The JEA board has set its leadership positions for the next year, approving MG Orender as chair March 31.
In a 7-0 voice vote, the board also selected Arthur Adams as vice chair and Donald “Worth” McArthur as secretary.
The move came after the board’s executive committee voted March 2 to rescind a previous recommendation for Rick Morales III to serve as chair. The executive committee revisited the recommendation after Morales, who was vice chair during the past year, asked CEO Vickie Cavey to resign amid allegations of racism and toxic leadership.
News that Morales had asked for Cavey’s recommendation came before the JEA board’s Feb. 24 meeting. Going into that meeting, Chair Joseph DiSalvo removed the vote on Morales as chair from the meeting agenda.
That day, the board voted 6-1, with Morales as the only dissenter, to express support for Cavey.
“Why would you want a board chair not supporting the CEO?” DiSalvo said after the March 2 committee meeting. “That’s not the way it’s supposed to happen, especially when they can show no evidence.”
On March 31, Morales joined the majority in voting for the new board leadership.
Allegations against Cavey emerged after Jacksonville City Council President Kevin Carrico drew scrutiny for nominating Paul Martinez, his boss at Boys and Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida, to replace Adams on the JEA board.
Martinez is the president and CEO at Boys and Girls Clubs. Carrico is vice president of strategic initiatives.
After Action News Jax reported that texts between JEA board member Adams and Carrico showed Carrico made Martinez’s nomination as a “big favor” to a friend, Martinez withdrew his name from consideration.
The State Attorney’s Office issued a subpoena to Carrico for texts and emails related to the situation.
Carrico later nominated Randy Wyse to the board to replace Adams. Wyse has served as president of the Jacksonville Association of Fire Fighters and first district vice president of Florida Professional Firefighters.
The Council Rules Committee is set to consider Wyse’s nomination, and DiSalvo’s renomination to the board, on April 7. Council members Matt Carlucci and Michael Boylan have publicly said they would not support taking up Wyse’s nomination until they understand more about allegations surrounding Carrico’s nomination of Martinez.
Additionally, Carrico created a Council investigatory committee, which has held two hearings and plans to survey current and former JEA employees about their experiences with Cavey.
Carrico, Morales and former JEA Chief of Staff Kurt Wilson said they had heard reports of toxic behavior related to Cavey.
Cavey has denied the allegations, telling the board that if those were true, complaints would have emerged earlier in her more than 40 years with JEA and “would not suddenly appear overnight in a political news cycle.”
Cavey, a longtime JEA engineer and administrator, came out of retirement in March 2024 when the board asked her to serve as a liaison between them and former CEO Jay Stowe’s administration to review the utility’s organizational structure and help choose an independent consultant that the board would pay to examine JEA’s capital improvement plan.
During her decades-long career with JEA, Cavey held such positions as special assistant to the CEO for external affairs, director of strategy development and execution and director of strategic partnerships and acquisitions.
Mayor Donna Deegan defended Cavey during a Feb. 20 news conference in which she said the CEO was the victim of a “smear campaign” launched after JEA declined to extend a lobbying contract with Ballard Partners, which employs former Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry and his former chief of staff, Jordan Elsbury.
Deegan told reporters to “connect the dots” after she was asked about Curry and Elsbury being involved.
Curry denied any involvement, and Elsbury described Deegan’s accusations as “Wizard of Oz stuff.”