Want to see what the companies interested in acquiring city-owned JEA had to say about it?
Check whatsnextjax.com.
JEA announced the evening of Dec. 27 it relaunched whatsnextjax.com for public documents, starting with the 16 initial replies to its invitation to negotiate and information about becoming community-owned and an initial public offering.
The information is posted for 14 of the respondents.
American Water Works Co. Inc. and NextEra Energy Inc. (the parent company of Florida Power & Light) bids are not. “Legal approval for publication of this information is forthcoming,” says those links.
Posted replies from the remaining seven respondents selected to enter the negotiation phase were:
The seven respondents not selected to enter negotiations were:
“As part of our commitment to provide as much information regarding the Strategic Alternatives ITN process to the public as quickly as possible, we have relaunched whatsnextjax.com as a repository of documents that will continue to be populated over the coming days and weeks,” JEA announced.
“Today JEA is releasing all initial ITN replies, except in those instances where it has received a timely objection to the public release of such information,” it said.
JEA said the two replies that were not released “provided a timely objection to the release of these documents.”
“We are balancing mitigation of potential litigation risk against proceeding with haste on release of information, and have received legal challenges we are addressing,” JEA said.
The city-owned utility and the Office of General Counsel will continue to work with all respondents in the coming days and weeks to release all information related to the invitation to negotiate, it said.
Interim CEO Melissa Dykes provided a statement on the site, starting with the JEA board’s vote Dec. 24 to end the “Strategic Alternatives Invitation to Negotiate process.”
That vote officially rejected the nine remaining bid proposals and responses.
“While I firmly believe the ITN process began for the right reasons — to figure out how we can best serve our community long into the future — the way the process was conducted has resulted in a loss of trust by the stakeholders we serve,” Dykes wrote.
“It is my goal to rebuild that trust. We will do so by operating in a deliberately transparent way, being more forthcoming with information, and clearly explaining the reasons for the decisions we've made.”
This site will house the 16 bid responses received “along with most frequently requested public record documents in a topical repository.”