Is the JEA privatization push on ‘pause’ … or dead?

Jacksonville’s public utility on Tuesday picked a new interim CEO, Aaron Zahn, who said — along with JEA Board chair Alan Howard — that there needed to be a “pause” in the privatization discussion.

For months, City Hall has been roiled with discussions of a potential sale of JEA. Now, there fmay be a break in the action.

Florida Politics asked Jacksonville public officials what they thought about this proposed armistice. Would it be an enduring peace? Or just a truce before resumption of hostilities?

City Council President Anna Lopez Brosche noted that the idea of the JEA board wanting to pause the discussion was not without irony.

“I find this suggestion somewhat ironic. The ‘JEA Board’ launched this inquiry in 2017 by taking a series of actions never openly discussed or voted upon at a JEA Board meeting until March 2018. I will defer to the Chairman of the Special Committee and my colleagues after appropriate discussion by the body to make important decisions on behalf of the people,” Brosche said.

The JEA Special Committee is chaired by John Crescimbeni, who did not respond when FP asked him his thoughts on the new CEO and proposed pause in the privatization debate that his committee has featured for weeks.

Council VP Aaron Bowman, who likely will be president by the end of June, has supported sunsetting that committee … and he’s still there now.

“We are creating a lot of work and concern with no real goals or objectives,” Bowman said,

Councilman Matt Schellenberg, who is the liaison to JEA, noted that Zahn’s hiring unavoidably created a pause.

Schellenberg expects “substantial changes” and the new administration will need time to get started, he said.

There will also be concerns about questioning Zahn about operations, Schellenberg said, noting that the new CEO might not have answers.

Refraining from comment: the office of Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry.

FP asked if Zahn was the choice of the Mayor’s Office, and regarding the pause in the privatization debate, when resumption would be desirable.