Corruption, Power, and the Fight for Local Journalism: Don’t Miss the Story That Changes Everything!

[00:00:02] Mike's on Mike, a conversation about politics, government, and Jacksonville. With 50-year opinionators Mike Hightower, Mike Tolbert, an award-winning broadcaster among time political observer, Mike Miller. Welcome once again to another episode of Mike's on Mike Nice to have you here on Mike Miller and guess what we're all here.

[00:00:22] My Hightower is here sitting next to me. Mike Tolver does here sitting at the table and we're delighted to have you here. We'll introduce our guest in just a moment, but first a little bit of background.

[00:00:33] We're taping about a week before the long awaited start of the federal trial regarding the J.E.A. Scandal former J.E.A.C.E. O'er and Zon and Chief Financial Officer Ryan Wattamakir are scheduled to come before Judge Brian Davis on February 20th.

[00:00:51] Our guest today is Nate Monroe, once again, times union outstanding columnist who's been documenting for years, the attempt by Zon and Wannamakir to allegedly snatch millions of dollars from the attempted sale of the Jacksonville utility.

[00:01:05] And by the way, in case you didn't know it, Nate's column appears every Thursday and Sunday in the time union, you can get it either in the paper or online line. Nate, welcome back. Nice to have you with us. Thank you.

[00:01:16] Yep. Thanks for having me. Great to be here. More than welcome. This since this has been on on so long, when we start out by a little bit of background on this and tell us how the whole thing started and how you got involved in it.

[00:01:26] Ash, that's our rule of yours. That's a law. You were a covered border, right? Yeah. Well, you know, so I did as started at the paper 10 years ago and my actual one of my first beats was to cover the cities independent authorities. What a luxury that was.

[00:01:44] We had enough staff to have someone who just covers the independent authorities and J.E.A. I think it's fair to say J.E.A. among those agencies is probably the one that looms the largest

[00:01:56] it is the most direct impact on our lives because they determine how much we pay for electricity and water into flush the toilet and those are all very important things. Oh, they've like, volume light. Yeah. So I covered J.E.A. for a number of years and,

[00:02:11] I mean, the circumstances of how Aaron's on became CEO was something that even apart from this privatization stuff was controversial and something that we pretty closely scrutinized at the

[00:02:26] paper and I was a part of that effort. Really from there, I think it would be safe to say that it's on never really overcame that initial kind of controversy. This is someone who, look,

[00:02:41] the guy, everyone who has ever worked with Aaron's on will tell you that he is sharp. He is smart and he can present well. You know, and he may well have other strengths in this world but he did not

[00:02:54] have a day of experience at a utility of any size before he was chosen to be the CEO of J.E.A. but he wasn't chosen because he had utility experience. Right, I mean, the perception at the time

[00:03:08] and I think that everything we've learned since sort of is vindicated this idea that he was a political ally of the last mayor. I think it was understood that son was his preferred choice to lead the utility

[00:03:20] and he was certainly somebody who I think came in with a very open mind about selling the utility. I would argue that that was the consuming project of his entire tenure. And so, you know,

[00:03:31] he was hired in 2018 so I would I would peg the start of all of this roughly around 2018. Can I ask you a question about that? Of course, I have a different theory. I think it started when Kurigat really got elected but then especially after he got reelected

[00:03:49] and then he removed all the members of the board and put his buddies on their lead by petway. And then petway two years later resigns and as he's walking out the door he does a mic drop. Yes, my suggestion we studied the sale in the J.E.A.

