Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is using subpoenas to examine Jacksonville Transportation Authority records, including material related to a 2025 meeting between Mayor Donna Deegan and former JTA board member Megan Hayward. City Council President Nick Howland has also set a JTA review in motion, but the select committee he reconvened cannot compel testimony or records. That difference matters because Howland had an opportunity to press Hayward’s concerns when he chaired the council committee that considered her replacement last year. Now, with JTA facing a roughly $39 million budget shortfall, riders and taxpayers deserve to know what that earlier review resolved—and what it left unanswered.

What Happened When Megan Hayward Raised JTA Concerns in 2025?

At a February 2025 JTA board meeting, Hayward questioned differences in ridership figures and a $60,000 JTA contribution to JAXUSA Partnership, the economic development arm of the JAX Chamber. JTA board vice chair Aundra Wallace was also JAXUSA’s president. Mayor Deegan had already nominated Elaine Brown to take Hayward’s seat, placing the nomination before Howland’s City Council Rules Committee. Hayward said the questions deserved answers before she left the board.

Howland delayed the committee’s vote for two weeks so the JTA board could address the issues before council ended Hayward’s service. At the March 27 JTA board meeting, outside attorney Jason Gabriel of Burr & Forman presented a legal opinion that the JAXUSA contribution did not create a disqualifying conflict for Wallace. That opinion addressed the contribution and Wallace’s position; it was not a comprehensive investigation of Hayward’s ridership, spending, and financial questions. Howland’s Rules Committee approved Brown’s nomination on March 31, and the full council confirmed her on April 8.

Why Does the Earlier Council Review Matter Now?

Deegan’s office now points to that sequence as evidence the city took Hayward seriously. In its response to the attorney general’s subpoena, the administration said council delayed Brown’s nomination until the concerns were addressed, then unanimously confirmed her after receiving answers. That makes the scope of the 2025 examination a live question: What did council independently verify before it voted, and which of Hayward’s concerns did it consider resolved? A delay and a confirmation are documented actions; they do not, by themselves, establish that council investigated every warning.

The distinction grew more consequential as JTA’s finances deteriorated. A City Council Auditor report issued in early 2026 showed a $9.28 million first-quarter deficit in JTA’s bus division and flagged revenue and expense risks. The city inspector general separately reviewed a JTA mural procurement; that limited review did not establish the cause of the agency’s wider financial shortfall. The public can reasonably ask what Howland and the council did with each warning as the picture worsened.

The JAX Chamber Relationships Deserve a Clear Accounting

The JAXUSA payment was relevant because Wallace led the organization receiving JTA money while serving on JTA’s board. Gabriel, the lawyer whose opinion addressed that relationship, is listed as a JAX Chamber trustee member beginning in 2025. Howland is now listed on the Chamber’s board of directors. Those affiliations make transparency about the opinion’s assignment, scope, and use especially important.

The question for Howland is direct: Did he treat an attorney’s answer about one contribution as sufficient reason to move forward while other oversight questions remained open? If so, why? The mayor’s office now relies on council’s eventual vote to support its account of how Hayward’s concerns were handled. Howland should be able to show the public precisely what the Rules Committee learned before that vote and why no further investigation was warranted particularly since the mayor of another political party is pointing to actions he led to justify her own.

Why Choose a JTA Committee Without Subpoena Power?

On September 24, before the state’s JTA subpoena became public, Howland was already discussing a council select committee review of the authority. He formally reconvened the Financial Audit and Oversight Select Committee for JTA after the attorney general’s investigation emerged. Its city-issued charge says plainly that select committees cannot exercise subpoena power, although it allows the committee to recommend a special investigatory committee if circumstances warrant one. Council members Chris Miller, Ron Salem, and Joe Carlucci serve on the current committee; Howland established its charge as council president.

That committee can examine budgets, hold public meetings, and propose changes. But when the question is what officials knew, what records existed, and whether testimony conflicts, its inability to compel evidence is a serious limit. Why begin another JTA review with that limit after the narrower 2025 process failed to settle the questions now dominating the news? Howland’s charge promises a report by December 4; the public should judge it by the records and answers it produces, not merely by the fact that a committee met as was the case in 2025.

Are Howland and Uthmeier Conducting the Same Kind of JTA Investigation?

They are exercising different powers. Uthmeier’s statewide prosecutors have subpoenaed JTA records and demanded material concerning Deegan’s March 3, 2025, meeting with Hayward. Howland’s committee can request information and recommend changes, but its present charge gives it no subpoena power. As of September 29, Howland told Jacksonville Today he had not spoken with Uthmeier’s office about the state subpoena. jaxtoday.org

That distinction also matters politically. Howland, a Republican, may appear to voters who support the Republican attorney general’s inquiry to be pursuing the same kind of rigorous examination at City Hall. The two approaches should not be conflated. If Howland believes a committee without subpoena power is enough, he should explain how it will obtain disputed records and resolve conflicting account or when he will seek a body that can compel them.

Howland’s Aggressive JAA Oversight Sets a Standard for JTA

Howland has shown elsewhere that he can push an independent authority forcefully. In disputes involving the Jacksonville Aviation Authority, he pressed for aerospace development and spending at Cecil Airport despite resistance from aviation officials over the use of airport funds. The Florida Trib also reported his role at Great Bridge Capital Advisors, a firm serving aviation, marine, and defense companies; Howland said his disclosed client had no Cecil Airport business and denied seeking personal benefit. That reporting gives the public a concrete comparison for the intensity of oversight he can bring to an authority when he is invested in an issue.

Council member Rory Diamond has been more openly critical of JTA’s autonomous vehicle program and raised questions about ridership data. Howland appointed Diamond as council liaison to JTA in 2026, after Diamond had already criticized the program. Council therefore has members willing to challenge JTA’s priorities, an auditor who identified financial risks, and a state investigation pursuing records. What it still needs to demonstrate is that its own leadership will follow uncomfortable evidence wherever it leads including back through Howland led council decisions in 2025.

Jacksonville Needs Answers About Oversight, Not Just a Rescue Plan

Council committees have advanced a proposal that would give JTA access to up to $30 million in existing local gas tax funds; a full council vote was expected October 13. Keeping essential transportation running is urgent. It does not answer why earlier warnings failed to prevent a crisis that has brought job cuts and reduced service. The people losing routes and livelihoods have a stake in both decisions.

Deegan invokes council’s 2025 confirmation vote as evidence that Hayward’s concerns were addressed. Howland now directs a council review whose members cannot compel the evidence that might test that claim. Both leaders have an opportunity to account for their roles before the financial collapse, while the attorney general pursues a separate investigation with stronger legal tools. Jacksonville should ask Howland to identify the answers his Rules Committee accepted in 2025 and the warnings council pursued afterward.

Howland should give the public a stronger reason to believe he will pursue answers at JTA with the same vigor he has brought to the Jacksonville Aviation Authority. His consulting firm serves industries connected to his JAA priorities, while his current JAX Chamber board position connects him to the organization whose JAXUSA arm received the JTA contribution questioned in 2025. Together they sharpen the question his committee must answer through its work: Will he press JTA and the people who oversaw it as hard as he pressed JAA, even when the answers may reflect on his own earlier review, Chamber colleagues, and personal financial interests? Jacksonville needs evidence of that resolve, not another committee that whether by design or unintentionally leaves the central questions unanswered.

We welcome your thoughts!

THE JTA AT A CROSSROADS SERIES!