special investigatory committee on jea date...

FIRST COAST COURT REPORTERS

SPECIAL INVESTIGATORY COMMITTEE ON JEA

SESSION #13

DATE: Monday, December 7, 2020

TIME: 5:03 p.m. - 5:28 p.m.

PLACE: Zoom

COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT:

Brenda Priestly Jackson, Chair, District 10 Randy DeFoor, District 14 Tommy Hazouri, Council President, Group 3Joyce Morgan, District 1Ronald Salem, Group 2

ALSO PRESENT:

Dr. Cheryl Brown, Council Secretary/DirectorSteve Cassada, IT AdministratorMelanie Wilkes, Council Support ServicesEric Grantham, Council Support ServicesJeff Clements, Chief of ResearchYvonne Mitchell, Council ResearchHeather Reber, Council Auditor's OfficeJeff Rodda, Council Auditor's OfficePeggy Sidman, Office of General CounselJason Gabriel, Office of General CounselChris Garrett, Office of General CounselPaige Johnston, Office of General CounselSean Granat, Office of General CounselSteve Busey, Smith, Hulsey & BuseyKurtis Wilson, JEA

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P R O C E E D I N G S

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: This

meeting of the Special Investigatory

Committee on JEA is called to order. The

time is 5:03 p.m.

Will we have those individuals on the

dais to please introduce yourselves for the

record.

COUNCIL MEMBER DeFOOR: Randy DeFoor,

District 14.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON:

Brenda Priestly Jackson --

COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAZOURI: Tommy

Hazouri, Group 3 At-Large.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: Brenda

Priestly Jackson, District 10.

MS. SIDMAN: Peggy Sidman, Office of

General Counsel.

MS. REBER: Heather Reber, Council

Auditor's Office.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: Thank you

so much.

We will now have the invocation and

Pledge of Allegiance.

Council Member DeFoor.

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COUNCIL MEMBER DeFOOR: Thank you, Madam

Chair. We'll do the serenity prayer.

Dear God, please give us the serenity to

accept the things we cannot change, the

courage to change the things we can and the

wisdom to know the difference.

(Pledge of Allegiance.)

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: We are

going to accept speaker's cards or hands

raised until 5:35 p.m. for those who wish to

do public comments today, in light of the

fact that we had to cancel our meeting on

November 16th, which was scheduled for

public comment. Otherwise, we'll follow our

agenda as printed, which moves us now to

outside counsel update and overview of final

report.

Attorney Steve Busey.

MR. BUSEY: Madam Chair, Steve Busey,

Special Counsel to the Committee.

We are well in the process of preparing

the Committee's reports and collecting

comments from the Members of the Committee.

We have a handful of additional witnesses to

talk to, but we've pretty much covered that

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territory. We expect to send the report to

a website designer in mid-December, at which

time it will be complete from our point of

view. We expect to have that back in

publishable form, printable and accessible

to the public on or before January the 11th,

2021.


for that, Attorney Busey. Is there anything

you would like to share with us at this time

regarding the final report?

COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAZOURI: Madam Chair,

I just don't have that agenda in front of

me. Did they hand them out?

The agenda, if y'all have one.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: They'll

bring one.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAZOURI: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: Is there

anything additional, Attorney Busey, you

would like to share with us regarding the

report?

MR. BUSEY: No, thank you.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: I

couldn't --

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MR. BUSEY: No, ma'am.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: Okay.

Thank you.

Committee Member DeFoor.


Chair.

Through the Chair to Mr. Busey, I

understand there is additional interviews to

be made. Who else is going to be

interviewed?

MR. BUSEY: We have Mike Hightower

coming in on Wednesday morning. We have two

Council Persons to talk to about their

disclosures they made; it will be just brief

conversations. We're going to talk to Matt

Brockelman with the Southern Group, and

we're going to talk to Allen Maines with

Holland & Knight.

COUNCIL MEMBER DeFOOR: Thank you very

much.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: President

Hazouri, do you have any?

COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAZOURI: No. You

know, I may have made a mistake that there

was a draft ready. I know there is not one

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to go out. And I just want to clarify that

we won't be getting anything until the end

of the month; correct?

MR. BUSEY: That's correct.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAZOURI: December

30th, is it?

MR. BUSEY: By the time -- it will be

after the end of the month by the time it's

printed, but we'll get it to the printer and

the website designer before the end of the

month. And we'll send a report that we

accomplished that by the end of December.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAZOURI: Okay. Thank

you.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON:

Mr. Busey, additionally, it's my

understanding that, once the report is

released, that there are going to be bound

copies of the report that you're going to

give out, as well as a chronology; is that

correct?

MR. BUSEY: That's right. Absent

contrary instruction from the Committee,

we're going to have printed 100 copies,

bound copies, of the report, which will be

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in excess of 100 pages long, and we'll have

50 pages bound of the 350-page chronology;

all of which will be accessible to the

public on a website.


so much.

And I believe, Mr. Council President,

you have shared that, for the second meeting

in January, that Mr. Busey will present that

information to the Members of the City

Council at that time; is that --

COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAZOURI: Which day

was that? Is it the 12th?

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: The

meeting after that, the second meeting in

December.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAZOURI: Oh, the

second meeting, second meeting in January?

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: In

January, yes.


CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: Anything

additional? Thank you so much, Mr. Busey.

We appreciate it.

MR. BUSEY: Thank you.

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CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: We now

move to Office of General Counsel, with our

General Counsel, Jason Gabriel.

Mr. Gabriel.

MR. GABRIEL: Good evening, Madam Chair.

Jason Gabriel, General Counsel.

I don't have anything else to add to

that, other than I did distribute our Office

of General Counsel disclosure index last

week, at the end of last week. And that has

hopefully -- I hope it's convenient when you

go through sort of the timeline. If you

click on the links, it will take you right

to the memo or the legal guidance that, you

know, is pertinent. And hopefully it's

self-explanatory. But other than that, I am

just available for any questions you may

have.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: Council

Member DeFoor.

COUNCIL MEMBER DeFOOR: Through the

Chair to Mr. Gabriel, I just want to thank

you for that disclosure. I think it really

is -- was important that it was done and it

ties in with the rest of the disclosures.

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So thank you for doing that.

MR. GABRIEL: Thank you.


President Hazouri.


So this is the anniversary, Mr. General

Counsel, from a year ago almost to today, I

guess, that all this started unfolding. And

y'all have done a great job.

You will be receiving the draft at some

point to go over it with your fine tooth

comb with the General Counsel's Office. Is

that -- what is your role now? Once it is

complete, will you be reviewing the draft?

MR. GABRIEL: Through the Chair to

Council President Hazouri, we're, obviously,

in communication with Special Counsel, as we

have been all along. At some point we'll

want to have, you know, an opportunity to

take a look at the draft -- we'll see when

that time is -- so that we can hopefully,

you know, to the extent we have any comments

that are productive or helpful to that

process, that, you know, they can be taken

into account. So I'll be conferring with

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Mr. Busey on that in the coming days.


Thank you, Madam Chair.


Member DeFoor.


Chair.

I would just say that, you know, I have

no problem with, obviously, General Counsel

reviewing that, but that was done by

independent counsel and it needs to remain

as such is my feeling on that.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: I concur.

I don't think that Mr. Gabriel was saying

that he had to sign off on it or approve it,

clearly not pursuant to the legislation that

the City Council retained outside counsel

for this manner. I think that was regarding

-- my understanding is Mr. Gabriel and

Mr. Busey's offices are coordinating to

share whatever information is available at

this time relative to the final report; is

that --

MR. GABRIEL: Yeah.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: Because

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there is nothing final that we received or

anything.

MR. GABRIEL: Thank you, Madam Chair.

That's exactly right. We just want to

make sure that -- you know, there may be

some facts or items they're not aware of

that we'd bring to their attention. And

that's how we've been working all along. So

that would be the only purpose of it, would

be to provide facts and information.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: Anything

from anyone else?

Okay. I believe Councilman Salem is on

Zoom and he has his hand raised.