[00:04:05] That was his first time he became public but I think it was ball and beneath the surface long time before and of course design thing was all part of it. I mean, and I think there's a version of that theory that is even one that's not necessarily

[00:04:19] in affairs which is that when he carries a Republican and it's not crazy to think that a Republican might be interested in ideas to private high city services. This is something that you know, Republicans sometimes are interested in. He certainly has people in his orbit

[00:04:36] or had people in his orbit who had connections to Florida power and light. And I guess, I mean, I'll let people kind of draw their own conclusions about that. We have years of reporting at this point about this whole controversy and certainly Florida power and

[00:04:52] light and its parent company next era have been a part of that. Right? Since when you, I'm a little bit like Mike, I think of when it started but it was a weekend. He was on the board

[00:05:06] on Friday and on Monday. He was elected chair. Yeah, so it but it was there. But let's go for that. I think to get into the trial, this is what we're really into is from your perspective, you've

[00:05:20] covered this even when I was on the board before I left him when every cowardice was on there that the trial. It's finally starting. Why has it taken so long since he was fired by the board? Nine.

[00:05:37] Nineteen. Nineteen. Nineteen. We're now in 2024. Why did it take so long? I mean, part of the answer is that federal court just tends to take a little bit longer than state court.

[00:05:49] I mean, if this were a state court case, I mean, this would we would have been done with this one way or another like a year and a half ago. I think federal court, you know, judges are very

[00:05:59] devoted to process and in this case in particular, there has been a lot of kind of substantive pretrial debate about some complicated legal issues that we can get into if you want. But

[00:06:14] there's been a lot for the judge to sort through. I think judges are always also interested in creating a good record in case things get appealed down the road when I have a good record of

[00:06:26] things you want to make sure as a judge or being thorough, you give the defendants in their arguments their do which is what they should do. And so I think, you know, it's just been a combination of

[00:06:39] one the process and two yeah, just some some kind of pretrial controversy that's taken some time to sort out. Where did Aaron Zahn come from? I mean, was this a relationship that he had with

[00:06:52] Curry when Curry was state chair of the party even before he ran for office? Was he always waiting in the wings for a position from Curry once Curry got in there? We've already talked about his

[00:07:05] lack of direct utility experience that one would think would be needed to qualify for a position like this. He was just as Mike Hightower said, he was just appointed to the board and then next

[00:07:18] thing you know, he's putting in his application to become CEO even against others that had run very large utilities across the country. So where did this friendship between Curry and Zahn come from? I don't know that we've ever gotten a truly really definitive accounting of that.

[00:07:36] You know, Zahn before his time at J.E.A., he was the head of a small-ish wastewater technology firm. Now, at least at the time that he was leading it as far as we were able to tell, this firm had

[00:07:52] had contracts and some smaller counties in cities around the state and they offered a kind of proprietary service that allowed these municipalities to turn sewage into fertilizer. This is technology that J.E.A. has actually had for a long time and in fact Zahn years ago

[00:08:14] sought work from J.E.A. in his capacity as the head of this firm, which is like there's nothing wrong with that. I mean that's what companies do. So he was not somebody, he did feel a little bit

[00:08:27] plucked out of obscurity at the time. He had dabbled a little bit in politics, he was a supporter of Curry's campaign in 2015 and he was appointed to be a transition or a member of one of the

[00:08:41] transition committees, which you know that's the kind of thing that I can sound impressive when you see it in writing. I mean, I think transition committees sometimes are important and sometimes not depending on the mayor. I don't know that his service on that was something that that elevated

[00:08:56] him to being someone of a stature to like go work at J.E.A. So he did feel a little bit kind of like it came out of nowhere. He had gotten to know Curry a little bit socially. Zahn had actually

[00:09:10] testified at one point long before this criminal case that he had started going to the same church as the Curry's. And so I assume that that's where the kind of interpersonal relationships started.

[00:09:25] Okay. Yeah. Right. My time. Yeah. You know, one of the things that led up to all this, Nate was didn't take long for Zahn to start sounding the alarm that the J.E.A. was financially in a

[00:09:41] free fall and then we're going to have to start laying off employees and they're going to have to start raising rates as a smokes, smoke sign for what they're going to try to do. My memory is

[00:09:52] under Paul Macaroid. The J.E.A. was running pretty damn well. Yes. And how why do you think it was so easy initially, not eventually, but initially for him to sell that nonsense? Well, I mean, I would say

