JEA announced Wednesday that CEO Vickie Cavey is taking an extended leave of absence, effective immediately.

The leave is expected to last more than 14 days but fewer than 60 days. Jody Brooks has been named interim CEO while Cavey is away. The announcement comes after months of allegations, investigations, public hearings, media reports and increasingly bitter political theater surrounding Jacksonville’s publicly owned utility.

Frankly, who could blame Cavey for needing a breather?

That does not mean she should receive a free pass.

JEA employees have raised serious concerns about workplace culture and senior leadership. JEA’s own employee survey found troubling results: Only 49 percent of respondents expressed confidence in JEA’s chiefs, and only 46 percent believed senior leaders understood what was really happening inside the utility. Those findings deserve attention—not dismissal.

Questions also remain about disputed capacity fees, management decisions and whether warning signs inside the organization were recognized and addressed quickly enough.

Vickie Cavey is the CEO. Accountability comes with the title.

But accountability is not the same thing as public conviction without a trial.

Some members of the Jacksonville City Council appear to have already reached their verdict. Cavey has been interrogated publicly, criticized in the press and made the face of nearly every controversy connected to JEA—before the various investigations have concluded and before the public has received a complete, credible set of findings.

That is not oversight.

That is trial by headline.

A Lifetime of Service Reduced to a Political Target

Before Cavey became the subject of this spectacle, she spent 32 years serving JEA in engineering and leadership positions. She began her career there in 1984, retired in 2016 and later returned to help the utility during another difficult period. In 2024, after CEO Jay Stowe resigned, the JEA board asked Cavey to step in as interim CEO. She later became the first woman permanently appointed to lead the utility.

She did not need this job.

She came out of retirement because she believed she could help an organization to which she had devoted much of her professional life.

That history does not make her immune from scrutiny. It does, however, entitle her to something that has been noticeably absent from this process:

Fairness.

A person can make mistakes and still be treated fairly.

A CEO can be questioned without being publicly humiliated.

An investigation can seek facts without first selecting its villain.

And Then There Is Kevin Carrico

The public also has every right to examine the actions and motivations of the man who launched the City Council investigation.

Then-Council President Kevin Carrico formed the special investigative committee to examine JEA’s workplace culture and disputed capacity fees. But the timing cannot simply be ignored. Carrico announced serious allegations involving Cavey shortly after he came under scrutiny for attempting to place his own boss, Paul Martinez of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida, on the JEA board.

Carrico had texted a sitting JEA board member that he “owed a big favor” and intended to replace him with “my guy.” Other released messages showed Carrico asking Martinez whether he was ready to “play the game” and suggesting that JEA needed a new board member to “show them who’s boss.”

Carrico later said this was simply poor word choice and denied that the appointment represented a transactional favor. That explanation should be considered fairly.

But should it be accepted without scrutiny while Cavey’s every phrase, memory lapse and management decision is treated as evidence against her?

The State Attorney’s Office subpoenaed records connected to Carrico’s communications involving the JEA board appointment, Cavey, former JEA Chief of Staff Kurt Wilson and Martinez. Reports have also raised questions about Carrico’s employer receiving city grants and his involvement in requests involving JEA sponsorships and a potential land donation.

And now Action News Jax is reporting additional scrutiny over approximately $6,200 in gifts purchased through a City Council account during Carrico’s presidency.

Once again, Carrico deserves the same thing Cavey deserves: a fair examination based on facts.

But the public is justified in asking:

Why does the standard of judgment appear so different depending on who is standing before the cameras?

What Is Really Behind This?

Is Kevin Carrico pursuing legitimate concerns raised by JEA employees?

Is this an effort to hold a powerful public utility accountable?

Is it political retaliation connected to the failed attempt to appoint his boss to the JEA board?

Is it connected to Cavey’s reported resistance to certain contracts, land arrangements or politically connected interests?

Is Carrico relying heavily on former JEA Chief of Staff Kurt Wilson, whose relationship with Carrico appears friendly in released text messages and who became one of Cavey’s most vocal accusers after leaving JEA?

Or has this become a convenient way for City Hall to redirect attention away from Carrico’s own controversies?

We do not know.

That is precisely the point.

An investigation is supposed to answer questions—not weaponize unanswered ones.

Jacksonville Has Seen This Movie Before

JEA has become Jacksonville’s favorite political battlefield.

Politicians posture. Consultants get paid. Attorneys circle. Anonymous accusations multiply. The media chase every heated exchange, and the public is left wondering whether anyone is actually protecting the utility’s customers.

Meanwhile, ratepayers still have bills to pay.

Employees still have work to do.

JEA still has electricity to deliver, water to provide and infrastructure to maintain.

The public deserves to know whether JEA has a genuine workplace problem. It deserves to know whether millions in capacity fees went uncollected and why. It deserves to know whether contracts were handled properly and whether any official attempted to use public authority to benefit an employer, colleague or political ally.

But Jacksonville also deserves a process that does not assume guilt first and search for evidence later.

Councilman Matt Carlucci, who has frequently disagreed with this publication on other matters, warned that the investigation had taken on a politically motivated tone. He even described the City Council’s own culture as toxic and suggested that some members were using the process for political purposes.

Perhaps someone should listen. Someone in leadership. Anyone at City Hall or JEA who will be that leader?

Vickie Cavey may have made mistakes. The investigations may ultimately uncover decisions for which she should be held accountable. Employees who have legitimate complaints deserve to be heard and protected.

But Cavey’s decades of service should not be erased because City Hall needed a villain.

Nor should Kevin Carrico be permitted to direct the spotlight exclusively toward Cavey while questions surrounding his own conduct remain unanswered and fully visible to the community.

Jacksonville should demand the truth—all of it.

Not just the allegations that produce the best political move.

Not just the evidence that fits a predetermined narrative.

Vickie Cavey is taking a breather.

Perhaps Jacksonville’s political leaders should do the same—step away from the microphones, lower the temperature, allow the investigations to conclude and remember that oversight is supposed to uncover the truth.

It is not supposed to manufacture a conviction.