Councilman Salem, you're recognized.

COUNCIL MEMBER SALEM: Thank you, Chair.

I had my hand raised when Mr. Busey was

up. Could you, by chance, bring him back to

the podium?

Mr. Busey?

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: They're

sanitizing the podium, Councilman Salem.

Give them a moment.

COUNCIL MEMBER SALEM: Now I can see

him. Thank you.

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Mr. Busey, do you have any more

interviews that will be posted for review by

the Council Members?

MR. BUSEY: Yes. We -- last week we

interviewed at length Paul McElroy for a

third time, and that was transcribed. We

don't have the transcript yet, but we should

have it within a week or so.

COUNCIL MEMBER SALEM: Are there any

others, other than that, in the last couple

weeks that you'll be posting?

MR. BUSEY: I don't believe there are

any other than that. We interviewed Jody

Brooks, but we didn't transcribe it.

COUNCIL MEMBER SALEM: Will you be

posting Hightower, Brockelman or Allen

Maines?

MR. BUSEY: I don't -- Allen Maines may

be the only one of those that's going to be

transcribed. Hightower will not be

transcribed and Matt Brockelman will not be.

COUNCIL MEMBER SALEM: Would you notify

me when those are ready, if you don't mind?

MR. BUSEY: Yes, I will.

COUNCIL MEMBER SALEM: Thank you, sir.

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Thank you, Chair.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: You're

welcome, Councilman Salem.

Anything further? We now -- and we're

making -- we're moving rather quickly. We

now move to witnesses, subpoenas, documents

and related issues. And I believe our --

Mr. Busey stated the additional witnesses.

Mr. Busey, would you be so kind as to

just restate the names of those individuals

that you are still going to have

conversations with at this point in the

agenda, so we can -- if someone missed it

earlier?

MR. BUSEY: We've taken Patrick Greive's

deposition and Paul McElroy's, as I've said.

They'll be transcribed, but we don't have

them yet. We're going to be interviewing

Mike Hightower on Wednesday, but that's not

going to be transcribed. We're going to

interview Allen Maines, Matt Brockelman and

Anna Broche, and I don't expect any of those

to be transcribed.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: Thank

you.

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Council Member DeFoor.

COUNCIL MEMBER DeFOOR: Only -- through

the Chair to Mr. Busey, you have done an

outstanding job. And the amount of

interviews and the extensiveness of this

investigation, I just want to thank you.

And I look forward to reading your report in

its final form.


President Hazouri.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAZOURI: I think I

said that last week, Mr. Busey. Is there a

claw back in your contract that we can get

some of that money back?

MR. BUSEY: I'm going to recommend

against that.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAZOURI: Y'all have

done it to the T, I guarantee it. No, we do

appreciate it. And working hand in hand

with our General Counsel is very much

appreciated. I think this is probably the

most thorough, and I don't want to repeat

the 6,000, what, pages -- is that what it

was -- or texts or what have you. All that

y'all have gone through and all the time

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that you spent. And it's what, just, I

think, four people and your researcher.

Y'all have done an excellent job. And I

don't think we could thank you or say enough

about what y'all have done.

And you've done it for -- as a --

regardless of getting paid, you've done it

for this community. And it's been a

blessing for us. And it's helped us move

forward and keeping an eye on other type of

situations like this so we can imply early

on what is going on and what lies beneath

before it gets to the point where it became

that debacle that it did over this past

year. Thank you very much.

And thank the General Counsel and our

own Council Auditor, as well, if she's

listening. It was a wonderful job. And I'm

looking forward to the final report. Thank

you.

MR. BUSEY: Thank you, Mr. President.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: Thank

you.

I am going to echo the sentiments of the

other Committee Members. And I want to

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thank Attorney Busey for his openness and

willingness and his desire to delve deeply

into the issues to help us as a council

fulfill the charge. And so my understanding

of the final report will be that there will

be recommendations relative to what we may

need to do additionally as a legislative

body in terms of addressing concerns with

our Charter, our procurement policies,

ethical considerations and other matters.