[00:10:09] first, I don't know that he ever did successfully sell that nonsense to the broader audience. Right. I mean, I think lots of people were always skeptical about this narrative in part because it was so

[00:10:21] abrupt. I mean, I again, I covered J.E.A. from like 2013 on and so by the time Zahn comes on the scene in 2018, and I know, you know, Mike and your capacity is a board member and then as an employee of J.E.A.,

[00:10:36] you can relate. I mean, I had sat through so many of these like, tortured presentations about how great everything was hearing phrases like good news from a credit perspective. I mean, I just heard all this stuff for years and years and then all the

[00:10:51] Sotans on shows up and you know, just see it, you know, the future is uncertain and I mean, so the rhetoric had changed almost immediately. And as a reporter, that was something that struck my colleagues

[00:11:04] and I, you know, I've still have a good fortune of working with people who have been at the paper a long time and similarly felt like this was all coming out of nowhere. Now how did Zahn

[00:11:16] sell this to the board of directors that he had at the time? I mean, I think there are a couple of possible reasons. One is, you know, again, this was a board of appointees of Lenny Curry.

[00:11:30] I think we all understand now that Lenny Curry was supportive of selling J.E.A., whether he was supportive of the specific efforts on made, you know, whatever I'll let him, you know, he's talked

[00:11:42] about that a lot. So I think on one level, the board just kind of understood this is what the administration wanted. I will say in the boards quasi defense, you know, these are volunteers

[00:11:57] that serve on these boards. Utility industries very complicated and while I think it's fair to ding them for a profound lack of curiosity about the things they were being told, they do rely on

[00:12:12] the management at these agencies to tell them the truth. And in these presentations, Zahn was giving and for people who are not fully sort of caught up on this, I mean, the short version is,

[00:12:26] Zahn's sort of spun this narrative that J.E.A. was facing a very bleak financial future and present in the board basically with a kind of Hobson's choice. You either let us decimate our workforce and

[00:12:37] lay people off immediately, 30% of our workforce that's hundreds of people or we have this kind of mysterious third option that basically was just letting J.E.A get acquired by a larger private utility. In these presentations, I mean, this, this like bleak financial future was presented as an

[00:12:57] absolute certainty. There was no counter-vailing voice as part of these presentations. There was no sort of disclosure that these were just, these were taking all the worst case scenarios, looking at a range of possibilities and taking the worst one down the line each time. There was nobody

[00:13:15] offering a different sort of outlook for these board members. And so they should have been more curious, I think they should have had more skepticism about the things they were being told.

[00:13:27] But at the end of the day, I mean, they do these are just people like us and in some cases, people who know less about utilities than the, you know, four of us sitting at the table here.

[00:13:38] These are just volunteers and they need management to tell them the truth and that is kind of the core of this prosecution in a lot of ways. Yeah, and to underscore that to what Nate was saying,

[00:13:48] I mean, and it will come out in the trial. You had Zon and we talked about how he got there, but you know, and again, I'm given it from somebody who is on the board chair and then went

[00:14:00] inside and watched this. But where Nate is right, what you had is Zon coming in here, then you had Melissa Dykes and you had the CFO right there on either side of him. So when they were asking

[00:14:14] the questions they were saying, we're using a death spiral. So you had these folks who were financial people who had been brought in by Paul McElroy and they were giving this, they were giving these statistics that all of a sudden the world was coming to an end.

[00:14:34] Nate's doing this and to his credit, if you ever when you get the monthly board meetings, it's this much and finally when I'm bored, it was it was a condom. It just a console

[00:14:48] auditor's office playing any kind of role in that could they have done any condo investigate, not until Nate's not until Nate was a dog with a bone. That's how we finally got there.

[00:14:57] Let's go back on it. Go on, I don't want to change it just a little bit again if you're home. Yeah, go ahead. Zon and one of my crew and I don't trial for trying to sell the JTA.

[00:15:09] Their own trial for trying to steal millions of dollars, 40 million for the pup. You know, 40 for him, 40 for him out of the bonus plan. So tell us a little bit about the bonus plan and

[00:15:21] you know, February 1st, you wrote that that Zon had told one of the JTA consultants back then that that had the mayor's blessing for him to do that and collect that money.

