Total Pageviews

Search This Blog

Friday, August 30, 2019

Did Scott Wilson just admit the sale of JEA is a done deal? (draft)

You might be asking, hey Chris what does this have to do with education. Well the sale of JEA is just more evidence that those leading us don't care about what we think and want.

The sale of JEA is about as unpopular as the referendum is popular. The people of Jacksonville want the referendum and they want to keep the JEA too but that hasn't stopped the City Council and City Hall from ignoring them. You see we don't have a city government that works for us, they work for their donors and Scott Wilson seemed to indicate the sale of JEA, after ironing out just a few details, was little more than a done deal.

From the Jax Daily Record,

Wilson said the decision to privatize JEA is making its way to Council faster than he anticipated.

 “I just think the Council as a whole needs more time. This is one of the biggest transactions we’ve ever undertaken, even though this (JEA employee pensions) is just a small part of it,” Wilson said.

The bill states that active JEA employees on the date of a “recapitalization event” will be considered vested in the pension program regardless of their years of credited service.

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/pension-bill-linked-to-jea-sale-could-be-deferred

Wha, faster than anticipated? Why are we in a hurry? What's the rush? This is kind of a big deal right, shouldn't this be a slow and deliberate process?

And um, one of the biggest transactions, we've under taken?

I thought the council was just checking things out. You know feeling its way around to see if the sale of JEA is a good idea or not.

I mean as far as I have heard and I try and keep in the know, there has been no JEA transaction yet.

I think we are fooling ourselves if we don't think the sale of JEA is full speed ahead, despite the city's reservations.

There was another interesting part of the article as well.

A memorandum from the Office of General Counsel distributed Tuesday to Council officials states any possible decision-maker in a JEA sale is prohibited from speaking about the terms of JEA’s ITN with constituents, members of the media, on social media or with possible respondents to JEA’s solicitation.

The cone also means Council members cannot file legislation or hold noticed public meetings regarding the solicitation terms.

The guidance does allow city and JEA leaders to speak about JEA’s future “in general.” 

After reading the memo, Council members Randy DeFoor and Garrett Dennis said the fine line between specific and general comments could provide a need for the  Council to have outside legal advice. They also requested city General Counsel Jason Gabriel provide a binding legal opinion on the cone restrictions.

“We have not talked about this at all as a Council,” DeFoor said. “This is a complicated area that we need our own expert counsel on to hold our hand through the process. The general counsel wears a lot of hats. They represent a lot of different people, and we’re going to need our own, in my opinion, counsel.”

Randy Defoor thinks people need their own lawyers, hmm is there anybody else that could use their own lawyers, hmm is there anybody or maybe a board that I can think of

Friends, whether it is the Landing, Lot J, JEA or the referendum, we are not being led in Jacksonville, we are being ruled and those ruling us do not have our best interests at heart.

Image result for jea

No comments:

Post a Comment