Finally, somebody with subpoena power is asking questions about the Jacksonville Transportation Authority.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier recently issued subpoenas to JTA requesting “specific documents” between October 2023 and March 2025 – unless otherwise specified.
I have been waiting for this moment for two years, 11 months, and 16 days. In honor of my sacrifice, I’d like to pause and begin with a familiar prayer of thanks inspired by City Council member and former JTA Council liaison Rahman Johnson.
Church family, with our heads bowed and our eyes closed – going back to that ribbon-cutting celebration service on the terrace of JTA’s $40 million Autonomous Innovation Center last year– Let’s reflect on Johnson’s words.
“To Nat and the entire team of the JTA, it’s vision like this that moves our city forward and so we’re thankful for every hand that had a space. Every screw that was put on. Every space that was built in this building because this is what it looks like when we get from blueprint to breakthrough. Now we have to let the world know that Jacksonville is not trailing the future, we’re training it.”
Lord, may we never forget our brother in Christ reminded us to give grace because, “readiness is not the prerequisite for greatness. Belief is.”
Amen.
Anyways, back to the Lord’s real work.
Uthmeier’s subpoena is asking for contracts, payment records, emails, and other electronic documents from JTA.
For my longtime Eye on Jacksonville readers, parts of the requested document list should look familiar.
Dreambuilders Consulting? Covered that.
Spending tied to executives, board members and Ford’s wife? Covered that too.
NAVI’s ridership numbers. Yep. Done been covered.
The subpoena specifically requests Dreambuilders contracts from 2023 through 2026, contracts with Jones-Worley Designs, and communications among Ford, his wife Janet Walker-Ford and Dreambuilders’ Kenston Griffin. Investigators also want records involving tuition reimbursement, scholarships, massages, murals, purchasing cards and ridership reports.
Ford’s former circle of trust has quite a lot of paperwork to produce in the next few weeks.
Back in November 2024, I reported public records revealed JTA paid Dreambuilders more than $1 million for consulting services between 2019 and 2023. The scope of work included executive coaching, communication seminars, teamwork guidance, and instruction on equity, inclusion, belonging, and diversity.
Apparently, JTA’s highly paid executives needed additional taxpayer-funded instruction on how to run the agency they were already being paid to run.
Public records I’ve read through involving Dreambuilders, Ford, his wife, interim CEO Cleveland Ferguson and Worley Designs extend through 2023. The records document spending and relationships that deserve examination in addition to the new material investigators are requesting.
In addition to the salacious line items included in the AG’s subpoena, another category from my previous reporting deserves major attention: JTA’s sponsorship money.
The published subpoena does not specifically ask for a comprehensive accounting of sponsorships and or donations. Perhaps some spending could be tucked away somewhere in the documents requested. Still, sponsorship spending deserves its own look.
Based off what I’ve reported, between 2020 and 2024 JTA spent more than $1.7 million on financial sponsorships for things like – local high school football games, an evening of smooth jazz for a board member’s organization, and golf.
City Council member Ron Salem is one of three council members tasked with investigating JTA’s financial crisis from the local level.
No doubt he will get to the bottom of it.
“I’m calling for an independent audit from an outside source to come into JTA and determine exactly what happened, educate the city council, their board, and the public on exactly how they got into this situation,” Salem said.
Well, Salem himself won’t get to the bottom of it, but someone else sure will.
“When you’re $40 million in the hole, you’ve used up your reserves, it’s a public entity, that’s a problem. And we need to figure all this out,” Salem said.
Agreed. And while you’re at it, let us know why public records reveal JTA gave $5,000 to the Ron Salem Installation fund in June 2023 and two payments to the Donna Foundation totaling $20,000.
Mayor Donna Deegan also wants answers. Her team released a statement, reading in part: “My administration stands ready to work with committee members on identifying constructive solutions.”
Wow. She means business.
I’ll admit, all those sponsorships don’t explain JTA’s current financial crisis, but they do require an explanation.
Who approved them? How did riders benefit? And why did JTA need million-dollar executive coaching if today’s crisis was the result?
Hallelujah for the subpoena. Now it’s time to flip some tables.