[00:15:35] Yeah, so and I'm glad you you to this up because we are sort of backing into like what the trial is about. This podcast is definitely not for the uninitiated, but so you're right that they're not on trial for this attempt to sell the agency.

[00:15:53] Although that is part of the prosecution's narrative and it's part of the prosecution's narrative because the core allegation is that these two executives conspired and secret to create a kind of a get rich quick scheme and that scheme depended upon JTA being sold. They were essentially

[00:16:12] going to skim profits off the top of a sale that otherwise would have gone to the city as it's sale proceeds. We don't know how much money they were planning to get or thinking they would get

[00:16:24] in part because the transaction never happened. This bonus plan hit some roadblocks before it got to a point I think that was ready to sort of actually implement. But yeah, the core allegation is

[00:16:40] they are accused of trying to skim profits. Some of the testimony that we've seen in court so far not as part of the trial but as part of these kind of pre-attrial controversies I referenced,

[00:16:52] we know that the government is evidence that's on told at least one person around him that he had an expectation that he was going to make a lot of money if he had successfully

[00:17:03] in his words recapitalized JTA. And so yeah, that's the core allegation they tried to get rich off a sale and that also makes privatization and this kind of bonus conspiracy you know, are linked. They are linked together and so the the alleged criminal fraud is a fairly

[00:17:25] narrow accusation but it's tied to what the government presents as kind of a broader fraud which is this contrived case that's on built to sell the agency and that's where we get into the

[00:17:38] he picked extreme negative scenarios every time. I mean there is they're going to argue about this if there were no pup, if the bonus plan had never been part of the scheme and it had just been

[00:17:53] the issue of the sale of JTA. Would that have had a smoother road do you think then in other words did that that skimming become the issue rather than the sale of the of the utility?

[00:18:08] Yes, I think that the privatization effort was controversial and its own right it was moving very fast. Again, it was based on what to a lot of people look like a pretty fraudulent narrative about

[00:18:22] JTA's future. A lot of it was happening in secrecy the way that this was actually being done was very odd but none of that you know but that had been all of that had been true for months.

[00:18:34] Before we learned about the true nature of this bonus plan and nobody in the city council there were critics on the city council of the sale effort but there was no kind of overwhelming

[00:18:47] bipartisan push to house management and to put a stop to all of this until the bonus scheme until the council auditor's office kind of did the math and figured out the lucrative nature of this

[00:19:00] of this little plan that got kind of slipped in past everyone. So I mean I do think that was that was a thing that killed it and I do think absentee probably would have gone through.

[00:19:11] Well you know going back this thing was on a fast track and we were making out remember especially there were a lot of people in town in leadership positions talking amongst themselves

[00:19:24] but how can we stop this? They're not looking at a January meeting to put this on a spring ballot referendum to approve the sale right and the way and they had it well I think but they had

[00:19:34] a they were building up all this money and I think Florida power of light was planning to give them a lot of money exactly to make the case. And I know that the first the first meeting that Mike and I went to

[00:19:45] was in November prior to that January council meeting of what became our jacks. Yeah I mean that's well because it was like we were seeing a title week came and then you know when I first

[00:19:58] meeting was a really less organized and see if we can raise Mike's actually a fighter that referendum. So that was before the put plan got exposed. Yeah and that interrupted everything and

[00:20:10] changed the game of oh well yeah. It changed a moment of entirely I mean I remember to your point actually had written a column that was it was almost more of an open ladder to the cities like

[00:20:22] civic leadership saying look I know you all think that this is weird and it's like I know none of you really like this but unless you stand up and say something it's gonna happen and I think that was

[00:20:35] a reflection of my as a columnist frustration at the time that there wasn't more pushback among the cities leadership against what was going on. I mean it was clear that these you know Jay aids I mean they were starting to make claims that you know we're gonna see

[00:20:57] sales decline over the next 10 years that sounded very dramatic they were making comments about we've already reduced our workforce by X amount and that didn't have never sounded right to me. I don't remember I didn't remember at the time Paul McElroy ever cutting Jay a staff

[00:21:13] they were talking about how much rates had already gone up over the over the preceding years and that didn't really sound right to me either and some of that stuff was the Jay a

[00:21:24] management kind of manipulating you know data and so yes the the momentum I think was very much and kind of pushing in the direction of a quick sale and the bonus plan changed that entirely.

