Records released June 25 by the State Attorney’s Office show Jacksonville City Council President Kevin Carrico told the head of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida it was time to show JEA “who’s boss” in a text message exchange about JEA’s refusal to sell land sought by the Nassau County affiliate of the nonprofit.
The state attorney collected the records as part of an investigation that issued a subpoena for JEA-related communications by Carrico.
The Jacksonville City Council office previously released just part of a January text message between Carrico, who is a vice president at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida, and the nonprofit organization’s CEO Paul Martinez. The cut-off portion provided to the Florida Times-Union and other media organizations did not include anything about the Nassau County land.
“Guess it’s time they get a new board member to show them who’s boss … You ready to play the game?” Carrico wrote in the piece of the text message that was released by the City Council’s Office.
Three weeks after Carrico wrote that Jan. 20 text message, he nominated Martinez for a seat on the JEA board.
Carrico said June 9 he wrote the text message about showing JEA’s “who’s boss” to convey the JEA board needs new leadership that won’t “accept the status quo” in the face of electric rate increases.
The full text message to Martinez does not make any mention of electric rates, however, but contains an update by Carrico on whether JEA would sell land in Nassau County to the Boys & Girls Club of Nassau County Foundation.
“Good evening,” Martinez wrote in the text to Carrico. “Any word on Nassau for Nassau.”
“No love … First they said no to giving it away because of fear of the board, now they say not interested in selling either because of future growth in Nassau county,” Carrico replied. “Guess it’s time they get a new board member to show them who’s boss … You ready to play the game?”
State attorney opened investigation after ‘big favor’ text
The text messages are among the communications the City Council Office turned over to prosecutors in response to a Feb. 24 subpoena. Her office followed up with a May 13 subpoena to JEA asking for records about the parcel of land in Nassau County.
State Attorney Melissa Nelson’s office opened the investigation after Carrico wrote a Feb. 5 text message to current JEA board member Arthur Adams that he “owed a big favor to a friend and opted to put him on the JEA board as your term is expiring. Not sure if you wanted to stay but I needed to do this for my guy.”
After Carrico nominated Martinez in February, he withdrew from consideration later that month before City Council voted on whether to confirm him.
Carrico has said his appointment of Martinez did not involve any exchange of favors and he nominated him solely on Martinez’s “experience, integrity and ability to to serve effectively.”
Martinez said in a June 25 statement there was no connection between his nomination to the board and land owned by JEA in Nassau County.
He said the Nassau County Boys & Girls Club Foundation is a separate nonprofit organization with its own independent board of directors.
Martinez said the Nassau County Boys & Girls Club Foundation “had expressed that it was not receiving responses regarding the property and asked me to inquire on its behalf. Other than this inquiry, I had no further conversations with Mr. Carrico regarding this property.”
Martinez said if he had been confirmed by City Council as a JEA board member, “I understood that I would have been required to abstain from participating in any discussion or vote involving the property. That is how any potential conflict would have been handled.”
The seven-member JEA board oversees the city-owned utility. Four of its members are nominated by the City Council president and three are appointed by the mayor with all of them subject to confirmation by the full council.
In addition to nominating a board member, Carrico also was able as council president to create a Special Investigatory Committee on JEA Matters in March that put top JEA executives under oath for questioning about the utility’s workplace culture and JEA’s collection of capacity fees.
All City Council members vote each year on approving JEA’s budget.
State attorney provides more records than City Council did
The Feb. 24 subpoena by Nelson’s office prompted the Florida Times-Union and other Jacksonville media organizations to file public records requests for documents turned over by the City Council’s Office.
Mitchell Stone, an attorney for Carrico, said on June 11 the documents provided to media organizations did not include personal communications that were covered by the subpoena but fall outside Florida Sunshine Law. He said Carrico “takes seriously his obligation to fully comply” with public records law and he “withheld only those communications that were sent or received in his capacity as a private citizen.”
The records provided by the State Attorney’s Office at the request of media organizations have some redactions the office determined are exempt from public records law because they are “personal text messages or phone records transmitted or received by public employees.”
The state attorney’s release of documents does not apply that exemption to communications by Carrico about a potential land deal between the Boys & Girls Clubs organization and JEA.
JEA at one time offered to lease a parcel of land to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Nassau County Foundation for $1 a year, but the utility pulled back that offer by telling the foundation in March 2024 that JEA policies would not allow it to provide land at that low lease rate.
After JEA said it could discuss a market rate lease, the utility commissioned a September 2024 appraisal of a 4.9 acre parcel near Yulee High School that found the market price for the property was about $1.17 million and the ground lease amount would be $111,525 per year, or $9,293 per month.
In an organizational change that happened at about that time, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida announced in August 2024 that it would operate the existing facilities of the Boys & Girls Clubs Foundation of Nassau County in a merger of the organizations, which continued to be separate non-profit organizations with their own boards of directors.
Carrico was a point person for the nonprofit asking about the land. An undated text message from Carrico to Kurt Wilson, who was chief of staff at JEA until earlier this year, said the Boys & Girls Clubs organization remained interested in the JEA-owned land.
“Hey bro, remember when you looked into the Nassau County land next to the Boys & Girls Club,” Carrico wrote. “I think last communication was that you guys were getting an appraisal? We have funds to build a teen center would love it there, makes perfect sense. Can you dust of (sic) that conversation and give me an update?”
Wilson replied he would run down that information.
Wilson sent the land appraisal to Carrico in a Dec. 9, 2025, email and told him any transaction for the land would have to be vetted through JEA CEO Vickie Cavey “based on the ask.”
In a Jan. 7 text message whose recipient is not identified, Carrico gave an update on the Nassau County property by writing, “They are checking with CEO to see if a donation of the land is still in play.”
In a Jan. 8 text message to Wilson, Carrico wrote: “… more than willing to sit down with me and you and Vicki and Paul Martinez and maybe one of the Rich board members that has the money to build the club on that land if it helps.”
On Jan. 20, Carrico wrote the text to Martinez saying JEA was not interested in leasing or selling the property and suggested it’s “time they get a new board member to show them who’s boss.”
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Previously hidden records show details of failed JEA board appointment
Reporting by David Bauerlein, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By David Bauerlein, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union | USA TODAY Network
