JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 City Council members are demanding answers from JTA following news that the agency was issued a subpoena by the Attorney General\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
The Office of Statewide Prosecution is seeking information on various agency contracts, policies, and more as JTA deals with nearly 200 layoffs, a change of leadership, and a $39 million budget shortfall.<\/p>\n
Council President Nick Howland (R-Group 3 At-Large) said he\u2019ll be charging a select committee to start a deep dive into what went wrong at the agency on Wednesday, while the Attorney General\u2019s Office digs into questions of accountability.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to focus, not on punitive work. We\u2019re gonna focus on corrective work to make sure the resident of Jacksonville have optimal transportation and make sure that JTA is back on a strong financial footing,\u201d said Howland.<\/p>\n Mayor Donna Deegan\u2019s office also reacted to the news of the state investigation into JTA.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important to remember that JTA is a state agency. Its staff is made up of state employees, the majority of its board is appointed by the Governor, and its budget is reviewed and approved by the Jacksonville City Council,\u201d said a spokesperson with the mayor\u2019s office in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n But the Governor only got a majority share of JTA Board appointments last summer as the result of a new state law.<\/p>\n Previously, the Governor and mayor both had three appointments, and the Florida Department of Transportation had one.<\/p>\n Now, the Governor has four, and the mayor has three.<\/p>\n Council\u2019s JTA Liaison Rory Diamond (R-District 13) noted all four of the Governor\u2019s appointees have served on the board for less than a year.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s not forget there\u2019s a bunch of brand-new board members who frankly don\u2019t have their hands in any of this,\u201d said Diamond. \u201dBut there\u2019s some board members who have been there for quite some time who have some serious questions to answer.\u201d<\/p>\n Diamond said he hopes to get those JTA board members before council to provide some of those answers soon.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the AG\u2019s Office investigates, they typically don\u2019t publish anything, so we\u2019ll never know,\u201d said Diamond. \u201dSo, I think it\u2019s important that we go ahead and ask those questions publicly.\u201d <\/p>\n In a statement, JTA told Action News Jax the agency \u201cremains committed to transparency and accountability and will provide information as requested throughout this process\u201d.<\/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 City Council members are demanding answers from JTA following news that the agency was issued…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[14189,982,6277,18607,9325,14365,2239,969,116,118,117,18638,971,55599,164264,2816,799,81738,634,9323,115,87553,9324],"class_list":["post-414543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action","tag-action_news","tag-attorney_general","tag-council_president","tag-diamond","tag-florida_department_of_transportation","tag-general","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jacksonville_city_council","tag-jake","tag-jake_stan","tag-jake_stowfan","tag-jax","tag-jta","tag-la_villa","tag-local","tag-navi","tag-news","tag-nick_hallen","tag-rory_diamond"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414543","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=414543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}