[00:21:36] You know I remember Jay went to have said to me where is everybody I'm not here on this damn Leon by myself right and where's everybody else and everybody else called up.

[00:21:45] Yeah to you point to my point Nate you know when we got together it was a group of us but it was basically David Miller Michael Ward Audrey was Audrey Wood Rush here

[00:22:01] and we were following your column and it was getting the information out there using your column and using your information because we were it was like there were a couple of members of the city council but they were the long wolf and I can remember our conversation

[00:22:17] by then I was gone from J.E.A. but that's on at staff meeting would say particularly when I would say the council's not for it and he said he told me um team times.

[00:22:29] Mayor says I got we got 10 votes down to worry about it and then that's when he shared with us that he'd been city council with his badge 200 times and thanks to you I mean that if

[00:22:39] ahead of me for your column I'm not sure we could have gotten our jacks all might not have. One thing we haven't done that we need to go back and clarify both Zahn and one of Macchar or Charge with two counts is that correct conspiracy and wire fraud?

[00:22:54] They're charged with one count each of conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy being what it sounds like it is. Rye or fraud is related this is a little bit less straightforward but these J.E.A.

[00:23:06] meetings are recorded and live streamed on the internet and that's where the kind of wire fraud comes from the idea that someone in a different state can see a fraudulent presentation that's sort of the nature of what that wire fraud count is. Why are they doing two separate

[00:23:21] jerseys? Is that what one of Macchar wanted or is that what Zahn wanted or the prosecution? The defense wanted at least one of Macchar's defense attorneys and I'm fairly certain Zahn did to wanted to sever their trials they wanted to separate trials. This gets into some of the

[00:23:41] pre-trial controversy so Zahn and one of Macchar before they were fired by either the board or by J.E.A. Management they sat for interviews with the city's office of general counsel. OGC was basically doing kind of a workplace investigation in Zahn's tenure and I guess the

[00:24:05] short version of this is sometimes when there's controversy there are multiple kinds of investigations that can happen. There are kind of more civil workplace based investigations and then there are criminal investigations. When it's a public employee who is being investigated,

[00:24:22] sometimes crossing those two kinds of investigations can be problematic so prosecutors could not use anything that either man said in the course of their interview with with city attorneys. I forgot the name of the rule but I know what you're saying. There's a call guarantee right here

[00:24:43] out in the ways. I'm trying to avoid legal jargon because the stuff is not in addition not being very interesting and get a little bit confusing but yeah so they're interviews with the

[00:24:54] city bench and the ignorance of the three of us. The interviews that they did with the office of general counsel, there are transcripts and there are publicly available interviews. The prosecution

[00:25:07] could not use those to build their indictment in any way. And so a lot of the free trial controversy is kind of revolved around the defense and saying well, we think the prosecution

[00:25:18] did use some information from those interviews or if they didn't even mean to use those maybe the because they're publicly available knowledge about the contents of tainted aspects of the investigation and at this point the judge is basically said no. The indictment is not based on

[00:25:37] those interviews and most of the witness testimony has been cleared of any potential taint by these interviews so you know because of because of reasons related to that controversy, the defense had thought it had a strong argument to sever the trials entirely. The judge, I don't think any

[00:26:00] judge wants to do the same trial twice particularly a lengthy substantive one like this is going to be and so the judge's suggestion was to do oh not suggestion that judges order was we're just

[00:26:11] going to have two jury sitting in one trial which apparently has happened before it's not a normal thing but it's not unprecedented in that thing. I think Judge Davis is about to retire soon in

