes there should be a criminal investigation.<\/p>\n \u201cOne thousand percent, yes. The state needs to investigate them, the feds need to investigate them, the Department of Transportation should investigate them,\u201d Hayward said. \u201cThere are serious questions and issues that I brought up a year and a half ago that have not been answered to this day.\u201d <\/p>\n Mayor\u2019s office statement<\/p>\n \u201cMayor Deegan appointed Elaine Brown to the JTA Board because of her previous transportation experience and did so when it aligned with the onboarding of several other new board members. False claims from a disgruntled former board member will not change that fact.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s next<\/p>\n Action News Jax reached out to the State Attorney\u2019s Office to ask whether it would consider opening a criminal investigation, and we are waiting to hear back.<\/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 A former Jacksonville Transportation Authority board member is speaking out 18 months after being removed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9322,56464,155294,56463,160424,8580,144251,116,118,117,799,634,1375,160422,9327,9323,68308,160423],"class_list":["post-403202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-ceo","tag-deegan","tag-department_of_transportation","tag-donna_degan","tag-elaine_brown","tag-ford","tag-hayward","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jta","tag-local","tag-mayor","tag-megan_hayward","tag-nat_ford","tag-navi","tag-skyway","tag-utc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403202","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=403202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}