JEA

We look at what's going on with the JHA.

And we think back to the JEA scandal and Carrico's comments about, hey, I've got to do this appointment as a favor to a friend.

I think we may need to look at how these people are appointed and make sure that any of these boards, that they're not all aligned and that there's some sort of balance so that if something does start to go in a bad direction, there's people on there who will stand up and challenge, you know, those reports that they're given from leadership.

Christina, I wonder if you think that some of the pressure that's building on JTA fed into the JHA, which this week the housing authority basically fired their CEO after she'd asked for a big bonus.

Is there a sense that they're even maybe reacting more aggressively than they would because we've seen these other agencies under the microscope? Honestly,

I think the chance is there possibly because I think the big thing now is we're in just one week speaking about JHA, JTA, not JEA, but it could be that.

It could be that pressure.

It could be, you know, some fire under the feet for people that are also sitting on those same boards to be like, I don't want to be in this position.

And I'm not asking you to do anything for me, but I may not be able to do this because this is where I'm at.

I'm just trying to pay my JEA bill, you know? You go and enjoy, but I can't do that this week.

I can't do that this month.

Or I'm going to have to plan for that trip for 2027 and 2028.

Yeah, president.

And then had experience on the North Florida TPO and was the liaison to JEA for the beaches.

So she did replace her with somebody with transportation experience.

That much is true.

It's early in this process, but I haven't seen anything that's risen at this point that's risen to a level like that.

But I do think, though, both of those incidents or both of these issues affect agencies that affect everybody's daily lives.

JEA with your electricity and your water bill, JTA with public transit trying to get people to and from work and to and from the grocery store.

So I think that anything that's endangering those types of services is going to get the public's attention.

If you nuke NAS Jacksonville and Mayport and Cecil Field, well, there goes the million people in the greater northeast Florida area.

However, if we find ourselves in an extended conventional conflict, if they took out the major electrical transformers owned by Florida Power and Light, JEA, Jackson Electrical Authority, and all of Northeast Florida, Nassau, Clay, Baker, St. John's, Clay County, Duval, all went dark.

You would hope if you looked out to where Mayport was and you looked at NS Jacksonville, there'd still be lights on there.

If not, then you've got more trouble than you're going to have by a bunch of cold or hot and hungry civilians.

Just super thankful for Especially having played, you know, we played Monday, Friday, Monday, Friday.

And so I am really thankful for the good folks at JEA that we were able to get the lights back on.

Yeah, I can imagine when you were up 29-0 and the Bird did that, that you probably weren't all that appreciative of the Bird doing that based on how many games you'd played.

And we talked about this last week.

Yeah, but you have to remember the Jacksonville Transportation Authority is a state agency.

It's not like the independent authorities that operate like the Jacksonville Housing Authority or JEA or the Airport Authority.

Why does that make a difference? I think it makes their finances more opaque.

I think it makes it, I think city council basically is required to look at their budget and give it a rubber stamp.

They're not going to think necessarily a state agency.

We'll talk about the Jacksonville Housing Authority in a second.

We've talked about JEA in the past.

So if you're a voter and you don't pay that much attention to politics, or even if you do, you're thinking you've lined up all of these kinds of scandals and mismanagement issues that whether Deegan's connected or not, you're thinking this seems to keep coming around.

This is Steve VanCore, and today we're talking to Ricky Erickson.

Ricky's the chief electrical systems officer at JEA, and he's your vice president.

You know, how many times when you're on your job, you just want to say no to another idea, another project? Well, Ricky reflects on that and talks about, for him, saying no is never an option.

He also talks about what keeps him energized, what keeps him going, and what gets him up in the morning.

Greetings, I'm Steve VanCore, and this is the Florida Public PowerCast, a production of the Florida Municipal Electric Association.

If you're a regular listener, you know that each episode we sit down with leaders and experts from Florida's public power communities, and we explore issues, innovations, hot topics, all those things that are affecting our state's energy future.

Today, we're visiting with Ricky Erickson, He's the incoming, he's the FMEA incoming vice president and is also the chief electric systems officer at JEA.

Because as those of you who know, it's no longer and hasn't been for a while.

Let's face it.

Tolls in Jacksonville are now the equivalent of selling the JEA.

It's a third rail of Jacksonville politics.

You don't bring it up, right? But there is something slightly disingenuous about that whole discussion.

Yeah, local governments, through their home rule powers, do have the ability to assess fees under certain sort of statutory guidelines, and I think you'd see a number of them go to that.

You mentioned back when John Payton was mayor during his second term, he diversified the city's revenue stream by adding a stormwater fee, a garbage fee, and a JEA franchise fee to the mix of city operations during the Great Recession, a time where property tax revenues were down.

So...

And

So that may be another revenue tool you will see communities go to to try and kind of bridge that gap, but they will require voter approval.

The other issue will be, and this is something we're accustomed to here in Jacksonville, To the extent cities have and counties have independent business units that generate revenue, you might see more of an effort to increase the amount of revenue sharing.

We've seen that in recent years with JEA, which made a significant new contribution to the city in the last couple of years.

We'll probably get into JTA later.