[00:26:22] the year. He wants to have a senior status in December. Yeah he's a police. I think he'd have more distance to go much longer. I think he's probably tired of his everybody else. I wonder if

[00:26:34] there's any any discussion at all about trying to plead this thing out and not do the trial at all on the 20th. I'd ask you, I mean we've come this far can you say is it so far down what's your

[00:26:48] I mean you've covered this thing and I'm not blowing smoke here but from a knowing of knowing the business and tracking this is it so far down the track that there's no way they can

[00:27:00] please out. I mean I can't answer that definitively I guess a plea deals always possible up until the moment the trial starts maybe even after the trial starts I'm not entirely certain part of it would depend on how willing the government is to hear that. Part of the

[00:27:19] something that I think people don't take into account when they talk about except I've heard from the beginning oh gosh you know Zahn is going to flip on the mayor and start singing about all

[00:27:30] this terrible stuff that we've never heard before and I mean you know the first part to that is we don't know what there could be right like this is just assuming the mayor committed crimes and that's that's problematic but also keep in mind the government is prosecuting Aaron's

[00:27:48] honor I want to make or basically for being serial liars okay and so if you've made a public accusation against these two guys that their serial liars well turning around and presenting them as

[00:28:00] key witnesses and a prosecution would be a little bit problematic because the jury is going to that the government thinks that these guys are liars so how useful could they possibly be you know

[00:28:13] and again I've heard this about Ryan Moll who he'll flip on Zahn and cooperate well maybe the government doesn't view Ryan want to make or is a particularly useful witness because they think

[00:28:22] he's a liar and that's that's what you have to kind of keep in mind here that I don't know that the government really cares about them pleading out or not I mean that's just assuming that there's

[00:28:35] appetite one way or another no I don't this is you know again I'm just giving you sort of my analysis of it but that you know that could very well also be why we haven't seen anyone plead out yeah

[00:28:48] makes let's go to the light in round all right this is gonna be interesting yeah this is uh what we're doing a lightning round is we're going to give you a name or an event and then you

[00:28:57] just give us a response okay what your this is you know it doesn't have to be the very first one you can actually think about your response all right in our case we don't think we just in

[00:29:08] in our case we don't call it is called a lightning round full of reasons yeah yeah right short answers short answers all right go ahead my amber shake council president you know one of the first public skeptics of privatization I think a little bit ahead of the curve

[00:29:25] cowbelly if the story has any real hero I think cowbelly and in the office he leads they they probably all qualify council auditor decoded the this really opaque bonus scheme you know so yeah those are

[00:29:43] good public servants Steve Bucy led a very useful investigation into the privatization effort on the city councils behalf created a really comprehensive record that that I think is it like I said

[00:30:00] useful good good for us to have Melissa dikes some people think she'll be the government's kind of star witness at the trial she was uh other than number two or number three at J.A. under Zons 10 year

[00:30:15] a lot of people I've heard wonder why she wasn't charged she seems to always be the maitron of honor but never the bride what you'd want me to bride up here on the right make sure but I

[00:30:29] go ahead it's your life yeah I think she is someone that that lent her credibility to Zons privatization campaign and and I think you know I think that damaged her reputation

[00:30:48] the eyes of a lot of people who thought you know she could have been and she was Paul McCleurole is kind of the preferred successor and and could have been should have been absolutely and probably the biggest

[00:30:58] discount for those of us who knew her Florida power and light a very large powerful utility company in the state of Florida by the way one had been interesting if Riki Creek utility company which

[00:31:18] utility company of Disney world before they got rid of Riki Creek was the offer site commission if they would have gotten that any okay Tim Baker political consultant at least at one time

[00:31:32] a fortepower and light consultant in a figure of some intrigue and all of this uh all of this controversy all right final questions sir what's just yeah on our list here what should people be looking

[00:31:46] for in the trial and which witness from your perspective should we be interested in paying most attention to well I mean so as I as I said when in the lighting round I think there's been