So I just want to thank you for that, and

thank you for dutifully and diligently

working with each of us and receiving our

input and insight.

I think that the public is going to be

very encouraged by the level and quality of

the work, as well as the diligence afforded,

the time put in by Attorney Busey to get

those questions answered. And to have the

answers our community needs in terms of

transparency and a lot of that being, you

know, how we can better as a council adhere

to Florida Sunshine, adhere to our Charter

mandates and make certain that we don't find

ourself in this situation going forward.

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I want to take an opportunity at this

time, as the Chair, to also thank Councilman

Dennis. And I'm thanking Councilman Dennis

because he had the hindsight -- the

foresight to know in September of 2019 that

we as a body would need to set aside funds

to be able to retain outside counsel. I

don't know that anyone else on the Council

at that time had that level of vision and

foresight.

So I -- and we will be remiss to not

acknowledge him, because it was through his

legislation that he advanced and the

Council's voting in support of it which

allowed us to be able to get Mr. Busey's

firm to help us address these issues to

better protect our neighbors going forward.

So I want to take that opportunity to say

that.

I'm looking forward to the timeline. It

is going to be a very telling timeline on

what happened when. And I am looking

forward to making certain that we -- you

know, allay any fears or concerns of our

neighbors and others relative to what our

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role is and what our position is in relation

to independent authorities or handling the

people's business.

So I just -- again, thank you,

Mr. Busey, and thank Councilman Dennis, who

I'm certain is working right now, for his

vision and foresight as a carryover from the

other Council to know that we needed those

funds.

Council President Hazouri.



Ditto to what you said about Councilman

Dennis. You know, people can say that, you

know, he speaks out all the time about

different things, but he does it because

he's smart and he does have that foresight.

And I give him all the credit in the world

for what he does and what he says. Some may

not like the way he makes his presentations.

I love it because I think that he tells it

like it is.

But as important, I think, is that, you

know, what he saw is what we're continuing

to see. And I think what broke this open in

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the first place is something similar to

what's going on now, it's about trust. And

we tend to trust those players who are

involved in the authorities and in the

administration. And I think this has taught

us a real lesson. And now I think we'll be

more cognizant of what goes on. We should

be anyway. But who would know? But now we

do know. And we're not going to look over

our shoulders, we're going to be ahead of

them.

And I think that even you, Madam Chair,

when you said that this thing should have

gone to the General Counsel's Office before,

I mean, the 30-day bit that's in the --


Auditor.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAZOURI: Council

Auditor, I meant, not the General Counsel.

I don't want to be blamed on this one, so we

pass on this one then, Jason.

But, yeah, to the Council Auditor. So,

you know, it could have stopped in its

tracks, but it didn't and the beat went on.

And thank God that we were able to have a

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real Christmas celebration by saving

millions upon millions of dollars

potentially of our city taxpayers' dollars

and the ratepayers.


CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: Do we

have any comments from the public? Any

hands raised?

This has been a long road. I want to

let everybody know it's been a long road. I

actually -- since we have a little time,

since I said I would give folks a few

minutes to get their comments in, I'm going

to talk for a moment.

I was reflecting earlier today about

Council Member DeFoor. I sat where you're

sitting, close to where you sit, Attorney

Sidman and Ms. DeFoor sat on the other side.

And as I was reading today, I was tickled

when I realized, when we were told we were

under a cone of silence, that it extended to

us. And I think across -- when I looked

across at Council Member DeFoor, if her head

could have blew off of her at that time, it

might have. She turned so red across when

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that was going on. So I am thankful that we

have gone from that.

And it was a lot, guys, it was a lot.

It was quite a bit. It was a lot for a new

Councilman, a lot to undertake, but I'm

grateful that we were called together for

such a time as this. And we now still

maintain ownership of our municipal utility.

Any other business? Nobody is in the

queue, Ms. Mitchell, is it?

If no one comes on in the next three

minutes, then -- Council Member DeFoor wants

to share.