[00:32:03] an assumption that Melissa Dykes would be sort of the government star witness I think it's actually the council auditor's I think it's it's the Kyle Billy and Jeff Roddys and auditor over there

[00:32:14] in Kim Taylor I think they are going to actually offer the jury the most compelling testimony I've seen the three of them already testify over the summer I've seen the bulk of what they plan to say

[00:32:28] and and they strike me as some of the most credible kind of problematic witnesses for the defense because they're very smart they figured this stuff out and they're just it's difficult for me to see how you impeach their testimony I mean they're just you know straight public servants

[00:32:49] and so I think I expect them to be the most sort of substantively compelling for the prosecution but uh you know it's hard for me to say we've heard from most of the witnesses that there will

[00:33:02] be a Florida power and light vice president who testifies during the trial he is a person who help actually put next air as bid together help them kind of figure out the 11 billion dollar

[00:33:16] figure that next air offered and I've not heard his testimony yet and that's one that you know could be interesting I just but I don't I don't know that's that's certainly what I'm

[00:33:27] the witnesses I've not heard from he is the one that I'm probably the most interested in great thanks if okay guys I'm gonna use Mr. Tolbert's line if I can change his subject

[00:33:37] yeah but could rally in those damn I'm sorry about that I'm sorry about that I'm sorry about that I have so many notes for this show today I can't imagine over here can't hear

[00:33:44] I can't remember you thought that all right there's just one cramodgen of this table and he's probably four well yeah well we'll work it on Mr. Miller no we're not here this ethics bill these ethic bills ethics bills because there's a Senate as well as a house

[00:34:02] companion that's currently being debated in Tallahassee the Senate Bill mandates that complaints ethics issues possesses personal knowledge of the alleged ethics violation and effectively strips local ethics commissions of their ability to initiate independent

[00:34:21] investigations so much for whistleblowers I guess huh where did this come from and why does it seem to be gaining such great strength on both sides of the political aisle up there by the way

[00:34:33] it's not a part of this issue yeah yeah so I mean Tallahassee's not my normal sort of beat so on some ways I'm a little bit of an uncynative but yeah so the the the Senate was putting

[00:34:48] together kind of broad ethics bill that was looking at some changes to the state ethics commission and I think some of it I think some of it was good some of it was maybe not so good

[00:34:58] but on balance wasn't a bill that anyone was particularly freaking out about but then it comes up to the Senate floor for a vote and a state senator Danny Burgess proposed a series of amendments

[00:35:15] you know at the last minute that that got debated just right there on the floor the Senate that really I think take the bill and give it a much more kind of far-reaching impact one of the changes would require as you reference

[00:35:30] uh it would mandate that ethics commissions across the state including the state ethics commission but also local ethics commissions like the one we have here in Jacksonville that they could only initiate an investigation if they receive a complaint assigned

[00:35:47] complaint and sworn complaint of someone possessing personal knowledge of a potential ethics violation this is that that sounds like pretty anodon language but that would I mean that could depending on how narrow you want to interpret that that could almost eliminate the possibility of

[00:36:10] anybody reporting ethics violations for the simple fact that the number of people that possess what you might call personal knowledge of a potential violation sometimes might just be the person committing the violation exactly so you know that that is probably the most problematic part

[00:36:29] that there's another portion of it that would require local ethics commissions to operate the way the state ethics commission does and you know I think the only complaint I ever

[00:36:39] tend to hear about the state ethics commission is that it doesn't do enough and so then you know I that would be imported into our local ethics regime as well yeah.

[00:36:48] Well I think we might get out of here. Yeah first of all yes thank you so much for your great work for being here. Yeah your great work I I can hear the applause in the audience. Yeah really I hate to

[00:37:00] think what the last three or four years would have been like without your reporting and your your diligence there. Tell us why you know things are going on in that industry we talked about it

[00:37:11] before we went on the air. Yeah it went near industry in the newspaper business tell us my local newspapers is so damn important. Why are they so important well you know there's been a

[00:37:24] lot of research on local news and the decline of local news and communities around the country and sometimes you know they they find some pretty surprising similarities and communities that have lost newspapers there have been studies that show that that in communities where the

[00:37:42] newspapers disappeared you find increased partisanship. The theory being that people are replacing local news with national news and they're in their diet and consuming national news tends to feed on people sort of partisan feelings. Local news is not the same way right the JAA stuff

[00:38:05] you can maybe try to fit into some ideological box but you know really this was a scandal born out of kind of civic concern that people had and it crossed the aisle I mean this is a very bipartisan

[00:38:17] sort of backlash. So you find increased partis and attitudes there have been there there is a study that shows that that in communities that don't have newspapers government spending actually goes up the theory being there's no one around scrutinizing how the government spending money.

[00:38:35] There is a study that shows that fewer people tend to run for office. Civic engagement goes down so I mean those are you know those are in some ways intuitive reasons why local news matters. I mean this local news and in our local government institutions

[00:38:53] are this is a cliche but I mean this is the that is the government closest to the people and that's you know if you're mad about a sidewalk in front of your house or a pot hole or a

[00:39:04] median with grass not being mode I mean this is local government is where that stuff gets done it touches our lives and much more kind of tactile tangible ways than I think people often

[00:39:15] realize or think about. Do you follow up on that just can you kind of give our listeners just the impact of the change at the time junior and from the time you've been here and where we are now

[00:39:27] to underscore what you're saying. Yeah and you know we were talking about this off air when I started here 10 years ago there were like 100 people in the newsroom and there were many many

[00:39:38] dozens of more in other parts of the building and our old campus you know that the time junior's gone through several ownership changes since I've been here but when I started

[00:39:49] this paper was existed as it had you know in the in the decades prior it was a it was an industrial operation we had a printing press we made stuff not just a newspaper I mean the

[00:40:02] company had printing clients it printed stuff for people and we had advertising and marketing and it was just a fundamentally fundamentally different business than it is today I mean today we

[00:40:12] still print a paper we don't print it locally but we are a website and you know we have about a quarter of that 100 people that we had in the newsroom back then and most of that support staff

[00:40:25] in other parts of the company are gone so they're not local and so I mean the sort of decimation of local news like the time junior is not escaped that by any means why don't take a look

[00:40:39] at the crystal ball and tell us what you think the paper's going to look like in five years I mean it's a hard thing to predict this stuff I mean I do get the sense that for the foreseeable

[00:40:50] future I do think that we feel pretty stable I actually think that the print the daily print product will be around longer than people think it still makes money and so you know I my hope is that at least

[00:41:10] where we are now is more or less where we'll be in five years but I you know this industry is a is an afrott moment it's been in afrott moments I graduated from college so I mean I don't

[00:41:23] think that'll change okay mr. Talbert you got the last word that goodbye hope yeah thank you thank you very much thanks you appreciate we appreciate it and thank you all for watching or listening however you're catching our program and we thank you very much for being with us

[00:41:38] our thanks as always to the Jacksonville history center and the historical society for their supporting our of our podcast and I'm going to go ahead and promote this next week as I'm

[00:41:48] excited about it your colleague one of the few you still have David Bauer line's going to be here David wrote a story shortly after the new year saying that there are eight important stories

[00:41:58] of 2024 that you got to keep your eye on well that's what we're going to do next week we're going to have David here with us and he's going to be telling us about those eight issues

[00:42:07] and where he feels we are on those issues and some background on all of them which kind of keeps the time junior front and center which where you think it should be which we're happy to

[00:42:15] do always we appreciate it catch our program on Facebook on our website mikeson mic.com you can find us on Spotify on Apple podcasts and just about any other platform where you get

[00:42:25] your podcast thanks for joining us and we'll see you again next time thank you bikes on Mike with Mike Tolbert Mike hi tower and Mike Miller can be found on your favorite podcasting platform Facebook and YouTube visit the website at micsonmic.com join us next time for more

[00:42:43] conversation with Mike's on mic