COUNCIL MEMBER DeFOOR: I'll just say

that, you know, I am a true redhead. And I

think that we've learned a lot about what

works and what doesn't work. And I think,

you know, we're still learning. I mean,

we're seeing -- continuing to see issues

with this Council, quite frankly, that I'm

looking forward to taking those

recommendations and acting on them, because

there are times when this Council does not

have, in my opinion, proper representation.

Lot J is a great example where we don't have

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really our own representation in that

process, and it just continues.

So I think it's a great opportunity to

see how we can improve our current system

and go from there.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAZOURI: One last

thing. Lest we forget, thank you. We

appreciate -- since you took over, we moved

this along. There is no politics into it,

we did our job. And I want to thank Randy

and you and Scott before that. And I

appreciate it.

And I think the citizens appreciate the

work you've done and the work you've done,

Randy, before I got here, but you know, I

kept a watchful eye listening and talking

and trying to make sure that we're doing

what we needed to do.

And you have gone beyond the call of

duty. And I thank you, Brenda, for doing

that. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: Yeah, I

was trying to give time. I gave time for

people to do their public comments, and so

it would kind of be rude if I just really

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say we're done. So I'm still -- we said we

were going to give it a few more minutes.

As long as you're going to talk about

SIC.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAZOURI: Do I have

to?

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: Yes.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAZOURI: Indirectly.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: SIC JEA,

no extraneous issues, Mr. Council President.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAZOURI: Just an

announcement, it just came across. It's not

the SIC. I think they officially announced,

I think, Former Mayor John Delaney is -- and

president has taken over -- I think he and

Mike Weinstein are in competition for who

can have the most positions. He's just been

appointed as the Interim President of

Flagler College, so anyway. Representing

Holland & Knight -- no.

COUNCIL MEMBER DeFOOR: All right.

Since we're burning some time.

CHAIRPERSON PRIESTLY JACKSON: We're

wasting time for public comment.

COUNCIL MEMBER DeFOOR: I do want to

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thank you, Madam Chair, for your work in

this matter. I mean, there were times when

it didn't look so pretty, and you -- I

remember looking at you, and you just always

knew that everything was going to be okay.

And I just want to thank you for that

courage that you had during that time and --

because this community really, really -- I

mean, think about it, we were about to sell

our only asset. God knows where the money

would have gone. And we would have been

laden with debt with Plant Vogtle. And if

it sold, our taxpayers would have paid

higher rates. It was a lose-lose.

And again, I just want to thank you for

your encouragement and your leadership.


for that.

I believe in divine order. I think we

were divinely ordered to be where we are at

this time to deal with this. Not that

anyone runs for City Council to deal with a

rogue utility. I just want to let the

record reflect that's not what any of us

thought we would be doing. But we were

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divinely called for such a time as this.

And in grace and humility, we met the

challenge.

Public comment. I'm trying to see.

There is no one.

Council Member Morgan, you're

recognized.

COUNCIL MEMBER MORGAN: Thank you so

much, Madam Chair.

I just wanted to echo all of the

sentiments that have been said tonight about

this Committee, about the work of this

Committee, about the commitment of this

Committee. We appreciate you. And we know

that, because of your work, because of your

diligence, all of you, that we're going to

be able to move forward in a positive

direction as JEA is concerned.

So I know that you're waiting for

anybody to come up with public comment, so I

just thought I would take this moment to,

you know, just to let you know how much you

are appreciated and the fine work that all

of you have done. So thank you all.


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so much, Council Member Morgan. We

appreciate that.

Seeing no hands raised in the queue,

seeing no one in our socially distanced

chambers, this final meeting of the SIC on

JEA Special Investigatory Committee is

adjourned.

(Meeting adjourned at 5:28 p.m.)

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CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER

STATE OF FLORIDACOUNTY OF DUVAL

I, Amanda E. Robinson, Registered

Professional Reporter, Certified Realtime

Captioner, do hereby certify that I was

authorized to and did report the foregoing

proceedings; and that the transcript, pages 1

through 26, is a true record of my stenographic

notes.

DATED this 21st day of December, 2020.

Amanda E. Robinson, Registered Professional Reporter,

Certified Realtime Captioner

special investigatory committee on jea date...

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